The September election is approaching and the Socialist Alliance needs the financial help of members and supporters to run an effective election campaign.
This is even more essential this federal election since the two big parties have made it harder for socialists and progressive, single-issue parties to stand, by doubling the fees required for candidates to nominate.
Australia
About 250 people, mainly from the Turkish and Kurdish communities, held a protest in Melbourne’s Federation Square on June 10 in solidarity with protesters in Taksim Square and Gezi Park, Istanbul, who have come under intense repression from the Turkish state.
The rally was organised by the Melbourne Taksim Platform, a coalition consisting of the Anatolian Cultural Centre, the Australian Alevi Council and the Australian Turkish Cultural Association. The rally was also supported by the Kurdish Association of Victoria.
A new website has published the biggest set of immigration detention records in Australia to date. It will provide unprecedented verification of the endemic self-harm and psychiatric crises that refugee rights campaigners have independently reported for years.
The Australian Rail Track Corporation (ARTC) and Brisbane-based consultant Katestone have come under fire for releasing a report, on coal train dust in the Hunter Valley, that appeared to have been doctored.
The ARTC is a federal-owned corporation and leases rail track from the NSW government. It is in charge of most rail track other than dedicated inner city passenger rail corridors, including rail tracks that deal mainly in freight and commodity haulage.
During this year alone, an estimated 128 people have drowned or vanished trying to seek asylum in Australia. By June 14, up to seven asylum boats trying to reach Christmas Island had foundered, sunk or been stranded.
This includes the boat that sank in Indonesia’s Sunda Strait in April, when Australian authorities failed to give accurate coordinates of the foundering vessel to Indonesian search and rescue. Up to 58 people drowned, 53 of whom were never retrieved.
World Refugee Day comes amid reports of more deaths at sea, forced deportations to torture and execution, malaria in the offshore camps in Nauru and Manus Island, suicide in detention, babies imprisoned as security threats and revelations of refugees on bridging visas without food, housing or work rights.
A competition in cruelty
The following resolution was adopted by the Socialist Alliance national council meeting on June 10.
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• If socialism is not just to be a good idea, it has to become a movement of the working class and other oppressed groups. It flows from this that to build the socialist movement we have to have a permanent focus on linking up with the activists and leaders of the working class and oppressed groups who are fighting capitalist oppression.
In the latest bid to convince desperate people not to seek safety in our country, the federal government is running an ad campaign on primetime Afghan TV directed at members of the persecuted Hazara ethnic minority.
This issue introduces a few changes that have been made to the look of Green Left Weekly. The front cover logo has been updated and the layout inside has been refreshed. This is a change we’ve been working on since last year based on feedback about how to improve the paper.
For 22 years, GLW has remained independent from corporate interests and this has allowed us to expose the lies and distortions of those in power.
The new changes to NSW planning laws proposed by the Barry O'Farrell Liberal government involve "the most significant backward step in public participation and environment protection in more than a generation. They are significantly worse than Part 3A," James Ryan from the Nature Conservation Council told a public forum of about 60 people at Redfern Town Hall on May 27.
Part 3A was the infamous law under which the previous Labor state government could override community and environmental concerns in making planning decisions in the interests of big developers.
Current political campaigns by Queensland trade unions in defence of public sector jobs, to maintain public assets or for education reform would be ruled out under a new industrial relations bill proposed by the Liberal-National government.
Should the bill pass, unions would be required to conduct a ballot of members before spending more than $10,000 on any activity that is for a political purpose. The union also has to pay for the costs of conducting the ballot.
Aid organisation Oxfam International said this year that the annual income of the world’s richest 100 people would be enough to end extreme poverty four times over.
It said the richest 100’s net income — rather than wealth, which is much higher — was about $240 billion last year.
Oxfam went on to make some modest demands:
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