The morning after the July 2 federal elections, Australians awoke to a still undecided election.
Whether the incumbent Liberal Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull holds on by a slim majority, or is able to form a minority government, or whether Labor under Bill Shorten can form a minority...
Former NSW MP and right-wing powerbroker Eddie Obeid may lose his parliamentary pension of about $120,000 a year after he was found guilty of wilful misconduct in public office.
Obeid faces up to five years' jail for corruption after he was found to have lobbied the then Maritime...
About 200 people rallied on June 26 demanding people charged under section 501 of the Migration Act 1958 be freed and allowed to stay in Australia.
More than 190 people, mostly New Zealanders, have been ripped away from their families and put in prison on Christmas...
The Deaths in Custody Watch Committee (DICWC) has called on all parties contesting the federal election to commit to the establishment of a Custody Notification Service in each state and territory.
The NSW Custody Notification Service (CNS) — the only CNS operating in Australia — is a 24...
Police victim TJ Hickey could be closer to receiving a much sought after memorial.
Brad Hazzard, NSW Minister for Family and Community Services and Social Housing, has told TJ's mother, Aunty Gail Hickey, he is sympathetic to the family's need for healing and would like to see the issue...
On June 26, Hundreds of people rallied against racism in Melbourne on June 26.
Far-right groups True Blue Crew and United Patriot Front organised an Australian National Flag Solidarity Walk at Parliament House in Melbourne that attracted about 50 people.
In response Campaign...
Members of the Bendigo Street housing protest rallied in Melbourne on June 26 to demand affordable public housing and condemn the privatisation of public housing.
Victoria is facing a housing crisis, with more than 25,000 people homeless and 32,000 people on the waiting list for public...
Public housing tenants, led by the Waterloo Public Housing Action Group (WPHAG) and with the support of the Redfern-Waterloo Aboriginal community, have set up a tent embassy at Waterloo Green to resist the destruction of their homes and their community. The Embassy is supported by Aboriginal...
A poll of more than 1400 people commissioned by The Australia Institute and published the week before the election found that 63% oppose the bipartisan policy that refugees who arrive in Australia by boat are sent to off-shore detention centres and will never be settled in Australia.
As...
About 500 people attended a Stop WestCONnex community rally in the inner city suburb of Rozelle on June 26 to call a halt to the project and for an end to federal funding of the controversial tollway.
The rally was organised by the WestCONnex Action Group; No WestConnex: Public Transport...
Grandmothers Against Removals (GMAR) called on June 23 for Aboriginal control of a review recently announced by NSW Family and Community Services (FACS) Minister Brad Hazzard into all Aboriginal children removed from their families in NSW since 2014.
The announcement comes in the wake of...
Protestors blockaded Wilson Security car parks in Sydney and Melbourne on June 27 to mark 100 days of protests by asylum seekers held at Australia's immigration detention centre on Nauru. Wilson has the security contract for detention centres on Nauru and Manus Island.
Activists targeted...
The United Firefighters Union (UFU) has produced a TV advertisement responding to a scare campaign against a new enterprise agreement for firefighters employed by Victoria's Country Fire Authority (CFA). Anti-union forces claim the agreement will damage the CFA and undermine its ability to fight...
A crowd of about 200 attended the Wollongong welcomes refugees rally on June 25. Held during Refugee Week, the rally and march aimed to show support for people seeking asylum in Australia, to call for the closing of all the detention centres, and to let the government know that...
Action for Public Housing (APH) was launched at the Redfern Community Centre on June 24. The launch was addressed by Green Bans movement activists Jack and Judy Mundey, Aboriginal elder Jenny Munro and Associate Professor Michael Darcy. The meeting also watched short videos highlighting...
About 150 opponents of the proposed site of a radioactive waste dump in South Australia's Flinders Ranges gathered on June 24 in Port Augusta to voice their opposition. The federal government has recently shortlisted Barndioota station near Hawker as the site of a national nuclear storage...
A farewell gathering for Venezuelan Ambassador to Australia Nelson Davila was held at the Resistance Centre on June 25. About 40 people attended the event, which was hosted by the Latin America Social Forum (LASF) and the Australia-Venezuela Solidarity Network (AVSN).
Chairperson Fred...
"How do you exaggerate the greatest bleaching event on the planet? How do you exaggerate that one quarter of the world's largest reef is dead? You don't," Tony Fontes, a prominent Great Barrier Reef diver and tourism operator, told a crowd of up to 2000 at Steyne Park, Double Bay, in the heart...
On June 25 a vigil was held outside the State Library of Victoria in Melbourne to pay tribute to the Mexican teachers who were murdered by police during protests organised by the CNTE teachers' union in Oaxaca last week.
The teachers have been rallying against the privatisation of...
The key question about the result of the June 26 Spanish general election is also the most difficult to answer: why did 1.09 million people — who in the December 20 elections voted for the anti-austerity party Podemos, the United Left (IU) and the three broader progressive tickets...
The Congressional, executive and judicial wings of the United State government recently clarified for all — despite Washington's claims to the contrary — that Puerto Rico is a US colony.
A law known as PROMESA was passed by Congress with bipartisan support and signed by President...
Representatives from the CNTE attend talks in Mexico City, June 22, 2016.
A second hours-long meeting between striking teachers and the government in Mexico City wrapped up in the early hours of June 28 as authorities called on unions to end the blockades in the southern state of...
Ten years after the Oaxaca Commune of 2006 — when for nearly six months workers, students, peasants, women, youth, indigenous peoples and urban poor brought the government of the southern Mexican state to a virtual standstill — teachers in the Mexican state are back on the barricades....
The vast majority of British Labour MPs — 81% — and their accomplices in the country's liberal media are attempting a coup against Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.
The veteran socialist MP was elected by Labour's members only nine months ago with the largest mandate ever won.
He won...
Since Britain voted by a narrow margin on June 23 to leave the European Union, England has been hit by a significant rise in incidents of racist and xenophobic harassment and violence in the country.
John O'Connell, from anti-racism group Far Right Watch, told Al Jazeera on June 29 that...
Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams addresses the June 29 rally for Irish unity.
Hundreds of people packed into the Liberty Hall Theatre in Dublin on June 29 as calls for a referendum on a united Ireland continue to grow following Britain's June 23 vote in favour of leaving the...
The following statement by the left-wing, Kurdish-led Peoples Democratic Party (HDP) Co-Chairs was released on June 29:
We condemn the attack in Istanbul, Atatürk International Airport. Unfortunately 36 civilians lost their lives and 147 people were injured as a result of this inhumane...
Rally supporting Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn in Parliament Square on June 27.
Ten thousand people rallied in support of Labour's left-wing leader Jeremy Corbyn — elected leader last year in a landslide vote that marked a rejection of pro-austerity politics — outside of Westminster...
The majority vote by Britons to leave the European Union was an act of raw democracy. Millions of ordinary people refused to be bullied, intimidated and dismissed with open contempt by their presumed betters in the major parties, the leaders of the business and banking oligarchy and the media...
A growing number of local councils and universities are divesting from financial institutions that invest in fossil fuel extraction. This is a great credit to climate change campaigners around the country. It points the way forward towards the even greater shift in investment priorities that we...
Recently Facebook reminded me of a “memory” of an article I posted three years ago. I had said that I was doing the happy dance because we were making progress and were finally being heard.
The article in my Facebook “memory” was from The Australian of June 28, 2013. It said: “...
Tacloban, Leyte, Philippines, after Typhoon Haiyan in 2013. Photo: Tony Iltis.
Millions of people fleeing storms that flood major cities within hours, or intense fires that burn towns to the ground — welcome to a climate change apocalypse. It is not a scene from science fiction...
Refugee rights activist Stephen Langford was at Waverley Court on June 29 facing charges for writing "Omid" on the electorate office of Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull.
Omid Masoumali was a young asylum seeker detained in Nauru who died after he set himself on fire.
After...
The Victorian Labor government has announced an “ambitious and achievable” Victorian Renewable Energy Target (VRET). This target will commit the state to generating 25% of its electricity from renewable energy by 2020, and 40% by 2025.
While details of the VRET are yet to be fully...
"The Coalition government's plan is not only to privatise Medicare, but to destroy it as a universal, national healthcare system," Peter Boyle, the Socialist Alliance candidate for the seat of Sydney, said on July 1. "The plan is based on a form of 'creeping privatisation,' together with...
More than 20 prominent Australians have called for emergency-scale action on climate change in an open letter to the new parliament, published in The Age on June 23. Signatories include business leaders, scientists, a former Australian of the Year and a Nobel Laureate.
The open...
Regardless of which major party, or coalition of parties, forms government after the July 2 election one thing we can be certain of is that the struggle for a people's movement will still be as necessary as ever.
The attacks on our class will not stop; of that we can be sure.
We...
The third annual March to Close all Slaughterhouses was held in Sydney on June 4. The march is part of an international event that began in Paris about 10 years ago.
This event is both a solemn reflection on the abuse and exploitation suffered by millions of animals every day and a...
The Art of Charlie Chan Hock Chye
Presented by Sonny Liew.
Pantheon Books, New York.
322 pages, 2015.
The Art of Charlie Chan Hock Chye is the account of the life of a Singaporean comic book artist who started drawing at the age of 16.
From that point, his work...
Diet of Austerity: Class, Food & Climate Change
By Elaine Graham-Leigh
Zero Books, 2015
Like the author of this interesting book on food and climate change, I have been struck by the way that the question of diet, and in particular meat eating, has become central to...
In this never-ending election campaign, with uninspiring candidates bashing refugees and the most exciting point of note is an ad that indicates the Liberals think tradies where gold watches, there seems little to smile about. So the satirical show Australia Votes 2016, which premiered at the...
Dark Money: The Hidden History of the Billionaires Behind the Rise of the Radical Right
Jane Mayer
Doubleday, 2016
449 pages
Like “dark matter” — the vast amount of invisible mass that holds the cosmos together — “dark money” is the astronomical quantity of...