2010

The campaign to defend the Sydney University Student Representative Council (SRC) from the Liberals must get ready for the fight to come. A Labor student won the SRC President in the...

Victory as Ark Tribe walks free

Ark Tribe has defied the ABCC and won. Taken to court for refusing to attend a secret interrogation by the Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC), he was found...

Power bills skyrocket under market solutions

The scandals over the cost of solar feed-in tariffs reveal the dangers of advocating market solutions to climate change. The NSW government’s Solar Bonus Scheme, a feed-in tariff for rooftop solar...

Hazelwood CFMEU members demand a say

The political debate over closing Hazelwood has largely ignored those who actually work there. CFMEU members at Hazelwood held a mass meeting in early November to demand a say in...

Offshore processing unfair and discriminatory, says High court

On November 11, the High Court found the government’s offshore processing arrangements invalid, ruling that they must give asylum seekers “procedural fairness” and take account of relevant Australian law. The...

Detention despair—Villawood suicide sparks protests

For a week or two in mid-November, it seemed Australia’s detention regime was coming apart at the seams. In the aftermath of the second asylum seeker’s suicide in two...

Gillard offers constitutional token but strips away real rights

In early November Julia Gillard announced plans for a referendum to decide whether Indigenous Australians should be formally recognised within the Australian Constitution. The move drew cautious support from...

ACTU tour learns of Intervention atrocities

In November a 20-strong trade union delegation organised by the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU), visited Central Australia on a fact finding mission to hear firsthand the impacts...

GenerationOne: the gloss on an assimilation agenda

“If you go back to the stolen generation it is true many Aboriginal people were stolen from their families but there was also a large proportion who would have...

Aboriginal school says mainstreaming no way to close the gap

Supporters of an Aboriginal school in Melbourne have occupied the gym in a sit-in protest against plans to take half the school’s land. ‘’We want at least one Aboriginal...

US bases deal fuels arms race with China

The Gillard Labor government has further committed itself to the US alliance, agreeing to a major increase in US military operations and use of military bases in Australia. The decision...

Ireland: ‘Fear of poverty, homelessness and unemployment are pervasive’

A new wave of economic crisis is sweeping Ireland. The European Union and the International Monetary Fund were forced to announced a $150 billion bailout in late November—most of...

Release of Suu Kyi not the end of the fight in Burma

Burma’s opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi was released in November after spending most of the last 20 years under house arrest. It’s welcome that she’s free. But hopes...

Wikileaks documents show who the real terrorists are

George W Bush once described the invasion of Iraq as a “noble mission” targeting terrorists who had an “utter contempt for innocent life”. Thousands of US military documents leaked to...

Alexandra Kollontai: revolution and women’s liberation

Solidarity continues a series on the lives and struggle of revolutionary women The 1917 Russian Revolution saw women win greater political, civil and legal equality with men than in any other...

Labor prepares another worse than nothing carbon price

Julia Gillard has promised to deliver a carbon price by the end of 2011, saying that there will be “nowhere to hide” from climate change. But Labor is shaping up...

New call for movement to break with market solutions

Academics James Goodman and Stuart Rosewarne have delivered a welcome salvo against market-based solutions to climate change. Their new paper, written for Friends of the Earth’s Chain Reaction magazine, points out...

Labor and the ‘national interest’

Julia Gillard’s Labor government has pledged itself to govern in the "national interest". Amy Thomas looks at what this really means At the end of the post-election shemozzle that gave us...

Trotsky, fascism and the united front

Trotsky’s understanding of how to fight fascism in Germany provides important lessons for us today, argues Carl Taylor The Russian revolutionary, Leon Trotsky, understood better than most the danger of...

Asking why Labor stands for nothing

Review article: Power Crisis, by Rodney Cavalier, Cambridge University Press, $34.99 and All That’s Left: What Labor Should Stand For, Edited by Nick Dyrenfurth and Tim Soutphommasane UNSW Press, $29.95 Labor’s...

Competition, sexism and rich kids rule in Facebook film

Review: The Social Network Directed by David Fincher, in cinemas now The Social Network traces the origin of the online social networking website Facebook from its genesis amongst Harvard University’s elite...

The Pacific Solution: never again!

Review: The Pacific Solution By Susan Metcalfe, Australian Scholarly Publishing, $24.95 The recent decision by the High Court in favour of two Tamil asylum seekers (see article here) has again focused...

Liberals gain from anger at Labor in Victoria

Victorian Labor has suffered a crushing rejection in the November state election—its first-preference vote collapsing from 43 per cent in 2006 to 36.5 per cent. The Liberals have taken power...

Banks and big business live it up under Labor

The Commonwealth Bank’s move to almost double the interest rate increase announced by the Reserve Bank has understandably caused outrage across society. This is straight-out profiteering. Banks have lifted interest...

Greens success spreads to Victoria, but they’re flirting with the Liberals

Labor Premier John Brumby is expected to hold on in the Victorian election on November 27. But attention is focused on The Greens, who stand a chance of victory in...

Labor’s more detention policy: they’re not getting children out of detention

Despite it being a blatant lie, since 2007, successive Labor Immigration ministers have publicly declared that no children were in detention. They hid behind the technicality that detention facilities were not...

Labor gears up to deport refugees

As Solidarity goes to press The West Australian carried a report that Chris Bowen hopes to have an agreement with the Afghan government to accept deportations "within months". Hundreds of...

Big business to set agenda of carbon price committee

The Labor government has given nineteen businesses a seat on a roundtable that will operate behind the scenes of the new carbon price committee. The government’s press release said...

No to market solutions, says union climate conference

Melbourne's trade union climate conference in October was a big step forward for the climate movement in Melbourne. The conference, organised by Victorian Trades Hall Council’s Climate Change Working Group...

Aboriginal workers exploited by the Intervention win support

The fight against the racist NT Intervention has taken a step forward with the launch of new campaign demanding ‘Jobs with Justice’ for Aboriginal workers. In October, Mark Fordham,...

Gurundji stop work over NT Intervention

On October 20, more than 200 Gurindji people joined an 11am stop work meeting in Kalkaringi, 470kms South-West of Katherine, NT. The rally was attended by workers from across...

Workers occupy to fight redundancy at Securency

Workers occupied the canteen at Securency, the banknote manufacturer 50 per cent owned by the Reserve Bank, in mid-October. The workers’ anger boiled over after management announced redundancies and...

Racist police can’t be trusted with Tasers

Police in Western Australia have been caught on videotape tasering an Aboriginal man, Kevin Spratt, 13 times as he was held in an East Perth watch house. The Corruption...

Victory in Cairns abortion case, now it’s time to change the law

It took a Cairns jury less than an hour to find Tegan Leach and Sergie Brennan not guilty on charges of procuring an abortion. It was a cause for...

Report shows class divide kills

“Health Lies in Wealth” is the conclusion of a new report by Catholic Health Australia, which asked the question—how well do the most disadvantaged groups of Australia’s population of...

Student protest stops cuts at Sydney Uni

Students at Sydney University have saved two geosciences subjects from the axe by taking protest action. Staff were given 24-hours notice that four subjects in the school of Geosciences would...

Workers are the real force for democratic rights in China

Liu Xiaobo is a well-known Chinese dissident currently serving an 11-year jail sentence for co-authoring a pro-democracy manifesto known as Charter 08. Xiaobo is now even better known after...

Britain’s Tories declare war on the poor

Britian's Tory government has announced massive spending cuts, signalling the biggest shake up of the UK welfare state since WWII. Around 50,000 took to the streets across the UK in...

Revolt against pension reform rocks France

A massive wave of strikes and protests has gripped France, as workers battle to stop the raising of the retirement age. Workers showed their potential power to defeat the...

Debate ignores reality—Afghan war is lost for US

Just about everyone recognises that the US has failed in Afghanistan and the war is lost. Even right-wing commentator Greg Sheridan, The Australian’s foreign policy guru, says he has...

Clara Zetkin—women’s suffrage and socialism

Lucy Honan continues the Solidarity series on the lives and politics of revolutionary women The German socialist, Clara Zetkin (1857-1933) is probably best known as the woman who led the...

Crisis and despair in Obama’s America

David Glanz looks at the problems haunting Barack Obama in the face of swing against the Democrats in the mid-term elections MORE THAN 130,000 workers lost their jobs across the US...

Venezuela: Revolution stalled?

After recent elections showed a drop in enthusiasm for Hugo Chavez’s Bolivarian revolution Ernest Price and Ian Rintoul look at where the revolutionary process is heading. Disappointment at the slow...

Understanding redneck America

Rainbow Pie: a redneck memoir By Joe Bageant Scribe, $35 All too often the word “redneck” brings up connotations of slack-jawed yokels, wilfully uneducated in everything other than in how to aim...

Exposing raunch culture and the new sexism

Living Dolls: The Return of Sexism By Natasha Walter Virago, $35 Living Dolls is a compelling must-read for all those interested in understanding sexism today. Through interviews and research, author Natasha Walter...

Equal love, equal rights: rediscovering the red in the rainbow

Amy Thomas reviews Hannah Dee’s The Red in the Rainbow, an essential look at why fighting homophobia means fighting the system Since the federal election Julia Gillard has continued to...

Things they say

To an average person who has an average house, it seems a lot. But this is our head of state in her headquarters and a high standard has to...

We need industrial action to defend Ark

Ark Tribe will finally find out if he is going to jail when magistrate David Whittle delivers his decision on November 3. Ark faces up to six months behind bars for...

Gillard intent to continue Labor’s rule from the right

Already in the week parliament resumed the talk of a “new paradigm” has come crashing down to Earth. The opening days of parliament were consumed by the usual bickering....

Carbon price committee is a trap for The Greens

By establishing a carbon price committee in a post-election deal with Labor, The Greens have sparked hopes that climate action is a step closer. Greens MP Adam Bandt says...

Climate movement must stop new HRL coal plant

HRL HAS announced that a new coal power station in Victoria is going ahead, after signing a construction contract with a Chinese power company. It labels its planned 600...

Union climate conference—focus on political campaigning needed

Unions in NSW have deepened their engagement with climate issues by hosting a Climate Active conference in September, one of the first of its kind. But it was weakened...

Refugee policy: The fight to shift Labor

Labor supporters have been horrified by Julia Gillard’s efforts to drag the Labor Party further to the right. But the Labor leadership’s anti-refugee policies are meeting resistance in the...

Villawood explodes in protest as detention crisis grows

The suicide death of Fijian asylum seeker Josefa Raulini on September 20 triggered a wave of protest inside Villawood detention centre.It pushed the horrible consequences of mandatory detention and...

WA Liberals grab Aboriginal land for Woodside

While Liberal leader Tony Abbott postures as the champion of Aboriginal land rights (see Wild Rivers article), Western Australian Liberal Premier Colin Barnett has begun proceedings to compulsorily acquire...

Cuts to CDEP slash jobs in Aboriginal communities

The Labor government’s ongoing assault on Community Development Employment Projects (CDEP) is devastating Aboriginal communities across Australia. But Aboriginal people are fighting back—uniting with unions and activists in a...

Only strike campaign can stop Queensland Rail sell-off now

Despite massive public opposition, the Queensland Labor government under Premier Anna Bligh is continuing to push forward with $15 billion worth of public asset sales. The sell-off of Queensland...

NSW unions relaunch campaign against privatisation for state election

Unions NSW Secretary Mark Lennon has announced plans to campaign against privatisation in the lead up to next year’s NSW state election in March. Lennon was hosting a “Better...

One million job cuts show crisis in Cuban model

Cuba’s announcement in September that one million jobs in the state sector are to be cut signals a speeding up of the shift away from a completely state run...

Roma the scapegoats for a French government in crisis

Over 1200 Roma have been expelled from France over the last two months, as the Sarkozy government pushes forward with plans to dismantle the 500 “illegal” Romani camps that...

Workers strike back in defiance against austerity in Spain

Spanish workers demonstrated what will be needed to stop austerity in Europe with their successful general strike on September 29. The “socialist” president of Spain, José Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, promised...

Nazi victory in Sweden is a warning for Europe

Sweden's September elections were historic for all the wrong reasons. For the first time ever, a Nazi party, the misnamed Swedish Democrats (SD), won seats in parliament. On the...

Mass strike wave paralyses South Africa

South African workers have put their government on notice that they will not bear the burden of the global economic crisis. In mid-August, 1.3 million public sector workers issued the...

Iraq: Is the war over?

Barack Obama’s announcement in mid-August that the “combat mission in Iraq has ended” gave the impression that he’d delivered on one of his key election promises—the end of the...

Abbott and Wild Rivers: It’s all about big business not Aboriginal rights

Tony Abbott’s efforts to pose as a defender of land rights through his attack on the Wild Rivers legislation is motivated by mining interests, writes Paddy Gibson As Solidarity goes...

Racism in Australia: The working class is not to blame

There is no doubt that racism has deep roots in Australian society. But where does this racism come from and how can it be pushed back? There is a widespread myth...

Polish Solidarity: Festival of the oppressed

Thirty years ago, the Polish working class rose up in struggle against the Stalinist regime and formed their own independent trade union, Solidarnosc. Solidarity looks at their experience and...

Dispelling the modern ‘Malthus myth’

Review: Peoplequake by Fred Pearce Random House, $32.95 The resurgence in overpopulation fears—the idea that excessive population is the cause of ecological destruction and that we must cut population levels to...

Working class heroes were made in Dagenham

Review: Made in Dagenham, directed by Nigel Cole In cinemas October 28 It's 1968 and 187 female machinists at the huge Ford Dagenham car plant in east London vote for a...

Louise Michel and the Paris Commune

Jasmine Ali begins a Solidarity series on the lives and struggle of revolutionary women The Australian newspaper has welcomed the first female prime minister as the fulfilment of the “feminist...

New York: Ground Zero for racist backlash

Anti-Muslim has reached new heights in the United States, on the back of a frenzied right-wing campaign against plans for a new Islamic centre in New York. The far right...

Adam Bandt’s campaign shows potential for the left

“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...

Gillard holds on: Now Greens must shift Labor to the left

By securing the support of Greens MP Adam Bandt and key ex-National independents Julia Gillard has held on to power—but only just. The fact that we have come so...

Mistake to treat Labor and Liberal the same

It is a mistake to condemn both Labor and Liberal as just as bad as each other, as many on the left did during the election campaign.

Independents calling the shots is no shift to the left

With independent MPs positioned to determine who forms the next government there has been all sorts of talk about the beginning of a different kind of politics in Canberra....

Election promises expand market agenda for education

The battle over NAPLAN testing and the MySchool website earlier this year indicated Julia Gillard’s vision for the future of education. Market reforms aimed at forcing competition between teachers...

Bligh does nothing as woman goes to trial for abortion

ON OCTOBER 12, 20 year-old Tegan Leach will be the first woman in Queensland legal history to stand trial for procuring an abortion. Leach could go to prison for...

Anti-Intervention campaign builds Greens vote in NT

Large swings to the Greens in the Northern Territory have shown the anger at the NT Intervention and its continuation by Labor. But they are also evidence of the...

Union power could strike Abbott out

IN 2007, the mass union mobilisations through the Your Rights at Work campaign were the central force driving John Howard from office. It beggars belief that only three years...

Building on union openings key for anti-Intervention campaign

Around the country, the campaign against the Intervention needs to step up the fight with a renewed mandate. Campaigners should draw encouragement from the anti-Intervention vote in the Northern Territory,...

Gillard a clunker, Abbott a denier—we need a climate fight

Abbott told ABC’s Q&A during the election period that the science of climate change is “highly contentious”. Yet Labor’s attempts to play on his climate denial were totally unconvincing—because...

Lessons from success of refugee movement under Howard

AFTER AN election characterised by both Labor and the Liberals using asylum seekers as political footballs, the refugee movement is faced with both opportunities and challenges. The bi-partisan refugee bashing...

‘Welcome to the Leonara Family Rejection Centre’

On August 13, 22 people set out on a 1600 kilometre return trip from Perth—the Compassion Caravan to Leonora Alternative Place of Detention (Leonora APOD). This is an excerpt...

Afghans languish while High Court hears challenge to offshore processing

BOTH JULIA Gillard and Tony Abbot went to the election with proposals to extend offshore processing—to East Timor (Gillard) or Nauru (Abbott). Tony Abbott even met Nauru’s Prime Minister. Shadow...

Sustainable population debate is a dogwhistle

THE ISSUE of population took centre stage in the federal election. Gillard and Abbott blamed immigrants for everything from traffic congestion to climate change. Julia Gillard moved quickly to junk...

French burqa ban sows division

A BILL to ban Muslim women from wearing the burqa and niqab in public went through the lower house of French parliament last month. The French government dressed up the...

Pakistan’s floods made worse by US terror

IN PAKISTAN, millions of the world’s poorest people are desperately battling to survive the aftermath of torrential rain. Up to 13 million are affected. Whole villages have been swept away...

All out truck strike: new stage in Greek resistance

FOR A week in July over 33,000 Greek truck drivers staged an industry-wide strike that paralysed much of the Greek economy. It follows six general strikes in six months,...

Massive strikes put South Africa on the brink

OVER ONE million striking South African workers are threatening to bring the government of President Jacob Zuma to its knees. Initial demands for an 8.6 per cent public sector...

Australian meddling part of agenda to dominate Fiji

The Gillard government’s continuation of the old Rudd and Howard policy of meddling in Fiji’s politics saw the Australian High Commissioner to Fiji, Sarah Roberts, expelled from the country...

Labor in power: the lessons of the Accord

Hawke and Keating’s Accord agreement was designed to hold back wages and conditions and weakened union power, argues Feiyi Zhang IN THE 2007 elections, mass opposition to Howard’s neo-liberal agenda...

Hungary 1956: the revolutionary alternative to Stalinism

The workers’ rebellion in the Eastern European state of Hungary in 1956 shows how real socialism is possible, argues Solidarity SINCE THE end of “Communism” in 1989, Hungary has seen...

Spying eyes: ASIO and the Communist Party

Writing a four-generation history of a family intimately linked with the history of the Communist Party of Australia (CPA) is not an easy task, especially if you are a...

Wikileaks exposes cost of Afghan war

The recent leak of over 90,000 secret US military documents on the WikiLeaks website reveals the truth about the war in Afghanistan. Mounting, unreported, civilian deaths are compounded by an...

Things they say

A worrying outcome for business Heather Ridout, Australian Industry Group, on the new Greens Senators I don’t deal with fools terribly lightly, and I think under any definition the man’s a...

Gillard ‘hasn’t done anything near enough to help workers’ rights’

Chris Breen spoke to Electrical Trades Union Victorian secretary Dean Mighell about what to expect from Julia Gillard There has been speculation that Gillard’s rise represents a reassertion of union...

Things they say

The suggestion John Howard should be labelled a racist, what a load of nonsense, he’s most certainly someone who’s not. Julia Gillard on Howard’s refugee policy That’s what I said in...

Stop Abbott, fight Gillard—vote left and build the movements

Abbott is running the most right wing Liberal campaign seen for a long time. His racist fear campaign about refugees and his promise to turn the boats back has...

How did Rudd go wrong so fast?

By the time the Labor caucus moved to knife him, Rudd’s public support had evaporated. This was a major turnaround. Rudd was elected in a thumping landslide, securing the...

Greens balance of power not enough to bring change

Gillard’s pitch to the right on refugees and her failure to offer anything on climate change have seen The Greens vote rebound again. A vote for The Greens is a...

Is Gillard’s rise a step forward for women?

From serious lifelong feminist activists to fashion magazines, there is a widely held assumption that having Julia Gillard in the “top job” is a step forward for women’s rights....

Julia’s history is with the right, not the left

The palace coup that installed Julia Gillard as prime minister triggered a flurry of discussion about Labor’s factional heavy-weights pulling the strings. The irony was that right-wing power brokers...

‘Stop the boats!’—Labor singing Abbott’s song

That Tony Abbott is actually running an election campaign with a pledge to stop the refugee boats is a clear sign of just how low Abbott and mainstream politics...

Gillard hides the crisis inside detention

While most commentary has focused on Gillard’s East Timor solution, it has diverted attention from the ongoing abuses in Australian detention centres. The other elements of Gillard’s Lowy Institute...

Packed out launch hears how zero carbon possible by 2020

A standing room only crowd of around 700 people gathered at Melbourne University in July for the launch of Beyond Zero Emissions’ (BZE) Zero Carbon Australia Stationary Energy Plan....

Students debate climate politics at SoS

In early July students and activists from across Australia gathered at Flinders University in Adelaide for the annual Students of Sustainability (SoS) conference, a yearly environmental event. In the past,...

Howard hit for a (well-deserved) six by ICC

John Howard’s bid to be the next International Cricket Club (ICC) vice-president has been blocked by African and Asian cricket nations. After bullying aside New Zealand’s candidate, whose turn...

Parental leave at last—but Labor won’t ask business to pay

In late June the government passed Australia’s first paid parental leave scheme, finally leaving the company of the US as the only other developed nation without one. However, Labor’s...

Alice conference discusses fight for jobs and language

More than 200 people attended the “Defending Indigenous Rights” conference, held in Alice Springs from July 6-9, to discuss the campaign against the NT Intervention. Delegates from “prescribed” Aboriginal...

Learning lessons from the past: 65 years after the liberation of Mauthausen concentration camp

More than 10,000 people gathered to commemorate the 65th anniversary of the liberation of the Mauthausen Nazi concentration camp in northern Austria. Including its 49 sub-camps, more than 195,000 people...

Rebellion against austerity spreads across Europe

“Europe’s strike-filled spring turning into a strike-filled summer”—this was the worried headline of Europe’s Examiner, bemoaning the resistance spreading across Europe to austerity measures. European states have borrowed and spent...

Capitalism’s crisis: Back with a vengeance

After a year of stabilisation, the global economy is once again on the brink of a new plunge into recession. Europe has been convulsed by a new banking crisis, as...

Cuba: No model for socialism in the 21st century

Many see Cuban society as a model for socialism. But a look at its history presents different conclusions, argues Mark GillespieWhen President Obama moved into the White House, he...

The NSW BLF margins strike: How union members defied the law and won

Forty years ago, the margins strike provided a model example of how to involve rank-and-file union members in action in defiance of the law and win, argues Tom Orsag In...

James Hardie: The Killer Company exposed

Review: Killer Company By Matt Peacock, ABC Books, $35.00 In 1898 Britian’s Chief Inspector of Factories reported to Parliament about the “evil effects of asbestos dust”. The first deaths from asbestos...

Afghanistan—US war plan failing

As the war in Afghanistan approaches its 10th anniversary, political support for it among Western rulers is crumbling. The Dutch are withdrawing their forces. New Zealand bluntly rejected a plea...

Gillard takes Labor’s reins: but it’s the same horse, different jockey

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...

We can’t let Gillard and Abbott Tampa with the election

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,...

Don’t let the billionaire miners get their way

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...

Facts on the tax and mining profits

Surging commodity prices - Since 2004 the contract price of iron ore has risen 600 per cent. High quality coking coal has risen by 400 per cent. - This year’s contracts...

Mining bosses will say anything to protect their profits

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. And they...

Balance of power will challenge Greens

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...

Solar policy is designed to fail

The federal government revealed the first projects shortlisted for funding under its Solar Flagships scheme back in May. The scheme provides $1.5 billion over six years, or just $250 million...

Mobilisation the key to climate fight

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...

Story of work under the Intervention taken to the unions

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...

Macklin’s plan for individual home ownership a delusion

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...

Amended NT Intervention – still racist, still discriminatory

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. Minister Jenny Macklin describes...

Cops slammed over Palm Island cover up, but where’s the justice?

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...

China’s workers want to lose their chains

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...

Ethnic violence in Kyrgyzstan product of imperial rivalry

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...

Israel’s murder exposes terrorist state

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...

Gulf oil spill: seas sacrified for profits

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...

It should be clear—there is no future in nuclear

Nuclear power is no solution to climate change, explains Ben Dharmendra The nuclear industry is using the climate crisis to push nuclear power as clean, green, cheap and safe. It...

Starting the renewable energy revolution

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...

Crisis in the Eurozone: how deep does it go?

The debt crisis is Greece is the only the most severe case of government debt problems across Europe. Noe Wiener explain how the problems have built up and why...

1972 Black Moratorium: How unions walked out for Aboriginal rights

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...

The tangled roots of Labor

Looking at Labor’s history can help us understand the party’s inadequacies today, explains Erima Dall RUDD WAS a bitterly disappointing alternative to Howard. His failure to act on climate change,...

Ark case delayed as thousands rally

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...

NAPLAN aftermath shows the need to fight

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...

Vale Rosemary ‘Waratah Rose’ Gillespie, 1942-2010

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...

Things they say

They have dropped on the Australian people a socialist style funding and tax device where the Government is now your silent partner. Letter by the mining company Fortescue to its...

Rudd’s Budget—fiscal conservatism rides again

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...

Tasmanian Greens in coalition with Labor, but dilemma of compromises remains

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...

Things they say

Humorous quotes of the month "We are God’s gift to the universe." A mining magnate explains why they shouldn’t be taxed "Regret to me means something that you feel that you did...

Rudd’s mistake is to race Abbott to the right

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...

Feed-in tariff not the best way to win renewables

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...

Activists say: no more black balloons for NSW

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...

Rudd junks the CPRS: time to show up his climate hypocrisy

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...

Aboriginal communities say: ‘We need jobs and services not the Intervention’

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...

Racism whitewashed in Alice Springs

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...

Time to fight the new refugee hysteria

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...

Former detainees speak: ‘Stop the Visa freeze’

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...

Fighting sexism back on the agenda, but how do we do it?

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...

In the thick of Indonesian workers’ struggle

Recently Ignatius Mahendra Kusumawardhana, the International relations officer of the Indonesian socialist group PRP (Working People’s Association) visited Australia. Mahendra was involved in the demonstrations that brought down Indonesian...

Obama not taking us closer to a nuclear free world

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...

Greek workers all out to stop IMF cuts

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...

Warning to Rudd from British election

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...

Labor and education: Gillard’s counter-revolution

The education revolution has been a neo-liberal one, argues Ernest Price As the federal president of the Australian Education Union Angelo Gavrielatos agreed to call off the teachers’ proposed ban...

Population is the wrong target

Arguments that population is to blame for climate change distract from real solutions to environmental problems and only serve to boost racism

James Connolly—socialism and the struggle for Irish independence

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 Despite...

Unions must defy ABCC fines

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...

Goodbye to all that?

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 You can ask the right question at the...

Anzac—a new front in the history wars

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 As our stomachs recover from the gut wrenching...

Bans could have beaten NAPLAN

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...

Things they say

“He turned up in the last couple of years when I was Prime Minister. I used to regard him as a sort of resident nutter on their side.” Paul Keating...

Tasmanian Green vote up, but it looks like business as usual

Tasmanians savaged the Labor government in the recent state elections. In the South Australian elections, the Rann Labor government just held onto power after an 8 per cent swing against...

Editorial: It’s Rudd we need to worry about

Tony Abbott's election strategy has been reduced to Iron man photo spreads. Union leader Paul Howse summed it up in the Herald Sun: “If anything, it highlights that Abbott is,...

Students say climate jobs, not coal

Climate activists gathered outside the office of Peter Batchelor in late March. Batchelor is Victoria’s Minister for Energy and Resources and was due to attend the Victorian Coal and Energy...

Electricity price rises: the cost of making ordinary people pay

Huge electricity price rises in NSW show that Rudd’s CPRS will have more impact on power costs for working people than the government has admitted. From July 1 costs for...

Carbon tax: a distraction from real solutions

This year's national Climate Summit voted to demand a carbon tax during the federal election campaign. Many viewed it as an alternative to Rudd’s useless CPRS carbon trading scheme. But there...

Stop Abbott’s fear mongering, close Christmas Island

Anti-refugee hysteria reached new heights in early April as Christmas Island reached capacity. After the arrival of the 100th refugee boat since Rudd’s election, newspaper headlines boosted comments from opposition...

Labor keeps refugee rights excised

Despite a pre-election promise to return excised territory to the Migration Act, the Rudd government has kept Christmas Island and Ashmore Reef excised. Asylum seekers processed offshore have fewer rights...

Where are the real jobs, Macklin?

In 2008, millionaire mining mogul Andrew Forrest launched a government-supported scheme to employ 50,000 Aboriginal people in mainstream jobs in two years. The Australian Employment Covenant (AEC) was built around...

Abbott to support the new Intervention laws

The man Jenny Macklin said had a “dark ages” view of women, the man who refuses to acknowledge Aboriginal custodianship at public events, has indicated his support for Labor’s...

Rudd’s health reforms avoid the real problem

Kevin Rudd says he has a “positive” plan to fix health care. Many people have welcomed his plan for a takeover of public hospitals by the federal government, desperate...

Another black death in custody: no justice in the justice system

The death in custody of 18-year-old Aboriginal man Sheldon Currie has exposed the criminal neglect of Aboriginal prisoners in Australia. Currie’s death was the fourth in six weeks in Queensland’s...

Queensland: not for sale!

Deep opposition within the Queensland labour movement to the government’s privatisation program continues to dog the Bligh government. As Solidarity goes to press unions are launching another round of TV...

How women and men united to fight for equal pay

This year unions have launched a new equal pay campaign, “Pay Up”, in recognition of the persistent inequality in wage levels. Women make up half of the Australian workforce...

Greek workers escalate their resistance

In late March European Union leaders announced a joint rescue package with the IMF to stop Greece defaulting on its debts. They have promised Greece €22 billion in case...

Thailand: hundreds of thousands demand democracy

Hundreds of thousands of Thai Redshirt pro-Democracy demonstrators have taken to the streets of Bangkok and other cities repeatedly since the middle of March. This is a show of...

Israel is still the US’s watchdog

Israel’s determination to build settlements on occupied Palestinian territory is worrying the US government. John Rose answers questions on the US-Israel relationship What is the historic relationship between the US...

The rise and fall of the women’s movement

British socialist Judith Orr looks at the radical women’s liberation movement of the 1960s, and why it declined It is hard to imagine just how different the world was for women...

Socialists and the united front

As the Rudd government backs big business rather than taking action on climate change, entrenches the NT Intervention, and maintains much of the Howard agenda the need to build...

Lessons from the fight against Apartheid in South Africa

Understanding the history of the fight against Apartheid can help explain why black poverty still persists today, argues Paddy Gibson Twenty years on from Nelson Mandela’s historic release from Apartheid’s...

Tahmoor miners fight Xstrata to maintain conditions

Three hundred coalminers at the Xstrata-owned Tahmoor coal mine in NSW have been fighting for their rights and conditions since late 2008. After ten months of seemingly constructive negotiations...

Round two of industrial action begins at Woodside

In the aftermath of wild cat strikes in January and February over motelling, construction unions in the Pilbara have begun an industrial campaign targeting one contractor at a time...

Refugee policy is the real crime

Review: Border Crimes By Michael Grewcock, The Federation Press, $49.95 With the defeat of the Howard Government in 2007 many assumed the dark days of the mandatory detention of asylum seekers...

Glorifying life as a US solider in occupied Iraq

Review: The Hurt Locker Directed by Kathryn Bigelow, In cinemas now The Hurt Locker is a violent, politically shallow and confusing film. The film makers claim to be apolitical but in...

Defending Stalin does socialism no favours

Review: The Idea of Communism By Tariq Ali, University of Chicago Press, $22.95 More like a long pamphlet than a book, The Idea of Communism, the first of a series edited by...

Aboriginal people are working for rations

Unions are teaming up with anti-Intervention campaigners in the NT to demand proper jobs for Aboriginal people. Activists from the Intervention Rollback Action Group, based in Alice Springs, will tour remote...

Editorial: Labor’s ‘business as usual’ boosts Abbott

Abbott is convinced he is on a winner. His thinks his line that Labor’s Emissions Trading Scheme is a “big new tax on everything” has struck a chord. Encouraged...

Things they say

“The only one of the Ten Commandments that I am confident that I have not broken is the one about killing, and that’s because I haven’t had the opportunity...

Radioactive racism: Labor’s NT waste dump

On Wednesday March 3, 150 people packed a community hall in Tennant Creek for a protest meeting against the imposition of a nuclear waste dump on the Muckaty Aboriginal Land...

Stopping new coal power key task for movement

The campaign to stop new coal power stations is shaping up as one of the key issues for the climate movement—both in NSW and nationally. In early March the NSW...

Zero emission possible in ten years

Australia could cut emissions from electricity generation to zero in ten years for $40 billion a year, according to a preview of Beyond Zero Emissions’ first Zero Carbon Australia plan. The...

Carbon tax not the solution we need on climate

A carbon tax, proposed by The Greens as an alternative to Rudd's CPRS, would increase power prices for ordinary people, and be just as ineffective in encouraging renewables as carbon trading With Rudd’s...

Aboriginal home ownership: Macklin’s fantasy

On January 31, residents at Ilpeye Ilpeye town camp in Alice Springs became the only Aboriginal land owners in Australia’s history to hand their land back to the Federal...

More lies exposed: Intervention laws won’t restore Racial Discrimination Act

According to Minister Jenny Macklin, the new Intervention legislation would restore the Racial Discrimination Act (RDA), fulfilling a key Labor’s election promise. It’s a lie. Submissions to the Senate enquiry,...

ACTU backs BasicsCard workers

The attack on Community Development Employment Projects (CDEP) that has gone along with the NT Intervention has cost thousands of Aboriginal jobs. People still on CDEP—some working up to 40...

Rudd’s austerity plans a danger to us all

Rudd came to office promising to be an “economic conservative”. His government is crafting a similar image as it prepares to fight this year’s election. Contrary to the received...

Surrogacy conscience vote reveals Bligh’s abortion hypocrisy

Last month, Queensland’s parliament decriminalised altruistic surrogacy. The reforms will allow same-sex couples to adopt children born to surrogate mothers. The laws passed 48 votes to 40 (two Labor...

Liberals revert to refugee bashing—but Rudd’s adding to the chorus

Tony Abbott is taking the Liberals back to the refugee bashing policies of the Howard era, saying he will re-impose temporary protection visas and turn boats around at sea....

Greek workers resist crisis and cutbacks

In every economic crisis, the central question is who shall bear the cost—the bosses or the working class? In Greece, that question is being fought out on the streets, with...

Obama sides with banks and big business

Americans are losing faith in Barack Obama. His election promises to sweep aside the Republican legacy of financial deregulation and privatisation with social reforms and market controls have come to...

How Afghanistan drove out the Russian empire

When the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979 they thought they were in for an easy victory. But they underestimated the power of the resistance, writes Dave CrouchIn the...

Obama’s surge brings more horror to Afghanistan

NATO began a massive new offensive in Afghanistan in February when 15,000 troops began an assault on the southern provincial town of Marjah. Operation Moshtarak is the biggest offensive since...

Corporations and climate change

We can’t trust the future of our planet to big business, argues Amy Thomas On the surface, it seems corporations have changed their attitude to climate change. In 2000, companies like...

Gandhi’s Salt March and the myth of non-violence

Gandhi’s celebrated strategy of non-violent protest was not responsible for winning Indian independence, and actually held back the struggle, explains Lucy Honan As the police gathered forces and began...

Herron workers fight for fair redundancy offer

Workers at Sigma’s Herron pharmaceutical plant in Tennyson, Brisbane walked out on a week-long strike in February over their employer’s unfair redundancy offer. The plant is earmarked for closure. Herron’s...

Fair work decision undermines strike action at Star City

A planned 24-hour strike at Sydney’s Star City Casino during Chinese New Year was banned by a decision of Fair Work Australia. This is one of the busiest times...

Woodside strike ends in draw but fines set scene for showdown

The eight-day strike over motelling at Woodside in Western Australia has ended in a draw. But the industrial battle isn’t over by a long shot—not for Woodside, and not...

TAFE: “We will (partially) win”

“The best union meeting I’ve attended in years.” That was the response of many NSW TAFE teachers after a 3000-strong mass meeting filled and electrified the inside of Sydney...

Challenging portrayal of life at the bottom

Precious Directed by Lee Daniels, In cinemas now Watching Precious is a harrowing experience. Director Lee Daniels milks every dramatic movement of Sapphire’s novel Push in bringing Clarieece “Precious” Jones to...

Satire paints damning picture of masters of war

Review: In the Loop Directed by Armando Iannucci, In cinemas now IN THE loop is a satire about the government machinery of the US and Britain preparing for war against an...

A world destroyed without any explanation

Review: The Road Directed by John Hillcoat, In cinemas now The Road, a film based on the Pulitzer Prize winning novel by Cormac McCarthy and brought to the screen by Australian...

Invaluable guide to climate science, but not solutions

Review: Storms of my grandchildren By James Hansen, Bloomsbury, $35 Last year James Hansen, one of the world’s best-known climate scientists, was arrested during a protest against the coal industry in...

No pride in Rudd’s homophobia

A Freens bill to overturn the ban on same-sex marriage was predictably defeated in the Senate last month. Rudd Labor maintained its commitment to the shameful ban. Labor Senator Nick...

Things they say

“The message Kevin Rudd is giving to his people, his citizens, is a fabrication, it’s fiction…It does not relate to the facts because his actions are climate change scepticism...

Massachusetts abandons hope in Obama’s promise of change

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...

Rudd gives Abbott space to revive Howard policies

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...

WA unions show how deal with Rudd’s anti-union laws

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...

Real alternative to CPRS missing from climate debate

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...

Scandals don’t dent climate science

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. Late last year...

Why the Copenhagen climate summit failed

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...

Town camp takeover sets back Aboriginal control

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 takeover push started...

New laws will entrench Intervention’s racism

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...

Rudd leads race to the bottom on refugees

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...

Refugees are not a security risk

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...

Swiss minaret ban a victory for the right

In a referendum held in November, 57.5 per cent of Swiss voters supported a ban to prohibit the building of new minarets. Minarets are tall structures that rise from Islamic...

Anti-Indian racism must be named and shamed

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. Last year...

Mass protests put Iran’s regime on the brink

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...

How US imperialism has devasated Haiti

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...

Unions need to defy Rudd’s anti-strike laws

Rudd’s new work laws, like Howard’s, are designed to criminalise effective strike action—and intimidate workers out of using it. In January up to 1600 workers defied court orders and calls...

Step up the strike action to win at Australia Post

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...

Woodside Pluto workers fight over living conditions

Workers at Woodside’s $12 billion Pluto gas site are fighting plans to take away stable on-site accommodation. The dispute arose over plans to take away personal rooms for each...

Interview with Clive Spash: Why carbon trading won’t work

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...

What is exploitation?

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...

Hawke, Keating and Aboriginal rights: Labor’s “sorry” history

Hawke and Keating turned their back on Aboriginal land rights, argues Jean Parker

Teachers right to ban tests for MySchool

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...

Three strikes and counting at Star City

Workers at Star City Casino in Sydney have taken three rounds of strike action over their employers’ lousy pay offer. Despite workers already rejecting the agreement when the Casino put...

Workers on strike for a fair go from Fairfax

Clerical workers at The Age newspaper have gone on strike for the first time ever as part of enterprise bargaining agreement (EBA) negotiations. Workers from the contact centre, accounts and telesales...

Pearson’s Radical Hope: Assimilation

Conservative Indigenous leader Noel Pearson uses his new essay Radical Hope to argue for a neo-liberal agenda in Aboriginal education, argues Ernest Price Noel Pearson, the Howard government’s go-to conservative...

Hollywood fights imperialism in 3D

Review: Avatar Directed by James Cameron, in cinemas now AVATAR MIGHT not be the subtlest movie around but its central message is reaching millions: if ordinary people unite, we can win...

Alistair Hulett: Voice of the voiceless, music of the people!

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...

Black and white unite to build protest house

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...