Dave Riley

Australian unionists have a wealth of experiences to draw on in the fight against the Howard government’s Work Choices legislation. Lessons can be drawn not just from the historic victories and defeats of the union movement in this country, but also from the experiences of working-class struggles in other countries.
For Margarita Windisch, an anti-war leader and one of the organisers of the G20 protests in Melbourne, the “Hey, vote for us! We’ll sort it all out!” attitude of the two major parties is not only condescending, it is increasingly falling on deaf ears. This is because the major parties have not, and cannot, “sort it” to meet people’s needs, she said.
Queensland Murris (Indigenous Australians) and their supporters marched on the state parliament on October 10. In a protest called to coincide with the first sitting day of the newly elected Labor government, the 600 demonstrators confronted Premier Peter Beattie with the demand that senior sergeant Chris Hurley be sacked.
The report handed down by Queensland deputy coroner Christine Clements on September 27 found that Palm Islander Mulrunji not only died in police custody on November 19, 2004, but died at the hands of the arresting police officer.
Australia has the most concentrated media ownership in the Western world. Nonetheless, the new media bill passed by the Senate on October 12 will further relax ownership regulation and allow the media barons to operate in two out of three media sectors — print, radio and television.
In a damning report released on September 27, Queensland’s acting state coroner, Christine Clements, has criticised the initial investigation into the 2004 Palm Island death in custody of Mulrunji, saying that it failed to meet appropriate guidelines. Clements also found that Senior Sergeant Christopher Hurley caused Mulrunji’s death and accused the police of failing to investigate his death fully.

I was thinking that I wasn't as up as I should be with core Australian values. Here we have folk in the know like that Costello bloke going on about them , when I myself are a bit in the dark in that department. How so? I guess I'm taking a lot

Back in March, the Green Left Weekly email discussion list had touched 500 subscribers, The list is now approaching 700 subscribers. While all subscribers don't necessarily read all posts and attention to the exchanges varies, this nonetheless

Back in March, the Green Left Weekly email discussion list had touched 500 subscribers, The list is now approaching 700 subscribers.