One of Tony Abbott’s first acts as Prime Minister was to announce a Royal Commission to “shine a spotlight” onto the so-called “dark corners” of the trade union movement. The commission would expose the criminality and impropriety that allegedly blights Australia’s trade unions.
Led by former High Court Judge John Dyson Heydon, the Royal Commission into Trade Union Governance and Corruption officially began in February 2014.
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There are more people today who have been displaced by war, poverty and climate change than at any point in recorded history. The current number of refugees has exceeded those displaced by World War I and World War II combined.
A new study by world-renowned climate scientists says the Earth entered a new epoch around 1950, following a population boom and widespread environmental change due to increased use of concrete, aluminium, plastic, burning coal and gas and nuclear fallout.
They argue that the planet has now left the Holocene epoch that existed for the past 11,700 years — the period in which human civilisation has developed and flourished — and entered a much less stable geological epoch called the Anthropocene.
Key Liberal and National party electorates support a switch to 100% renewables by 2030 and a global moratorium on new coalmines, according to new ReachTEL polling commissioned by The Australia Institute.
A moratorium on new coalmines received between 50% and 57% support by voters in the seats of Dickson, held by Peter Dutton; New England, held by Barnaby Joyce; Warringa, held by Tony Abbott; and Page, held by Kevin Hogan.
More than 300 people braved rain on January 11 in a last ditch attempt to save a Tamil family from deportation to Sri Lanka.
Neelavannan Paramanathan and his wife Suganthini fled Sri Lanka in 2008 in the midst of the civil war. They sought asylum in Australia in 2012, and settled in Ballarat with their three daughters in 2013.
There is no guarantee of their safety if they return to Sri Lanka, as violence against Tamils continues. There is well-documented evidence of harsh treatment and human rights abuses by the Sri Lankan government and military.
Melbourne's Oromo community rallied on January 3 as part of a world-wide action in solidarity with the Oromo student protesters currently leading the #OromoProtests movement in Oromia, Ethiopia.
Forest firefighters employed by the Victorian Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning (DELWP) have been battling the Andrews government for recognition as emergency services workers.
Hundreds of the firefighters, who work in state forests and national parks, are paid $12 an hour less than a first year forest firefighter employed by other fire agencies for doing the same work and are denied equal levels of death and disability insurance.
Protesters gathered outside the Queensland State Executive on December 30, angry at yet another incident of violence against an Aboriginal child in the custody of the state.
Denzel, an 11 year old boy, had been severely bashed in juvenile detention. His family is demanding an urgent inquiry into the state brutality, and that Denzel be released back to them and to safety.
What was the central message of the December 20 Spanish general elections, which was “won” by the governing conservative People's Party (PP) of Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy with only 28.72% of the vote, 3.6 million votes less than the last national poll in 2011?
Why did the opposition Spanish Socialist Workers Party (PSOE) greet its worst ever result —22.01%, 1.4 million votes less than 2011 — with a sigh of relief?
The United Nations has a strict definition of the term "refugee," whereby you are only a refugee if you are fleeing war or persecution of some kind.
The circus is over. The suits have left Paris after the November 30-December 12 UN climate talks (COP21). There have been millions of words written about the text. But one fact stands out. All the governments of the world have agreed to increase global greenhouse gas emissions every year between now and 2030.
Why? Because all the countries have agreed to accept the promises of all the other countries.
Below is the speech given by Socialist Alliance member Dave Holmes to a Melbourne meeting and concert to mark the founding of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). About 400-500 people attended the November 28 event organised by the Kurdish Association of Victoria at the Kurdish House centre in Melbourne’s Pascoe Vale.
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