The age of entitlement might be over for some, but the spooks are not among them. There are six security and intelligence services in Australia, the largest of which is the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO).
In 2004, it was getting by with 700 staff and a budget of $150 million. Now it has a staff of 1780 with a budget of $600 million at their disposal.
1022
What does it say about Australian politics when a mining billionaire who rides around in a Rolls Royce becomes the people’s champion in parliament?
The Palmer United Party (PUP), formed and largely funded by Clive Palmer, continues to disrupt the two-party game played by most politicians and their media supporters.
To them, the PUP is “maverick”, a label that fits after Palmer’s outburst this week about “communist” China trying to “take over” Australia.
Recent months have seen repeated and unprecedented attacks on the unemployed and other income support recipients, with the federal budget and McLure and Forrest Reviews proposing cuts to payments for job-seekers, restricting access to the Disability Support Pension, and expanding Work for the Dole and income management.
But there are signs of resistance. Pas Forgione from the Anti-Poverty Network SA spoke to Owen Bennett, who set up the Australian Unemployment Union.
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What is the Australian Unemployment Union and what are its goals?
The release of up to 150 children under the age of 10 from residential detention is not a humanitarian move by the government, in case you were wondering.
Immigration minister Scott Morrison claimed that issuing bridging visas to 150 children and their families to live in the community was a “dividend of stopping the boats”.
The National Union of Students (NUS) organised a national day of action on August 20 against the federal government's changes to tertiary education.
Students were protesting against the proposals in the federal budget that would lift the cap on fees, increase interest on HECS loans, and make changes to Newstart and Youth Alowance.
Up to 700 people joined the protest in Sydney. Students marched from the University of Technology, Sydney to Town Hall.
Students stopped the march on George St and burned a cardboard effigy of Pyne.
The recent media attention given to the case of “baby Gammy” — the child of an Australian couple born to a surrogate mother in Thailand, and left in her care by his parents allegedly because he was born with a disability — has led to suggestions that rules around surrogacy should be changed.
The rates of surrogacy in Australia are very low. In 2011, only 80 women volunteered for it, the Sydney Morning Herald reported on August 10.
Venezuelan ambassador to Egypt, Juan Antonio Hernandez, said on August 20 that an Israeli aircraft attacked the Venezuelan humanitarian delegation in Rafah along the border post between Egypt and Palestine, Venezuela Analysis said the next day.
The delegation was delivering 12 tons of aid to the Palestinian people. No one was injured during the attack.
Protesters took to the streets of Melbourne on August 16 to condemn human rights abuses by Saudi Arabia and to call for the release of Shia cleric Ayatollah Nimr Baqr al-Nimr, who has been sentenced to death by crucifixion and beheading for calling for religious freedom in the kingdom.
Saudi Arabia is both an absolute monarchy and a theocracy. The regime promotes a Wahhabi interpretation of Sunni Islam, notorious for narrowly defining Islam and intolerance toward other beliefs.
The National Tertiary Education Union at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) took strike action on August 20 after negotiations with UTS management around an enterprise bargaining agreement (EBA) stalled.
Staff and students held a picket line at the city campus and asked students and staff to turn away and respect the picket. The action was held to coincide with the National Day of Action called by students against the federal government’s proposed education cuts.
The Venezuelan government has released images of the “Hugo Chavez” shelter, where incoming Palestinian child refugees of the Israeli assault of the Gaza Strip will be housed, Venezuela Analysis said on August 16.
President Nicolas Maduro made the pledge last month to shelter Palestinian children who were orphaned and wounded as a result of the conflict, Venezuela Analysis said on August 16. Israel's ongoing assault has killed more than 2000 Palestinians, mostly civilians.
“Hyperactivity around security legislation is unprecedented,” Professor Jude McCulloch told a public forum in Melbourne on August 21.
"Between 2001 and 2007 when Howard was defeated, the parliament passed 44 anti-terror laws – one every seven weeks.
“Many legal experts have withdrawn from talking about this because of the difficulty of remaining an expert in this field. The basis of these laws is the politics of fear. The neoliberal government has nothing to offer on education, welfare and health. If a problem can be militarised, it will be militarised."
A vibrant student march against the federal government’s education cuts hit the streets of Newcastle on August 20.
At least half of the 180 protesters were high school students who had walked out of classes, some in defiance of threats of detention and suspension, to join the protest.
Year 12 student at Hunter School of Performing Arts Marianela O’Brien told Green Left Weekly that she joined the protest because “when Tony Abbot went to uni he had free education so why can’t my generation have the same?”
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