Australia

One key issue in the Australian Council of Trade Union's “Change the Rules” campaign is the right to strike.

We campaign for parliament to repeal all the penal powers against industrial action from Work Choices that are still in the Fair Work Act and then to enact the lawful right to strike. Full Stop.

Despite his great CV, Armando Iannucci’s The Death of Stalin doesn’t quite reach its satirical pretensions.

Solidarity groups, NGOs and Kurdish Associations are planning a global campaign across Europe, Australia, Canada and the US to materially support the people displaced from Afrin, in northern Syria, after the invasion and occupation by the Turkish military and allied Islamist groups.

Jepke Goudsmit and Graham

Jepke Goudsmit & Graham Jones, co-directors of Kinetic Energy Theatre Company, reflect on the life and loss of a unique place — The Edge, last known as the King Street Theatre, of which they were the original founders.

Universities are big business and critical to the health of Australian capitalism.

University education added $140 billion to the Australian economy in 2014. According to Universities Australia, 1.3 million Australian and international students were enrolled in Australian universities in 2016.

Trump and Putin cartoon

Recent military actions by Western powers, backed by Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, have certainly proven controversial. But the simple fact is that the civilised and democratic West cannot refuse to act in the face of the indiscriminate massacre of civilians in Yemen … I mean Syria.

Green Left Weekly’s Alex Bainbridge caught up with Sue Bolton, Socialist Alliance councilor in Moreland and Victorian Socialist candidate, to ask her about the Victorian Socialists’ campaign for the Legislative Council’s Northern Metropolitan seat in the state elections in November.

Many Australians are unaware that up to 2500 armed personnel from a foreign nation routinely occupy Australian territory. However, soon the next contingent of US marines will arrive in Darwin, writes Nick Deane.

Protest against the North East Link

The Victorian Labor government announced on April 15 that it would fast-track the controversial North East Link, a 26-kilometre freeway to connect the Metropolitan Ring Road at Greensborough with the Eastern Freeway at Bulleen.

Hundreds of people gathered outside the Northern Territory parliament in Darwin on April 18 to protest the Labor government’s decision, announced the day before, to lift the ban on fracking. Another protest is planned for April 22.

Chief Minister Michael Gunner announced the onshore ban on fracking would be lifted following the tabling of an independent report which concluded that the risks associated with the hydraulic fracturing of gas could be “managed” and “regulated”.

Australia needs an independent national agency charged with safeguarding the environment and delivering effective climate policy, according to a coalition of environmental, legal and medical NGOs.

Most Western democracies have established national regulatory action, such as the US Environmental Protection Agency — yet Australia is a notable exception.

British opposition Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn said on April 14 that there was no legal basis for British strikes against Syria and such action would encourage others to behave in the same way. He has called for a new War Powers Act, which would require the British government to seek approval from parliament for any future military actions.

In a letter to British Prime Minister Theresa May, Corbyn explained why he opposed the coordinated United States, British and French strikes against Syrian government structures. The coalition fired more than 100 missiles into Syria.