The Mining Rent Resource Tax was meant to be the way in which the massive profits of the mining boom were going to be spread around. But it turns out that the big mining companies have paid exactly nothing in the first three months and will probably pay nothing for the rest of the year and maybe longer.

The NSW O’Farrell government has justified public sector cutbacks with claims of a budget shortfall. Then $1 billion extra was suddenly found in the NSW budget thanks to accounting errors identified in October. But this hasn’t stopped O’Farrell from driving through cuts to education of $1.7 billion over four years.

The Greens’ national conference in November saw a continuation of efforts to drag the party rightwards in an effort to seek electoral “respectability”. The party’s more moderate federal MPs, with the support of the federal parliamentary caucus, sought to water down policy in a number of areas.

The Labor government have done everything they can to construct hell on earth on Nauru. But they did not count on the brave and determined resistance by asylum seekers detained there that has already thrown their Pacific Solution into crisis.

On October 31, a Tamil asylum seeker, Anjan, came very close to being deported from Melbourne to Sri Lanka. Despite a picket of refugee supporters at the entrance of the Maribyrnong Detention Centre, Anjan had been taken from the detention centre and was left waiting anxiously at Melbourne airport.

In early September, Immigration Minister Chris Bowen condemned the Opposition’s demands for asylum boat arrivals from Sri Lanka to be sent back. But two months later, that is exactly what Chris Bowen has been doing.

The recent ACT election ended badly for the Labor-Greens governing partnership, with a 4.9 per cent swing against The Greens and three seats lost. The result is an embarrassment to the strategy of the more moderate Greens, who argue that entering coalition governments with the major parties is the key to success.

The inquiry into the death of Brazilian student Roberto Laudisio Curti has thrown an international spotlight on the brutal use of tasers by the NSW Police. Curti was threatening no one. He was fleeing from police after stealing two packets of biscuits from a service station and probably suffering psychosis from LSD use the previous night.

Julia Gillard and Foreign Affairs Minister Bob Carr are basking in Australia’s victorious bid for a place on the United Nations Security Council. Carr said the win, “reflects Australia’s positive standing in global affairs and the significant contribution Australia makes to international peace and security.” This is code for Australia’s position as regional bully of the Asia Pacific and staunch ally of US imperialism.

The record-breaking “Frankenstorm” Hurricane Sandy, which wrecked a trail of destruction from Cuba and Haiti to New York, has shown again that climate change is a reality. Disasters and wild weather are becoming more common as the planet heats up. At the same time in Australia, almost unreported, there has been a small decrease in carbon emissions, by 6.3 per cent, over the last few months.

Bob Carnegie, a community organiser in Brisbane, is being sued for hundreds of thousands of dollars by construction firm Abigroup following a strike at its Queensland Children’s Hospital site.

New cuts and closures in aged care are the latest example of Queensland Liberal National Premier Campbell Newman’s vicious contempt for jobs and the community. Nearly 300 people joined a protest one week after learning of plans to close the Eventide Aged Care home, hearing from Labor Party speakers including federal Treasurer Wayne Swan, the member for the area.

In late October, around 100 students marched through Sydney University to demand affordable student housing. The protest was organised by students who live at Sydney University Village (SUV) alongside students involved in the campaign against staff cuts.

Progressive PSA candidates have beaten incumbent officials in the union elections in the Public Service Association (PSA) in NSW. The public sector has been in the firing line of NSW Liberal Premier Barry O’Farrell, with thousands of job losses and cuts to conditions. The Progressives’ victories are a boost to the chances of more serious union action against O’Farrell.

By the end of next year, most Australian troops will be out of Afghanistan. All US and NATO combat troops plan to quit the country by the end of 2014. What they won’t admit is that Afghanistan remains a mess—and the Western occupation is to blame.

The Greek economy is in a depression. The austerity measures demanded by the troika have made it worse. Nationally one in four Greeks are out of work. Those with jobs fair little better: Greek bosses are determined to trash conditions and drive down pay.

Hugo Chavez won Venezuela’s presidential election in October, heading off a challenge from the right-wing candidate, Henrique Capriles. Progressives and leftists in Venezuela, Latin America and around the world breathed a sigh of relief. But while it was the highest ever voter turnout for Chavez, it was also the highest ever for the right-wing.

As we face vicious state Liberal governments, David Glanz looks back at the fight against vicious neo-liberal Victorian Premier Jeff Kennett twenty years ago and the strike movement that could have been his demise

It was a speech that stunned the nation and went viral on social media. But what does Gillard’s anti-sexism represent, asks Judy McVey

Everyone knows the image and almost everybody knows the name, but very few know about the  politics and the legacy. Tony Bozdagci uncovers the man behind the image

In the final instalment in our series on the history of the Australian Labor Party, Jean Parker explains how Keating was the architect of neo-liberalism in Australia, and alongside it, the crisis of the Party today

Occupy
By Noam Chomsky
$9.95, Penguin

Occupy by Noam Chomsky is the first of the Zuccotti Park Press/Occupied Media Pamphlet Series produced by the US Occupy movement. The short book is a collection of Chomsky’s speeches made at various Occupy events and pays homage to the political significance of the movement.

Money Shot: A Journey into Porn and Censorship
By Jeff Sparrow
$29.95, Scribe

The left is tangled up in knots over the politics of pornography. Left-wing academics like Clive Hamilton are trying to fight sexist objectification by forming anti-porn alliances with pro-lifers like Melinda Tankard-Reist. In search of sexual empowerment, feminists are creating guides to encourage women to produce and consume pornography.

The Casual Vacancy
J.K Rowling
Little Brown and Company
$39.95 (Hardback)

It may not be as “socialist” as Britain’s Daily Mail thinks, but JK Rowling’s new novel lays bare the class divide in society.