Australia

  • PHOTOS: Rally for public housing

    Activists rallied in Melbourne on December 8 to defend and extend public housing. The Victorian government and housing minister Wendy Lovell are attempting to privatise public housing and give greater power to the non-transparent Housing Associations. These Housing Associations have been criticised for not being accountable to the people and communities they claim to serve.

  • Radioactive tour gets ready

    Friends of the Earth released this statement on December 5. *** Friends of the Earth's Radioactive Exposure Tour will take place from Friday March 29 to Sunday April 7 next year. These tours have exposed thousands of people first-hand to the realities of “radioactive racism” and to the environmental impacts of the nuclear industry.

  • WA govt’s 'mean-spirited' refusal to extend Stolen Wages deadline

    Hundreds of Aboriginal West Australians who had their wages withheld from successive state governments could miss out on a reparations payment, after the Barnett Liberal government refused to extend the deadline. The Stolen Wages Reparations Scheme was announced earlier this year, offering a $2000 ex-gratia payment in exchange for the millions of dollars in Aboriginal wages and entitlements withheld within a system of trust accounts from 1905 to 1972. The withholding of wages and pensions compounded the disadvantage and poverty of Aboriginal people throughout Western Australia.

  • How to change a destructive system

    Sam Wainwright is a Socialist Alliance councillor in Fremantle. Below is a talk he gave on the topic of how to achieve social change in Australia. * * * It's pretty obvious for anyone that cares to look that capitalism is a socially destructive and ecologically unsustainable system. Based on the unequal distribution of wealth, it condemns billions to living in poverty worldwide.

  • Resistance camp for activists

    Resistance is an activist youth organisation that is involved in campaigns for the environment, for queer rights, feminism and anti-racist issues. Sometimes it can be useful for even the most experienced activists to renew our skills and examine what, how and why we do things. To do this, Resistance is holding an activist skills camp in Melbourne from January 21 to 23. Workshops covering practical activist skills and socialist theory will be held over three days.

  • What politics to unite Australia’s left?

    Once again the question of left unity is on the agenda in Australia. There have been exploratory talks between the Socialist Alliance and Socialist Alternative and also between the Socialist Alliance and the Communist Party of Australia (CPA).

  • Thank goodness for Green Left Weekly

    This is the last issue of Green Left Weekly for this year. Our small staff which works very hard, week after week, to get out this publication will take a much-needed break after a hectic political year, and get ready to relaunch in mid-January. The 2012 Green Left Fighting Fund has now raised about $193,000 so we have to try to raise a further $57,000 by the end of the year to get to our $250,000 target — or as close as we can get.

  • Solutions exist to avoid climate disaster

    Several recent scientific reports on climate change have warned we are headed for disaster, giving frightening evidence of just how bad things could get. It’s just as frightening how little world governments intend to do about it. But it’s maddening to think how easy it would be to take serious action on climate, and staggering to add up the benefits of doing so.

  • Tamils condemn deportations of asylum seekers to Sri Lanka

    The Australasian Federation of Tamil Associations released this statement on December 5. *** The Australasian Federation of Tamil Associations (AFTA), the umbrella body of the peak Tamil associations in Australia and New Zealand, welcomes the news that the deportation of 56 Tamil refugees was halted after a dramatic hearing at the High Court in Sydney late on Monday.

  • PHOTOS: Vigil for refugees

    Refugee activists in Melbourne organised a candle lit vigil on November 30 to condemn the federal government's racist policies against refugees. Mohammed Bakhtiari, a former detainee on Nauru, said: "We need to demonstrate to people that we have rights too". Photos by Ali Bakhtiarvandi:

  • Stop forced deportations of Tamils

    The Refugee Action Coalition released this statement on December 3. *** Tamil asylum seekers at Wickham Point detention centre in Darwin staged a 24-hour hunger strike protest on December 3 in response to increasing numbers of Tamils being screened out and returned to Sri Lanka. A plane-load of 35 mostly Tamil asylum seekers was arrested on Friday, November 30, on return to Sri Lanka and have been taken to Negombo prison, outside Colombo.