Preparing to resist refugee deportations
After his deportation from the UK to Sri Lanka, Tamil asylum seeker Hari says he was beaten on his back with electrical wire and suspended upside down by chains....
Briscoe inquiry shows police to blame for death
A coronial inquiry into the death of Terrance Briscoe has revealed damning evidence of police brutality and gross negligence.
Terrance Briscoe was an Anmatyere man who died on January 5...
Twenty years since Mabo: why Native Title hasn’t delivered
The 20th anniversary of the Mabo case, where the High Court recognised Native Title, has been celebrated by the government and the media as an historic step for Aboriginal...
Here we Joh again: Campbell Newman and the Queensland LNP
The use of over 200 police to brutally bust up Brisbane’s Aboriginal Tent Embassy demonstrated newly-elected Queensland Premier Campbell Newman’s style of government. It’s back to the era of...
Union leader: how the AMWU has organised 457 visa holders
AMWU Western Australian State Secretary Steve McCartney spoke at a fringe meeting at the recent ACTU Congress on work his union has done fighting to organise 457 workers into...
457 visas and “Aussie jobs”: to fight for jobs, we have to fight together
Immigration Minister Chris Bowen’s announcement of an Enterprise Migration Agreement (EMA) allowing Gina Rinehart’s Roy Hill project to employ 1700 overseas workers on 457 visas has produced a wave...
Victorian teachers: our strike shows we want to fight to win
More than 20,000 Victorian teachers went out on strike on Thursday 7 June, and more than 11,000 tried to cram into the Hisense Arena for the mass strike meeting—but...
Staff and students resist TAFE cuts
Students and staff are continuing their campaign to stop $300 million worth of cuts to the Victorian TAFE sector. The cuts are scheduled to come into effect on July...
Action to defend claims on the cards at Sensis
AMWU members at Sensis voted a resounding yes in a protected industrial action ballot, after months of negotiations going nowhere. Seventy seven per cent of members returned ballots, voting...
More action at Fairfax can stop outsourcing plan
Eight hundred workers at news giant Fairfax took unprotected strike action for 36 hours on May 30, in a defiant response to a plan to outsource jobs at its...
NSW teacher stop works the start of stopping O’Farrell
Around 20,000 NSW public school teachers attended stop work meetings in May to oppose school “devolution” plans. This action has been affirmed by the NSW Teachers Federation June Council...
Shafiq the candidate of counter-revolution in Egypt’s elections
The final round of the Egyptian presidential election presents the real danger of counter-revolution in Egypt.
After the first round of voting, a run off for President will now take...
Quebec’s students respond to repression with mass defiance
In what organisers are calling “the biggest act of civil disobedience in Canadian history”, hundreds of thousands defied the Quebec government’s new draconian Bill 78 and took to the...
Greek activist: “the movement has brought down two governments”
Giorgos Pittas is a journalist at Greek newspaper Workers’ Solidarity and a member of anti-capitalist coalition ANTARSYA. This is an excerpt from a recent speech on Greece’s working class...
Greece’s elections, SYRIZA, and the austerity battles ahead
As we go to press, all eyes are on Europe for Greece’s election on June 17. The possibility that SYRIZA, the “Coalition of the Radical Left” could form government...
Twenty years too long: the history of mandatory detention
Australia’s first waves of refugees were processed in the community, and a Labor government introduced the punitive regime we know today, explains James Supple
Mandatory detention of “unauthorised” asylum seekers...
The 1950s great Labor split: battle for control that drove Labor apart
Behind the Cold War-era split in the Labor Party were efforts by union leaders to exert control of the Labor party, writes James Supple, in our latest instalment of...
Capitalism and democracy
John Molyneux argues that while capitalism came into being with grand claims about universal freedom, democracy has had to be fought for—and is never completely secure
In the 21st century...
Clicking off everywhere? Social media and social movements
Why it’s kicking off everywhere: the new global revolutions
By Paul Mason
Verso Books
RRP $27.95
2011 was a phenomenal year of protest and resistance. From the revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia to...
Tweetin’ about a revolution
Revolution 2.0: The power of the people is greater than the people in power
By Wael Ghonim
Fourth Estate
RRP $29.95
Wael Ghonim is a Google marketing manager who became one of the...
Debating ideas to grow the left’s influence on politics
Left Turn: Political Essays for the New Left
Edited by Antony Loewenstein and Jeff Sparrow
Melbourne University Publishing
$27.99
Left Turn, according to editors Antony Loewenstein and Jeff Sparrow, aims to, “argue for...
Things they say
Quote's from the last month's news
extraordinary care and thoughtfulness.
Obama’s top-counter terrorism adviser, John O Brennan, on how drone strikes are carried out
How old are these people? If they...
