Socialist Alliance candidate Liam Flenady, who will run in the March 24 Queensland state election, announced the party's key policy pledge on February 4.
The policy said: “Set up a new Queensland State Bank: Provide low-interest loans to householders, farmers and small business. Stop the private banks ripping off the community.”
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State planning minister Brad Hazzard released draft guidelines to regulate NSW wind farms in December. The guidelines allow anyone with a residence within two kilometres to veto a wind power project.
If the guidelines become law, this would put the brakes on the wind industry, as the coal seam gas industry bolts ahead.
Truth and accuracy have never been the highest priorities for the mainstream media. But hysteria and misrepresentation of the Aboriginal Tent Embassy protest in Canberra on January 26 have been taken to an absurd level.
Terms like “mob violence”, “thuggery” and “riot” have been used by journalists and politicians to describe a protest where no one was injured, no property was damaged and no one was arrested.
Activists from Western Australia’s Refugee Rights Action Network traveled more than 800 kilometres from Perth to the remote Leonora detention centre over January 27-29. The journey sought to draw attention to the 160 unaccompanied minors locked up in the detention centre.
Immigration minister Chris Bowen had previously promised that all children would be moved out of detention centres by June last year.
Well, it is only February and one thing is certain: a federal election doesn’t have to be called until as late as November 2013, but the Tony Abbott-led Coalition smells blood and, as far as they are concerned, they are in election mode.
This means if you are dark-skinned, downtrodden or desperate, you had better look out. You are right in the Coalition’s firing line, and just behind them is a desperate Labor government (led, for now, by Julia Gillard) eager to play the futile game of blunting attacks from the right by joining in.
Childhood Under Siege: How Big Business Ruthlessly Targets Children
Joel Bakan
Random House, 2011
277 pages
Parents who read Joel Bakan's new book, Childhood Under Siege, may find themselves un-liking Facebook.
In it, the law professor ― whose previous book The Corporation was made into Canada's biggest-grossing documentary ― describes the effect of the social media giant's applications on his 13-year-old daughter.
Nearly 10 years of a mining boom has made big changes to Australia’s economy and environment. Resource companies have made record profits.
This has given Australia’s rich mining billionaires an inflated sense of entitlement. When the Resources Super Profits Tax (RSPT) was proposed we saw Gina Rinehart speaking to an anti-tax rally from the back of a truck along with fellow billionaire Andrew Forrest, who wore a high-visibility work shirt as though he was just another struggling worker.
Recent national figures published by the Sydney Morning Herald show the rate of youth unemployment in Australia is well above the national average, hitting 17.3%.
The figure is more than triple national unemployment, which stood at 5.2% in December. Almost one in five people aged 15 to 19 and not studying are out of work.
US gangster Al Capone once said: “Capitalism is the legitimate racket of the ruling class.” 19th century US president Thomas Jefferson said: “Banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies.”
These quotes capture the bastard nature of the dangerous racket that is the Australian banking cartel.
See also:
Socialist candidate says fight private bank ripoffs
The statement below was posted on the Observer Tree blog on February 3. * * * Today Miranda Gibson has broken the Tasmanian record for the longest time spent at the top of a tree. Miranda has been on a platform 60 meters from the ground for 52 days, and will remain there to highlight the ongoing destruction of Tasmania’s forests.
The mainstream media’s “impartial and balanced” fig leaves began to slip on January 31, revealing their corporate genitalia for all to see.
Australia’s richest person, billionaire mining magnate Gina Rinehart, had begun buying more shares in Fairfax Media, increasing her stake towards 15% and raising questions about media impartiality.
Fairfax journalists scrambled to report the news, tying themselves in knots over how much to admit about the corporate nature of their media outlets and whether Rinehart could have any influence on editorial input.
February 1 was the day of the most vibrant climate rally seen in Melbourne for some time, with nearly 500 protesters overflowing from the steps of the state parliament house to call on the federal and state governments to revoke their funding of HRL, Victoria’s proposed new coal-fired power plant.
The rally, called by grassroots climate collective Quit Coal, was held principally to influence the federal government, which is currently reviewing HRL’s Howard-era $100 million grant.
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