Australia

It was standing room only at the Port Dock Hotel on January 21 as Communist Party of Australia members and friends gathered to launch CPA secretary Bob Briton’s campaign for the state seat of Port Adelaide. The seat, formerly held by South Australian treasurer Kevin Foley, is being contested in a by-election to be held on February 11.

The real story of the powerful march celebrating the 40th anniversary of the Aboriginal Tent Embassy was ignored by the mainstream media in favour of misleading and charged accounts of a confrontation of Australia's racist opposition leader Tony Abbott and PM Julia Gillard by protesters later in the day. 

Wind farms might appear controversial in the media, but they enjoy an overwhelming 83% support in affected communities, say several recent reports. The only noise worth worrying about is that from the small minority who vocally oppose them. Unfortunately, that noise is drowning out other voices in the public arena.

Opposition leader Tony Abbott and his co-thinkers are dead wrong. The Aboriginal Tent Embassy, established by activists 40 years ago, is as relevant as it was then. Early on January 26, Abbott told reporters he understood why the embassy was set up “all those years ago”, but said it was not relevant today.

Cathy has been a shopping centre cleaner in a busy Westfield in South Australia for more than 10 years. She takes great pride in her job, and she loves interacting with tenants and helping customers. To her, a clean shopping centre with happy customers is indicative of a good day’s work. But Cathy only makes $16.57 an hour. In fact, her hourly wage has only gone up by $3 an hour in the 10 years she's been working. Cathy’s husband is disabled and can’t work. So, for less than $600 a week, Cathy and her husband try to survive.

The small town of Kerry, located on the Scenic Rim in Queensland's Beaudesert, is a prime food-producing area one hour from Brisbane. The land is now the site of a coal seam gas (CSG) exploration well.

Thousands of children starting preschool in NSW this week will be charged fees of up to $40 a day for the first time at government-run preschools.   Last year, Premier Barry O’Farrell’s government introduced fees without consultation for the 100 preschools run by the Department of Education and Community Services (DEC). Most are attached to public schools.   Many parents had already accepted a preschool place for 2012, or even enrolled their child, before learning that the previously free classes would attract daily fees.  

“Poker machine playing is a repetitive and insidious form of gambling which has many undesirable features. It requires no thought, no skill or social contact. The odds are never about winning … the machines … are addictive to many people. Historically poker machines have been banned … in the public interest, they should stay banned.” This quote is not from independent MP Andrew Wilkie, or “No Pokies” Nick Xenophon. It is from the 1974 Royal Commission into Gambling, Western Australia.

In Canberra, in front of Old Parliament House (also known as the Museum of Democracy) is the First Nations' Tent Embassy, established in 1972 by four Aboriginal activists who wanted to draw attention to the plight and inequality of Indigenous Australians.

Following Queensland Labor Premier Anna Bligh’s announcement that a state election would take place on March 24, the two Socialist Alliance candidates issued a joint statement. Mike Crook, who will contest the seat of Sandgate, and Liam Flenady, who will stand in South Brisbane said on January 27: “The major parties in the upcoming Queensland election stand for the neoliberal status quo. What the people really need is a radical transformation of the system.”

About 200 people rallied and marched to mark Invasion Day on January 26. Several speakers noted that sovereignty had never been ceded by the Aboriginal people to the British colonisers, nor to the Australian government. They stressed the need to continue to support Aboriginal rights, to campaign against Black deaths in custody, to oppose the Northern Territory Intervention and to pay back Stolen Wages. Speakers also emphasised the mobilisation in Canberra to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Aboriginal Tent Embassy occurring that day.

The Darwin Asylum Seeker Support and Advocacy Network released the statement below on January 27. * * * Four genuine refugees, one Rohingyan and three Tamils, are currently left rotting in the Northern Immigration Detention Centre as a result of negative security assessments from the Australian Security and Intelligence Organisation (ASIO). The men cannot be deported to their home country and are unlikely to find a third country in which they can reside.