Thailand's unelected, anti-democratic and illegitimate Constitutional Court has staged a coup d'etat, overthrowing Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra on a mere technicality in a May 7 ruling. It claims the elected prime minister did not have the right to replace a government official.
1008
Community anger at a proposal to cut the minimum wage from $16 to $12 an hour has fuelled large Labour Day turnouts across Queensland on May 4 and 5.
About 30,000 marchers from dozens of unions packed Brisbane streets, joining thousands of others in activities in Queensland cities and towns.
Queensland Council of Unions President John Battams said this week’s federal Commission of Audit recommendation to cut the minimum wage by 25% was a disgraceful attack on working people.
“This will not be a budget for the rich or the poor; it will be a budget for the country,” Prime Minister Tony Abbott said in his April 28 speech to the Sydney Institute, a privately funded “public affairs forum”.
He must think we are total fools.
Why else would a government that supposedly plans to introduce a budget that is “not for the rich” ask Tony Shepherd, former president of the Business Council of Australia (BCA), to conduct a pre-budget “audit” of government spending?
About 10,000 workers walked off building sites in Brisbane on May 5 and rallied outside Parliament House. They were protesting against the Campbell Newman government’s changes to industrial legislation affecting workplace health and safety.
They also called for the return of the Labour day public holiday to May. The Monday after May 1 had previously been a public holiday celebrating workers' rights, but one of Newman’s first acts after being elected was to move the holiday to October.
The federal Commission of Audit's proposal to cut the minimum wage would create an underclass of US-style "working poor" in this country, the Australian Council of Trade Unions says.
The ACTU said on May 5: "The plan to aggressively drive down the minimum wage would see its real value fall to its 1998 level of $12 an hour.”
It is utterly galling to hear the leader of the federal Labor opposition criticising the government for proposing a “new tax” in the form of a modest and temporary “deficit levy” on taxpayers in the highest income bracket.
“Tony Abbott, Australians do not want your tax increases full stop,” Labor leader Bill Shorten said at a May 7 press conference.
Well, here we are at the halfway mark. It’s been about eight weeks since Alcoa announced it was shutting up shop in Geelong and there’s a little over eight weeks before workers are tossed out the gate for good.
But where are the announcements from the state and federal governments or Alcoa about how they will address the economic black hole and job losses in Geelong?
A racist rant by billionaire Donald Sterling, owner of professional basketball team the Los Angeles Clippers, was broadcast on national TV last month, sparking widespread discussion lasting weeks.
Sterling's views eclipsed another racist rant that got national attention just before that by Nevada rancher, Cliven Bundy.
For years, Bundy has grazed his cattle on land in Nevada owned by the federal government. Normally, the government charges a modest fee for such practices. But Bundy, who holds far right views, has not paid that fee for years as he does not recognise the government.
"Understanding the history of the CPA [Communist Party of Australia], and labour history more generally, is vital for activists here and now who want to change the world,” Sarah Gregson, labour historian and unionist from the University of NSW, told a book launch at the Resistance Centre on May 6.
“We generally face similar issues now as then.”
A three-day photo exhibition at Fremantle's Victoria Hall brought the human rights crisis gripping Sri Lanka to a wider audience.
"Sri Lankan Genocide 2009" exhibits images taken by various photographers documenting the months before and after the massacre of more than 40,000 Tamil civilians by the Sri Lankan Army in May 2009.
It is amazing, really, what with money being so tight these days, that there are people who seem to think we should be entitled to access a government minister for free!
It is a wonder anyone is upset that Treasurer Joe Hockey has been revealed selling meetings to businesses when he has made it perfectly clear time and time again: the age of entitlement is over!
This was a speech given to a Refugee Action Coalition forum in Sydney on May 5.
***
I am in Year 11 at a school in Sydney’s inner-west, and like many other high school students, I care about refugee and queer rights, as well as for the rights of women, the rights of Aboriginal Australians and the environment. I am also an activist for all of these things.
From what I've seen, many students support refugee rights and I've found few people my age who oppose them. But I've got into many stupid arguments about refugees with older people.
- Previous page
- Page 2
- Next page