Rudd’s tears at his parting press conference will be the only tears shed for the end of his prime ministership. Arrogant to the end, still believing he was God’s gift to Australian politics, he continued to claim his right to the job due to his election by the Australian people, despite their abandonment of him.
Tony Abbott, who once plotted against Pauline Hanson, has turned the Liberals into the One Nation of Australian politics. Abbott says a Coalition government would re-introduce temporary protection visas, tow boats back to Indonesia and deny refugees travel rights or family reunions. They would re-open detention centres in countries like Nauru. They are already distributing an election leaflet in Brisbane warning of “illegals” and of secret detention centres “coming soon to a street near you.”
The rich are in revolt against Labor’s mining super profits tax. One of Julia Gillard’s first moves as new Prime Minister was to signal her desire to give ground to the mining companies. The mining bosses have amassed a $100 million war chest to fight the tax, declaring that they will bring down the government if they don’t get their way. There seem to be no limits to their self-serving excuses about why some of Australia’s richest companies shouldn’t pay any more tax.
The mining companies’ hysterics are about maintaining their massive profits. This is an issue of class—with the rich defending their wealth from being taken to fund public spending.
Labor’s slide in the polls has seen substantial numbers of voters move towards The Greens.
On current polling, The Greens will win between 12 and 16 per cent of the vote at the next election, enough to secure them the balance of power in the Senate.
The federal government revealed the first projects shortlisted for funding under its Solar Flagships scheme back in May.
Labor has a climate policy basically identical to the Liberals. Rudd’s drop in support after junking the CPRS, and the votes heading to The Greens, suggest a substantial minority is frustrated by this. The space is open for the climate movement to put an alternative on the map—but where is it?
In June Peter Inverway (PI), a construction worker from Kalkaringi (Wave Hill) in the NT toured Sydney and Melbourne. Under Labor’s “reformed” CDEP (Community Development Employment Program) PI is working for $4 an hour plus $85 a week for food on his BasicsCard. For this he and ten others have been doing 24 hours a week turning an old power station into an arts and craft centre.
In June, Indigenous Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin released a government discussion paper, Indigenous Home Ownership Issues. The paper offers no strategy to adequately house the thousands of Aboriginal people currently homeless, or living in overcrowded, third-world dwellings.
On June 21, exactly three years since the introduction of the NT Intervention, the Labor government passed legislation that will entrench and extend John Howard’s racism.
Queensland’s anti-corruption watchdog, the Crime and Misconduct Commission, has released a damning condemnation of police conduct over the death in custody of Mulrunji Doomadgee in 2004. The ensuing political crisis has engulfed Police Commissioner Bob Atkinson, Premier Anna Bligh and cast the shadow of corruption over the entire Queensland police force.
There is a rising tide of anger and determination amongst Chinese workers. In the face of some of the most regressive labour laws in the world, workers are openly striking to demand better wages and the right to form their own representative organisations.
Some 400,000 people have fled violent pogroms in southern Kyrgyzstan, according to the United Nations. Entire Uzbek neighbourhoods were reduced to ruins as almost half of the region’s roughly 800,000 ethnic Uzbeks tried to escape the violence.
Israel’s murderous attack on peace activists attempting to bring much needed aid to Gaza has outraged the world. The horrific deaths of nine activists has isolated Israel internationally. Even traditional friends of Israel like the British and Australian governments have been forced to condemn the massacre.
It’s hard to grasp the awesome scale of the catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico caused by the Deepwater Horizon oil disaster. It is definitely the US’s biggest ever environmental disaster—and may be the worst in world history.
Nuclear power is no solution to climate change, explains Ben Dharmendra
The shelving of the CPRS until 2013 is a good thing—and not just because the scheme was hopelessly flawed. It means there is now space for a real debate about solutions to climate change, explains James Supple
The debt crisis is Greece is the only the most severe case of government debt problems across Europe. Freya Bundey and Noe Wiener explain how the problems have built up and why they threaten to tip the world economy back into recession
The Black Moratorium marches in 1972 were amongst the most successful protests for Aboriginal rights ever in this country. Paddy Gibson explains how the unity between Aboriginal activists and organised workers was central to their success.
Looking at Labor’s history can help us understand the party’s inadequacies today, explains Erima Dall
Thousands rallied across the country as building worker Ark Tribe faced trial on June 15. He is the second person to face six months jail for refusing to answer questions at the anti-union Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC).
Students nationwide sat the National Assessment Program–Literacy and Numeracy (NAPLAN) tests in May after the education unions called off their proposed moratorium on the tests. While representatives of the unions are now sitting on Julia Gillard’s My School Working Party, teacher activists need to be ready to restart action against NAPLAN if, as is likely, the working party fails to deliver.
Solidarity was saddened to hear of the sudden death of activist and human rights campaigner, Waratah Rose on 22 June. Many people knew Waratah most recently as a passionate supporter of Aboriginal rights. She was planning to join the July anti-Intervention protest in Alice Springs. But her activism spans 40 years.
