As she lost the seat of Bennelong, Maxine McKew summed up Labor’s crisis: compared to 2007, she said, Labor stood for nothing.

The struggles against the NT Intervention and the expansion of the nuclear industry in the NT continued to build during the election period - through the Greens campaign and the Intervention Rollback Action Group’s (IRAG) grassroots mobilisation.

“Together we have made history today”, Adam Bandt declared, as he became the first Green to win a lower house seat in a general election. The surge to The Greens shows that, despite Gillard’s effort to race Abbott to the right, larger numbers than ever want a left-wing alternative.

Victorian Premier John Brumby’s recently announced climate policies have seen him hailed as the first Australian politician to get serious about climate change. But his promises on climate have fallen though in the past, and so far the details of how large-scale solar power would be boosted under his new plan are not available. His announcements contain no new funding for large-scale renewable energy.

The Federal Australian Education Union (AEU) held a National Symposium to highlight issues regarding NAPLAN and school rankings in Sydney on July 21.

Julia Gillard has capitulated to the mining companies to end their campaign against Labor’s mining tax. The speedy acceptance of her compromise deal by the wealthiest mining companies BHP Billiton, Xstrata and Rio Tinto shows the extent of the government’s retreat.

The Alice Springs Based Intervention Rollback Action group (IRAG) and STICS (Stop the
Intervention Collective Sydney) have condemned the Social Security and Other Legislation
Amendment (Welfare Reform and Reinstatement of Racial Discrimination Act) Bill, expected to pass
through the Senate this week.

In the early hours of Monday morning, Israeli naval ships and helicopters descended upon an international aid flotilla headed toward the Gaza strip. The trained killers of the Israeli armed forces opened fire on the activists aboard six of the boats, mostly from Turkey and Greece. Nine people were murdered. Even more are wounded.

MEDIA RELEASE

Refugee groups today condemned the Immigration Minster’s decision to re-open Curtin detention centre to house detainees whose visa applications have been suspended.

Victoria Police routinely racially target, taunt and bash African youths across Melbourne, according to a Legal Services report released in March.

Update: After Democrat politicians bring weapons into Parliament and their officials throw CS gas cannisters into peaceful Red Shirt protestors outside, the Government then declared a state of emergency in Bangkok. This gives them the power to shut down all opposition media and use force against the pro-democracy demonstrators. There are reports that soldiers are massing at the international airport in order to attack the peaceful demonstrators.

Censored CSIRO economist Clive Spash, whose controversial paper on carbon trading was censored by CSIRO management, spoke in Sydney and Melbourne on “Why Carbon Trading Will Fail” in March.

 The Greens’ Proposal
The Greens have proposed an interim 2 year carbon tax, as a transition to
carbon trading. Starting at $23 per tonne this year, rising to $24 the
following year.

Teaching unions around the country have pledged to ban upcoming national testing after newspapers in Canberra, Sydney and Melbourne used information from the “My School” website to publish damaging and misleading league tables late in January.

Up to 1600 workers have defied court orders and calls by the Rudd government to end strike action at Woodside Petroleum’s Pluto gas site in Western Australia.

Up to 20,000 union members have taken strike action at Australia Post, part of a pre-Xmas rush of strikes that also hit Sydney buses, Telstra and Qantas.

The run of pre-Xmas strikes are a welcome start in reversing years of management bullying, privatisation and job cuts. The limited revival of industrial struggle by workers marks a shift in the terrain for the Labor government.

Solidarity is making Clive Spash’s paper available because we believe it should be compulsory reading for every environmental activist.

NASA climate scientist James Hansen shocked many climate activists when he declared that it would be better if the Copenhagen talks collapsed. Spash’s paper will tell you why carbon trading schemes are fundamentally flawed and why Copehagen will not deliver meaningful action that can stop climate change.

Solidarity (Australia) joins other socialists around the world to mourn the passing of Chris Harman. International socialism has sadly lost one of its greatest thinkers.

GOVERNMENT STANCE ON ASYLUM SEEKERS IS UNSUSTAINABLE
JULIA GILLARD BRINGS SHAMEFUL REMINDER OF TAMPA

Massive “counter-terrorism” raids in Melbourne last week have further stirred up racism against Muslims and immigrants. More than 400 police were involved in the raids, including paramilitary squads armed with sub-machine guns. Five men are being charged under draconian “anti-terror” legislation with making unspecified preparations to carry out a terrorist attack.

Five hundred and fifty New South Wales Teachers Federation union delegates have unanimously voted for a series of actions to stop the publication of school league tables at their annual conference.

Refugee Action Coalition MEDIA RELEASE
 
- GOVERNMENT POLICIES ARE FORCING ASYLUM SEEKERS TO USE PEOPLE SMUGGERS

The drama and uncertainty that still surrounds the fate of many of the
asylum seekers

Refugee Action Coalition MEDIA RELEASE
 
Some of the 74 Afghan asylum seekers feared lost at sea Indonesian waters
fours days ago have made it to land.

Refugee Action Coalition MEDIA RELEASE

In the aftermath of the rescue of a 74 asylum seekers’ boat yesterday, the refugee advocate who alerted Australian border protection authorities to the distressed boat has called on the Rudd government to end the crack down on asylum seekers and people smugglers in Indonesia.

An update from the Sydney G20 Solidarity Collective

IRAN IS being rocked by massive people power demonstrations-the biggest since the 1979 revolution that overthrew the hated Shah.  Night after night, hundreds of thousands of people have poured into the streets of Tehran and other cities to join protests against the rigged election win of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Thousands have rallied around the country calling for funding renewable energy as an alternative to the governments polluter friendly emissions trading scheme, there were climate protests in Adelaide, Brisbane, Canberra, Cairns, Hobart, Melbourne, Perth, Sydney and Wollongong. 

There is a new popular power sweeping Iran. In one of the biggest mass demonstrations since the toppling of the US-backed Shah in 1979, some one million people descended onto the streets of the capital Tehran to protest at an election widely seen as rigged.

One hundred and fifty thousand people attended the Hong Kong candlelight vigil in Victoria Park to commemorate those killed in Tiananmen Square on June 4 1989. They came to pay tribute to the bravery of those who stared down the soldiers and tanks.

Thousands of people have marched in Melbourne today (Sunday May 31) against racist attacks on people of Indian origin living in Melbourne.  There have also been attacks in Sydney, last week Indian student, Rajesh Kumar, was left with burns to 30% of his body after a petrol bomb was thrown into his apartment.

Workers at five universities in Melbourne — Melbourne, Monash, Swinburne, RMIT and Deakin, plus a Hawthorn college — struck on Thursday, May 21.

I acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which we meet.

I have been an academic for over three decades. I used to like my job but not the last few years.

Howard’s long gone – so why are uni managements still acting like Liberals?

Labor was elected amid talk of an education revolution. But uni managements continue to act as if nothing has changed.

*No compromise with Rudd’s flawed scheme. More than ever the CPRS is worse than useless*

Recent developments around the Rudd government’s Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS) highlight the need for the climate movement to clearly oppose and mobilise against the scheme in its entirety.

Scrap the CPRS
A Call for Green Senators to Vote NO

Kevin Rudd’s Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS), the government’s main mechanism for reducing Australia’s carbon emissions, fails every test. 

 MEDIA RELEASE

Refugee groups wants the government to come clean on asylum boat interceptions. Government policy is creating the conditions for more tragedies

Support from Hong Kong Trade Unions for Pacific Brands workers 

Workers across the country are disgusted and outraged with the announcement that Pacific Brands bosses plan to sack 1850 workers. The bosses’ greed is astounding. A fight to save the jobs would win widespread support.

This year marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin. It is also 150 years since the publication of the book that made him world famous, indeed notorious – On The Origin Of Species By Means Of Natural Selection.

NSW teachers have won a pay increase and the reinstatement of a state-wide staffing plan as part of a new 3-year-award.

Only a few years ago mainstream debate on climate change was still focused on debates with climate skeptics about whether the threat was real. Today climate change is a mainstream issue—it was one of the key issues in bringing Kevin Rudd to power in late 2007 and tackling it has moved to the center of the new government’s agenda. But this shift also means the climate movements needs to reorient itself to deal with the new situation.

Israel has expanded its murderous air attack on Gaza into a full ground assault. With all borders sealed, 1.5 million Palestinians are trapped—with little electricity or fuel and severe shortages of food, clean water and medicines. Download Solidarity pdf Broadsheet

The assault on Gaza is part of the wider US-backed “war on terror” across the Middle East. Ending the Australian government’s continued backing for US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is part of building the kind of struggle needed to free Palestine.

The US has blamed Hamas for causing Israel’s assault. Kevin Rudd has called them a “terrorist organisation”. In fact Hamas are the legitimate elected leaders of the Palestinians.

THOUSANDS of people have rallied across Australia in the last week to protest Israel’s recent military bombardment and siege of the Gaza strip. 

by Giles Ji Ungpakorn,

from Turn Left Thailand

The appointment of “Democrat” Party leader Abhisit Vejjajiva as the new Thai Prime Minister is the final stage of the second coup against an elected government.  **Update Giles Ji Ungpakorn has been charged with “Lese Majeste” for publication of his book “A Coup For The Rich” Press Statement - Open Letter/Petition

Refugee groups today called for the permanent closure of the high security immigration detention facility on Christmas Island.

Panos Garganas from Greece reports on the mass movement sparked by the police killing of 15-year old, which has detonated wider anger against the government over cutbacks in response to the economic crisis

The following is an article from Workers Solidarity the paper of our sister organisation in Greece (translated from Greek)

About 40 people rallied in the Coburg mall in Melbourne on Saturday December 6 for government intervention to save ABC childcare centres.

Turnbull’s call for the re-introduction of temporary protection visas shows how much the Liberal opposition is in thrawl to the failed policies of the Howard era, according to refugee groups.

Eviction notices given to student occupiers in the Student Housing Action Collective (SHAC) at Melbourne University have been withdrawn, with the university re-entering negotiations with the students.

When life long socialist Jeff Goldhar died in 1997, he left a bequest. Set up at the end of 1998, the Jeff Goldhar Project is now celebrating 10 years of activities.

By Giles Ji Ungpakorn in Bangkok

Today the Constitutional Court dissolved the democratically elected governing party in Thailand for the second time, forcing the government to resign. This follows the refusal of the armed forces and the police to follow government instructions to clear the two international airports blocked by armed PAD fascists.

20,000 teachers at meetings around the state have voted to take 48 hours of industrial action from the start of the 2009 school year, in the event of the NSW government not abandoning its attacks on wages, conditions and the staffing of public schools.

Solidarity believes the federal government should take over ABC Learning Centres, CFK Childcare and any other “unprofitable” centres.

Immigration detainees at Villawood detention centre in Sydney have suspended their hunger strike after three days. The Refugee Action Coalition has been releasing daily updates on the hunger strike, which we republish here.

Socialist Worker in the US interviewed activists following Obama’s victory for their understanding of the importance of his win

National protests have been called in response to the guilty verdict in the trial of Lex Wotton, announced this week.

Leaflet distributed by Solidarity students at Sydney University seminar on the financial crisis

What does it do for the union movement’s credibility when its elected leader joins the government?

The extraordinary waves of panic that have swept through global financial markets in the past few weeks have filled ordinary working people around the world with a mixture of anger, bewilderment, and fear.

The era of neo-liberal market madness has crashed. It is not the end of capitalism by a long shot, but it is the end of capitalism as we have known it

Socialist Worker - our sister publication in Britain - answers the crucial questions raised by the collapse of leading investment banks and the recent turmoil in glabal markets

Join the campaign to abolish the Australian Building and Construction Commission.

Solidarity speaks to Marcus Strom, a member of the Fairfax union house committee, about the ongoing dispute at Fairfax.

Paula Pfoeffer in Cochabamba, Bolivia, reports that the Morales government in Bolivia has been under attack by right-wing forces.

The Thai political crisis took another farcical turn today when the courts ruled that Prime Minister Samak must resign because he appears on a TV cooking programme.

2000 union delegates attended a mass meeting to defend Noel Washington, CFMEU official facing 6 months jail for refusing to be interrogated by the Howard era Australian Building & Construction Commission (ABCC). The ABCC wanted to question him about what was said at a union meeting that took place outside of work hours.

“We are puzzled that the Minister seems to have pre-empted his Parliamentary Enquiry, but the changes to immigration detention announced today by the Minister for Immigration are a welcome move in the right direction”, according to Ian Rintoul, spokesperson for the Refugee Action Coalition.

In another victory for the right to protest, one of the few court
convictions over the APEC demonstration was overturned on appeal yesterday in
the District Court.

Climate Camp, a protest against the coal industry in Newcastle NSW, was a success and an important step forward in continuing to build a movement for real solutions to stop global warming. It brought hundreds of activists together for a week of discussion and protest, and the main protest on Sunday drew 1000 people with the goal of shutting down a coal train line for the day. This direct action was a breath of fresh air, compared to the mainstream environment movement’s focus on individual action and lobbying politicians.

Over two hundred students from across Australia converged on Melbourne University last week for the annual Queer Collaborations conference, this year themed ‘Freedoms are Won, Not Given’.

Unions in Victoria are set to escalate their campaign against the anti-union Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC), a WorkChoices-era relic. For the first time since Howard introduced the ABCC a unionist, Noel Washington, will face court for refusing to attend an interrogation by the commission.

NURSES IN NSW have accepted a pay deal in exchange for a raft of “trade offs” that strip back work conditions. The nurses’ is the latest in a string of public sector disputes where unions are battling state Labor governments’ below-inflation pay caps.

About 4000 people rallied in central Melbourne on Saturday July 5, addressed by Greens Senator Bob Brown, among others.

On June 21, people from ten cities around Australia took to the streets to protest the ongoing NT Intervention. One year since John Howard and Mal Brough announced the Intervention in the NT the vast majority of it continues to be rolled out, full steam ahead, by Kevin Rudd.

Solidarity has produced a climate change position paper to coincide with the Climate Camp in Newcastle in July. It runs through, in some detail, our critique of the climate camp’s focus on coal exports, the myth of the individual carbon footprint, and what sorts of demands and organisation are needed to constitute a movement post-climate camp.