The Australian mainstream media publishes a “substantial amount” of articles critical of the scientific consensus on climate change, says a report from the Australian Centre for Independent Journalism. The report has found that Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp publications have a high rate of climate change scepticism, which leaves a large section of Australia without information on climate change science.
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Unity negotiations between Australia's two largest socialist organisations, the Socialist Alliance and Socialist Alternative, ended after the latter's National Committee decided on October 26-27 that the unity process had “reached an impasse and consequently we are for ending the negotiations with the Alliance”.
Over the past few months there were tactical disagreements between the two groups over how to advance the movements for the rights of asylum seekers and for women's liberation.
It was nice of former prime minister John Howard to let us know he was still alive and spending his politician's pension wisely by flying to Britain to give a talk insisting the threat of climate change was “exaggerated”.
Howard gave the keynote address at the Global Warming Policy Foundation on November 5. The foundation was set up by climate “sceptic” and former chancellor in Margaret Thatcher's government Nigel Lawson.
There is one obvious answer to the climate change crisis that is rarely up for discussion — the government has to take the lead with a huge green public investment drive.
About 100 Aboriginal people and their supporters gathered at Hyde Park fountain in Sydney on November 1 to protest against the continued desecration of Aboriginal sites across NSW by coal and coal seam gas mining companies Boggabri Coal, Whitehaven Coal and Santos.
The rally was organised by Gomeroi people from Gunnedah in north-west New South Wales. People of all ages were present, from young children to elders.
Steve Talbott spoke to the crowd informing them of the cooperation between the state government and mining companies.
Unionists at the Woolworths warehouse in Barnawartha, northern Victoria, have won an 8.3% wage rise and other benefits after an eight-day strike that ended on November 1.
The 350 members of the National Union of Workers (NUW) went on strike on October 25 due to pay rates much lower than Melbourne employees doing the same job. A NUW statement said management had offered a raise of 74¢ per hour for Barnawartha workers, compared to $1.04 for Melbourne employees.
Members at the Barnawartha warehouse already earned $203 a week less than workers in Melbourne.
Under the guise of “law and order” and protecting the community from “criminal bikie gangs” Queensland Premier Campbell Newman has passed new laws that have implications for the civil rights of the wider community.
The Liberal-National Party used their majority to rush the laws through parliament on October 17. The Vicious Lawless Association Disestablishment Bill, Tattoo Parlours Bill and the Criminal Law Amendment Bill specifically target bikies.
In mid-October, principals in Victorian public schools told their staff they had been instructed to identify underperforming teachers and education support staff (ES staff) by the end of that month.
These staff members would not immediately be told they were underperforming, but would only receive a letter in March next year informing them they would not receive a pay rise. Some staff might even be fast tracked out of the profession.
The government told principals that between 20% and 40% of staff were to be identified as underperforming.
This is the Lucky Country, right? The Lucky Country that escaped the recession after the global financial crisis. The Lucky Country where a mining heiress’s wealth grows by $650 a second. Where banks break new profit records, year after year.
Not so “lucky” for some though.
An ongoing Roy Morgan survey found 2.41 million people in Australia (19.3% of the workforce) were unemployed or underemployed in October. An estimated 1.33 million (10.7% of the workforce) of these were unemployed.
In December last year, a pink-haired complex systems researcher named Brad Werner made his way through the throng of 24,000 earth and space scientists at the Fall Meeting of the American Geophysical Union, held annually in San Francisco.
This year’s conference had some big-name participants, from Ed Stone of Nasa’s Voyager project, explaining a new milestone on the path to interstellar space, to the film-maker James Cameron, discussing his adventures in deep-sea submersibles.
If you were asked to pick a TV network in Spain least likely to be occupied and managed by its workers, you would probably choose Radio and Television Valencia’s (RTVV) Channel Nine.
Worker control over this mouthpiece for the corrupt People’s Party (PP) government of Valencia would seem about as likely as worker control of Australia's Nine Network. Yet, at the time of writing, in response to a bid to close down the station, RTVV Channel Nine is being run by its employees.
Young Socialist Alliance and Resistance activists and their collaborators will be heading to Brisbane over December 13-15 for the education conference “How to make a Revolution”. Green Left Weekly spoke to some of those that plan to attend about what they hope to get out of the conference.
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