Issue 51 - Nov/Dec

Nauru asylum seekers fight for freedom

The Labor government have done everything they can to construct hell on earth on Nauru. But they did not count on the brave and determined resistance by asylum seekers...

Bowen raises the refugee deportation stakes

On October 31, a Tamil asylum seeker, Anjan, came very close to being deported from Melbourne to Sri Lanka. Despite a picket of refugee supporters at the entrance of...

And turns back boats from Sri Lanka

In early September, Immigration Minister Chris Bowen condemned the Opposition’s demands for asylum boat arrivals from Sri Lanka to be sent back. But two months later, that is exactly...

ACT elections show dangers of parliamentary approach

The recent ACT election ended badly for the Labor-Greens governing partnership, with a 4.9 per cent swing against The Greens and three seats lost. The result is an embarrassment...

Taser deaths show why killer cops must face justice

The inquiry into the death of Brazilian student Roberto Laudisio Curti has thrown an international spotlight on the brutal use of tasers by the NSW Police. Curti was threatening...

Australia joins the “thieves’ kitchen” at UN Security Council

Julia Gillard and Foreign Affairs Minister Bob Carr are basking in Australia’s victorious bid for a place on the United Nations Security Council. Carr said the win, “reflects Australia’s positive...

Coal plants closing, but no thanks to the carbon tax

The record-breaking “Frankenstorm” Hurricane Sandy, which wrecked a trail of destruction from Cuba and Haiti to New York, has shown again that climate change is a reality. Disasters and...

Support Bob Carnegie: Defend the right to protest and strike

Bob Carnegie, a community organiser in Brisbane, is being sued for hundreds of thousands of dollars by construction firm Abigroup following a strike at its Queensland Children’s Hospital site. Campbell...

Community protest says no to Campbell Newman’s cuts to aged care

New cuts and closures in aged care are the latest example of Queensland Liberal National Premier Campbell Newman’s vicious contempt for jobs and the community. Nearly 300 people joined a...

New round of protests at Sydney Uni over rent hikes and Koori Centre

In late October, around 100 students marched through Sydney University to demand affordable student housing. The protest was organised by students who live at Sydney University Village (SUV) alongside...

Victory for the left in NSW PSA elections

Progressive PSA candidates have beaten incumbent officials in the union elections in the Public Service Association (PSA) in NSW. The public sector has been in the firing line of...

West is withdrawing because Afghans hate the troops

By the end of next year, most Australian troops will be out of Afghanistan. All US and NATO combat troops plan to quit the country by the end of...

Golden Dawn: fascists feeding on Greece’s misery

The Greek economy is in a depression. The austerity measures demanded by the troika have made it worse. Nationally one in four Greeks are out of work. Those with...

Chavez wins election, but Venezuela’s revolution at a crossroads

Hugo Chavez won Venezuela’s presidential election in October, heading off a challenge from the right-wing candidate, Henrique Capriles. Progressives and leftists in Venezuela, Latin America and around the world...

Kennett vs the unions—a fight we should have won

As we face vicious state Liberal governments, David Glanz looks back at the fight against vicious neo-liberal Victorian Premier Jeff Kennett twenty years ago and the strike movement that...

On that speech: Julia Gillard, sexism and women in power

It was a speech that stunned the nation and went viral on social media. But what does Gillard’s anti-sexism represent, asks Judy McVey Julia Gillard's speech on October 8 left...

The man behind the image: Che Guevara

Everyone knows the image and almost everybody knows the name, but very few know about the  politics and the legacy. Tony Bozdagci uncovers the man behind the image The iconic...

Labor’s love affair with the market: The Keating years

In the final instalment in our series on the history of the Australian Labor Party, Jean Parker explains how Keating was the architect of neo-liberalism in Australia, and alongside...

Chomsky’s “Occupy” reflects the good and the bad

Occupy By Noam Chomsky $9.95, Penguin Occupy by Noam Chomsky is the first of the Zuccotti Park Press/Occupied Media Pamphlet Series produced by the US Occupy movement. The short book is a...

Sexual liberation and the politics of pornography

Money Shot: A Journey into Porn and Censorship By Jeff Sparrow $29.95, Scribe The left is tangled up in knots over the politics of pornography. Left-wing academics like Clive Hamilton are trying...

The Casual Vacancy exposes middle class prejudice

The Casual Vacancy J.K Rowling Little Brown and Company $39.95 (Hardback) It may not be as “socialist” as Britain’s Daily Mail thinks, but JK Rowling’s new novel lays bare the class divide in...

Things they say

We’re not making stuff up as we go along Gillard’s claim that the government knows what is doing with Nauru isn’t fooling anyone If the United Nations helps us to stop...

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