Australia’s super-rich keep getting richer.
A new report from Oxfam has found that the top 1% of the country’s plutocrats now own more wealth than the bottom 70%.
There has also been a record rise in the number of billionaires — from 33 to 43 — with their combined wealth now at almost $160 billion last year.
Staff at the Rorkes pub in Darwin walked off the job on January 22 after refusing to follow the owner’s orders to ban Aboriginal patrons from the premises.
Politicians and bureaucrats have launched endless inquiries in an effort to appear to be dealing with the water crisis in New South Wales. Yet these same bureaucrats have been very slow to implement any of the recommended reforms and few steps have been taken to deal with the mismanagement, water theft and corruption that led to this crisis, writes Elena Garcia.
Crane operator and trade union delegate Howard Byrnes is back working at Botany Cranes, in Sydney's eastern suburbs, after a swift campaign by unionists and supporters got him reinstated.
Implied Consent
February 2, 10, 14, Perth Fringe Festival
The Actor’s Hub, 129 Kensington St, East Perth
An Evening with…
February 3, 8, 16, Perth Fringe Festival
The Actor’s Hub, 129 Kensington St, East Perth
During 2018, a number of hate preachers had uninterrupted access to Australian media outlets to spread their messages of hate and intolerance far and wide. These preachers were able to do so because of the active complicity of sections of the political and media establishment, writes Rupen Savoulian.
The massive Invasion Day marches feature in this week’s activist report along with the latest from the refugee rights campaign and international solidarity with Venezuela
On January 25, Benny Wenda, chairperson of the United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP), handed a petition signed by 1.8 million West Papuans to the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet. The petition called for the United Nations to “put West Papua back on the Decolonisation Committee agenda and ensure our right to self‐determination denied to us in 1969 is respected by holding an Internationally Supervised Vote”.
The petition handover was facilitated by the government of the South Pacific island state of Vanuatu.
The dice have been thrown and the game is on in Venezuela. This week has seen the country enter into new uncertain and dangerous terrain, although with some predictable elements. We have witnessed different variables develop, and now wait for new elements that may catalyse or justify an outcome.
If you want to celebrate January 26 by all means do: just be clear that you are celebrating those with so much wealth power that they will never need, nor want to, invite you to feast with them.
Below are three statements from the Socialist Alliance (Australia), the Socialist Party of Malaysia (PSM) and the Philippines-Venezuela Solidarity (Phil-Ven-Sol).
By Socialist Alliance National Executive
January 24, 2019 — The Socialist Alliance strongly condemns the actions of the United States President Donald Trump in backing an attempted coup against the democratically elected government of Venezuela.
Have those who state that Nicolás Maduro is a dictator, a usurper, and that the 2019-2025 presidential period lacks legitimacy, asked themselves why he is illegitimate? Or do they just repeat what they hear?
Update: Since this interveiw was published by Democracy Now!. President Trump has recognized Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó as interim president, calling democratically elected President Maduro “illegitimate.” In response, Venezuela has cut diplomatic ties with the U.S., giving diplomats 72 hours to leave the country.
Supporters of Venezuela’s pro-poor Bolivarian Revolution rallied outside the United States Consulate in Martin Place, in Sydney’s CBD, on January 23 to demand no US intervention in Venezuela.
The hysterical backlash from the right against Proctor & Gamble’s latest advertisement for Gillette razors, which urges men to be “The best they can be”, has been nothing short of comical. But there is a serious side, writes Pip Hinman.
