Australia

  • Qantas agreement favours Joyce

    After unilaterally locking out the Qantas workforce in October, grounding the fleet and leaving workers and travellers stranded, Qantas CEO Alan Joyce has been handed a positive outcome by the federal government’s Fair Work Australia (FWA). Joyce’s lockout resulted on October 30 in FWA terminating the legal, protected industrial action that Qantas unions had voted for, rewarding Joyce’s industrial sabotage.

  • The Tent Embassy 'debacle' from a protester’s POV

    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.

  • Qld election: socialist candidates call for radical change

    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.”

  • Software engineer tries to chip away at globalisation

    Last year, software engineer LN Rajaram started Lokalex, a project aimed at “reversing globalisation” in Chennai, India. Green Left Weekly’s Mat Ward spoke to him about it. * * * What’s your background? I was born in a village in Tamil Nadu, India, in 1949, but grew up in the streets of Mumbai, the finance capital of India.

  • ANZ urged to cut pulp mill finance

    Friends of the Tamar Valley released the statement below on January 25. * * * Between 40 to 50 people gathered outside the Launceston branch of ANZ on January 25 as part of a coordinated series of rallies urging the bank to provide no further financial support for Tasmanian logging company Gunns Ltd’s controversial Tamar Valley pulp mill.

  • Pokies politics: how good intentions were derailed

    Tension around pokies reform came to a head on January 21 when Prime Minister Julia Gillard broke her agreement with independent Tasmanian MHR Andrew Wilkie to implement timely reforms to address problem gambling. Wilkie subsequently withdrew his support for Gillard’s minority government and noted he would “only support motions of no confidence in the event of serious misconduct and not support politically opportunistic motions”.

  • 150 asylum seekers on hunger strike at Pontville detention centre

    The Refugee Action Collective released the statement below on January 24. * * * Frustrations over the immigration department’s reneging on promises of community detention and bridging visas for long term detainees have spilled over to the Pontville detention centre in Tasmania. Around 150, more than half of the Afghan asylum seekers at the detention centre, are now involved in a hunger strike. The asylum seekers have been in detention between 15 and 33 months.

  • Protests to pressure ANZ on pulp mill finance

    Friends of the Tamar Valley released the statement below on January 24. * * * ANZ branches around the country will be targeted tomorrow by the community seeking to halt Tasmanian logging company Gunns Ltd’s controversial Tamar Valley pulp mill. ANZ Bank is due to make a decision about extending a debt facility to Gunns at the end of the month.