Just over a year ago, millions of people were in Washington for the inauguration of Barack Obama. His election produced a wave of optimism in America—an expression of the real desire for change after years of Bush at the helm. But now, things have changed.

As the politicians prepare for this year’s federal election, Liberal attack dog Tony Abbott has pulled the mainstream political debate to the right. But it is only Rudd’s right-wing agenda that has allowed this.

Employers in WA’s Pilbara region have warned that militant strikes at Woodside’s Pluto site could spread across the whole resources sector.  The Woodside strikers have defied threats of huge fines under Rudd’s anti-union laws to stage an eight-day strike, and further action looked likely as Solidarity went to press.

Rudd’s reintroduction of his emissions trading legislation in parliament is a stunt designed to keep the pressure on a divided Liberal Party. His CPRS will not be passed before the election—and that is a good thing.

Recent scandals over evidence in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report of 2007 have been used to cast doubt on the danger climate change presents.

The Copenhagen summit was a failure and a betrayal of the world’s people by their leaders. The only outcome was an “accord” which was simply “noted” by the summit. It includes no binding targets for reducing emissions and no process for agreeing to any.

After four years of struggle, the federal government has finally secured 40-year leases over the Aboriginal town camps in Alice Springs, represented by the Tangentyere Council.

The continued suspension of the Racial Discrimination Act (RDA) has acted as a lightning rod to the growing level of criticism against the Northern Territory Intervention. This clear symbol of the discriminatory nature of the Intervention has forced the Rudd government to implement a timetable for the reintroduction of the RDA.

Professor Pat McGorry shocked the establishment within minutes of being declared Australian of the Year when he used the award ceremony to label detention centres as “factories for producing mental illness and mental disorder”.

All the Oceanic Viking refugees have now been re-settled. Only 21 of the 78 have come to Australia (41 are still in Romania in transit to Canada and the US, 13 in New Zealand and three in Norway). Four of them have been given adverse security clearances by ASIO. They, along with another man, have been denied Australian visas and are being held on Christmas Island.

In a referendum held in November, 57.5 per cent of Swiss voters supported a ban to prohibit the building of new minarets.

The fatal stabbing of Punjab-born student Nitin Garg in Melbourne in early January has provoked another round of distortions and denials from Kevin Rudd and the Victorian Police.

Iranian society has fractured. In December 2009, five months after brutal government crackdowns drove pro-democracy demonstrators into retreat, massive protests again erupted on the streets of Iran. Initial popular demands for fair elections have become calls to topple the ruling regime.

For all the talk of aid to Haiti, the response to the tragedy was disgracefully slow. A BBC reporter touring the country five days after the quake hit reported that hardly any of the aid delivered to the country had been distributed. Thousands of US troops were preventing aid getting out, citing “security” concerns.

Rudd’s new work laws, like Howard’s, are designed to criminalise effective strike action—and intimidate workers out of using it.

Up to 20,000 union members went on strike at Australia Post in December, part of a pre-Christmas rush of strikes that also hit Sydney buses, Telstra and Qantas. MUA members in the Western Australian offshore oil and gas fields also went on strike.

Workers at Woodside’s $12 billion Pluto gas site are fighting plans to take away stable on-site accommodation.

Chris Breen spoke to Clive Spash, former CSIRO economist whose controversial paper on carbon trading was censored by CSIRO management about the problems with Rudd’s CPRS, carbon trading and alternatives

How does the ruling elite get rich from our labour while paying us what they claim is a “fair wage”? Amy Leather explains Karl Marx’s revolutionary answer to this riddle

Rudd Labor’s approach to Indigenous Affairs follows that of Hawke and Keating, argues Jean Parker

National teaching unions are set to ban upcoming National Assessment Program—Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) tests. The move comes after newspapers in Canberra, Sydney and Melbourne used information from the Rudd government’s “My School” website to rank school performances in so-called league tables.

Workers at Star City Casino in Sydney have taken three rounds of strike action over their employers’ lousy pay offer.

Clerical workers at The Age newspaper have gone on strike for the first time ever as part of enterprise bargaining agreement (EBA) negotiations.

Conservative Indigenous leader Noel Pearson uses his new essay Radical Hope to argue for a neo-liberal agenda in Aboriginal education, argues Shannon Price

Review: Avatar
Directed by James Cameron, in cinemas now

ALISTAIR HULETT is gone. He went on 28 January 2010. But Alistair is still everywhere in the world, on vinyl, cd, and now of course on Youtube. We still have every song he wrote. He was a socialist and internationalist, a revolutionary with a mouth and a guitar.

A “protest house” built at the walk-off camp established by the Alyawarr people, is set to be opened on February 14. It will coincide with national demonstrations against the NT Intervention.