Forget the end of neo-liberalism and a new era of social democracy that Kevin Rudd talked about in his Monthly essay. The fiscal conservative Rudd has returned (if he ever went away). Behind the mining super profit tax is a very different picture.
In a turn of events since our last issue, the Tasmanian Greens have entered a coalition with Labor. Earlier they had seemed to be preparing for a coalition with the Liberals.
Rudd’s personal popularity has taken another dive—running the danger of letting the Liberals back into the election race. But he has only himself to blame. After the last few weeks, less and less people believe that Rudd stands for anything. He is becoming famous for changing his mind, and dumping his promises of change in order to outflank Abbott from the right.
Many climate activists, along with The Greens and Electrical Trade Union, are starting to demand feed-in tariffs for renewable energy. Proponents say they are a market mechanism that gives certainty to business to invest in renewables.
Last month climate activists demonstrated against the NSW government’s coal expansion outside state government offices in Sydney. The action was a response to “concept approval” for two new coal-fired power stations in NSW.
Rudd’s decision to junk the CPRS shows him up for the kind of politician he is—willing to sacrifice something he once called the “greatest moral challenge of our generation” in the name of election-year pragmatism.
Solidarity spoke to Mark Fordham, until recently the works manager for the Barkly Shire Council who service Ampilatwatja, a “prescribed community” under the NT Intervention, about the failure in providing basic services there—and the failure to employ any Aboriginal people to provide them.
Five men responsible for killing a young Aboriginal man, Kwementyaye Ryder, were recently given sentences of between 12 months and six years by an Alice Springs Court. The initial murder charges were downgraded to manslaughter.
Tony Abbott’s hysteria about refugee boats is set to be a key issue in the lead up to this year’s election, but Kevin Rudd’s capitulation to it through freezing new refugee visas and re-opening Curtin has re-galvanised the refugee rights movement
AROUND 250 people attended a Sydney rally in April calling on the government to “unfreeze the visas and close Christmas Island”, called by the Refugee Action Coalition. Here we print excerpts from the speeches of two Afghan refugees who addressed the rally.
Touted as the first feminist conference in Sydney in 15 years, “F: the conference” was a reminder of how far governments have wound back women’s rights over the same period.
Recently Ignatius Mahendra Kusumawardhana, the International relations officer of the Indonesian socialist group PRP (Working People’s Association) visited Australia.
Barack Obama’s much-lauded nuclear summit in April was nothing more than a show of muscle by the world’s biggest nuclear powers, in an increasingly volative global environment. Despite his talk of efforts to create a “nuclear free world”, Barack Obama showed that he has no plans to abandon US nuclear supremacy.
Greece exploded again in strikes and protests at government cutbacks, as European leaders and the IMF were forced to fast-track emergency loans to the Greek government, increased in size to €110 billion.
Britain went to the polls on the May 6 in the midst of economic turmoil across Europe that has reached its peak in the crisis in Greece. Labour’s humiliation after 13 years in power should stand as a warning to Rudd—disappointment at their continuation of the Tory agenda of neo-liberalism and their taking the country into disastrous wars in Afghanistan and Iraq led to the Conservatives taking the biggest vote.
The education revolution has been a neo-liberal one, argues Shannon Price
Arguments that population is to blame for climate change distract from real solutions to environmental problems and only serve to boost racism, argues James Supple
James Connolly insisted that socialists had to support independence for Ireland, but that workers had to lead the fight if it was to mean real liberation, writes Phil Chilton
Nationwide union rallies will mark the first day of Ark Tribe’s trial on June 15. Ark is the second unionist to face six months jail for refusing to answer questions from the ABCC.
Review: Goodbye to all that: The failure of neoliberalism and the urgency of change
Edited by David McKnight and Robert Manne, Black Inc, $32.95
Review: What’s Wrong with Anzac? The Militarisation of Australian History
Edited byMarilyn Lake and Henry Reynolds, University of New South Wales Press, $29.95
The Australian Education Union and state teachers unions’ have backed away from a confrontation with Julia Gillard over the NAPLAN tests. But the battle to stop league tables, and the tests themselves, is far from over.
