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Public discussion during Newcastle’s council election campaign has shifted to the left.
Addressing an assembly of petroleum workers in Zulia on September 5, Venezuelan labour minister Roberto Hernandez explained that the “only way to guarantee the advance of the revolution is with the unity of the working class”.
On September 1, Bolivia’s National Electoral Court (CNE) ruled that it would not allow the proposed December 7 referendum on a new constitution to go ahead.
“The news that nine Australian special forces soldiers have been wounded in Afghanistan — the largest number of casualties since the Vietnam War — reminds us that, as in any occupation, there will be resistance”, Alex Bainbridge, a spokesperson for Sydney Stop the War Coalition (STWC), told Green Left Weekly on September 4.
“Construction unions across Australia are running the Rights On Site campaign against the union-bashing ABCC [Australian Building and Construction Commission].
Protests are continuing against the Victorian state government’s planned desalination plant at Wonthaggi.
Ambre Energy’s proposed coal-to-oil project at Felton, a farming community 30 kilometres from Toowoomba, would be a disaster for the local community and environment, according to the newly formed Friends of Felton group.
The prescription of oral contraceptives to a 14-year-old without her parents’ knowledge has triggered a debate over adolescents’ access to confidential health care. The student of Bellarine Secondary College in Victoria was taken by a school nurse to a doctor, who prescribed the medication.
In the lead-up to last year’s federal election, the then-Labor opposition worked furiously to narrow the policy difference between itself and the Howard government.
On September 2, 20,000 teachers across New South Wales stopped work for two hours.
For construction union delegate Howard Byrnes, who is standing for the Socialist Alliance in the Marrickville council elections, the struggle over the privatisation of electricity, the alarming scientific news about climate change, and Labor’s cuts to services and wages have provided opportunities to talk up the need for a democratic, working-class party.
Young people “are the present … whether we have a future or not depends on what we as young people do or don’t do”, proclaimed student leader and minister for the presidency, Hector Rodriguez, speaking on August 22 to thousands of members of the youth organisation of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela, the PSUV Youth (JPSUV).