The Labor Party is gearing up to debate its position on same-sex marriage at its December conference. A motion to change Labor’s platform to support same-sex marriage may be passed.

Day by day, Gillard is dragging Labor further to the right—and closer to oblivion.

Julia Gillard has always been willing to go that extra mile when it comes to putting the boot into refugees. In spite of being nominally in the Left, she sided with the Labor Right at the 2004 national conference to vote against Labor for Refugees motions. December’s national Labor conference is going to be no different.

Scores of Hazara refugee applications are being rejected because of Australian government claims that one or other part of Afghanistan is safe. One Hazara asylum seeker was recently deported to Pakistan. But Hazaras face constant danger, persecution and fear of mass killings in both Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Evidence of Sri Lankan government war crimes during the civil war in 2009 continues to grow. An initial UN report in April held that there were credible reports that should be further investigated. But Sri Lanka has refused to address these claims or allow an independent investigation.

For the past two months, the Occupy movement has electrified US politics and inspired movements in its image around the world. The occupations themselves have been relatively small, but hugely popular: a sign of the deep crisis of legitimacy facing those that run the world.

The carbon tax is law. This is Gillard Labor’s “historic reform”. Their “dollar float”. According to Treasurer Wayne Swan it is “Labor to the bootstraps”. As soon as the carbon tax was successfully passed through the Senate, Gillard declared that “Today’s vote does mean that we will commence creating our clean energy future”. It’s a lie.

Labor’s carbon price legislation includes the establishment of a Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC). The government claims this means $10 billion in funding for renewables, but a quick look at the scheme reveals what a farce this really is.

Baiada Poultry workers in Melbourne have won a major victory for fair pay and job security after 13 days on strike. These 300 mostly migrant workers stuck together in the face of harassment and intimidation from their bosses, the media and police to humble a major corporation through indefinite strike action.

On November 19, the State Council of the NSW Teachers Federation carried a branch executive resolution to “defer” a planned strike for November 29—a strike that had been endorsed by thousands of enthusiastic teachers at stop work meetings the week before.

Over fifty Australian Manufacturing Workers’ Union (AMWU) members held a lunchtime protest to stop Sensis undermining their union agreement (the Advertising and Design Agreement), by rolling it into a larger non-union one (the Enterprise Agreement 2).

Qantas CEO Alan Joyce got what he always wanted when he grounded the Qantas fleet on October 29. After being sent back to work for 21 days of negotiations that went nowhere, Qantas workers will now have to deal with binding arbitration in FairWork Australia.

Victorian nurses have shown how to stand up to Fair Work Australia and a nasty Liberal state government. Thousands at a packed mass meeting on 21 November voted to defy orders to stop their industrial action that has closed public hospital beds.

Political and economic turmoil is engulfing Europe. In the space of a few days in November the governments of Greece and Italy fell after the financial markets judged them incapable of tackling the sovereign debt crisis.

Unprecedented numbers of voters queued in Tunisian streets in October for the first democratic elections of the Arab Spring.

In Solidarity Issue 35, we interviewed textile workers in Soliman, 40 kilometers south west of Tunis, about their terrible conditions at work. Here, the workers explain how they have made gains by striking.

Over 8000 workers have been on strike for three months at the giant Freeport mine in West Papua. Five strikers have been shot and killed by Indonesian police, who have admitted that they are paid “pocket money” by Freeport.

 Jean Parker continues our series on economics by looking at labour and surplus value

The smell of death is hanging over Labor. Mark Gillespie looks at how they got themselves into such a mess

Anarchist and autonomist ideas have influenced many recent movements, including Occupy. Lachlan Marshall takes a look at a new booklet that weighs up their merits. 

Review: Quarterly Essay 43 “Bad News”, by Robert Manne, Black Inc, $19.95