Workers are being put in harm's way and the Australian Unemployed Workers’ Union and Living Incomes for Everyone want that to change. Isaac Nellist reports.
Issue 1318
News
A social housing estate in Sydney's Inner West run by Mission Australia was put into hard lockdown on September 2, without the residents being given any warning. Rachel Evans reports.
The Socialist Alliance will contest the Newcastle City Council elections, with a focus on affordable housing and real climate action. Kathy Fairfax reports.
The North Parramatta Residents Action Group does not agree with relocating Willow Grove and is accusing the NSW government of using COVID-19 to desecrate the site. Susan Price reports.
Climate activists disrupted, locked on to and boarded a seismic testing ship in the port of Geelong on its way to search for new oil and gas deposits off the coast of King Island. Sue Bull reports.
A large zoom rally called for more Afghan refugees to be accepted and for permanent visas for refugees living here. Chris Slee reports.
Given the long-running United States' blockade on Venezuela, activists are raising money for a childcare centre there. Chris Slee reports.
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission cartel case against the Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union ACT and secretary Jason O’Mara has collapsed. Jim McIlroy reports.
Wangan and Jagalingou senior cultural custodian Adrian Burragubba is demanding that the government respect their rights.
Sex workers have welcomed the Queensland Labor government's intention to decriminalise sex work, reports Alex Bainbridge.
Hundreds of Afghan-Australians marched to the steps of Parliament House in Adelaide to demand the federal government lift the country's humanitarian intake of refugees trying to flee Afghanistan. Kerry Smith reports.
Frontline health workers say the system is “on the brink” as a result of underfunding. Green Left interviewed Maya*, a student nurse, who has been forced to take on a critical role.
The federal government is not off the hook as UNESCO's World Heritage Committee will again vote on whether or not to put the Great Barrier Reef on the “in danger” list next year. Margaret Gleeson reports.
After a heroic effort by the Darwin community, the last family of refugees was freed from unjust detention. But they are not stopping there. Pip Hinman reports.
Jim McIlroy reports on a week of actions against the proposed Kurri Kurri gas plant.
Seven thousand Transport Workers Union delivery drivers took 24-hour strike action on August 27 after talks between the union and Toll collapsed. Alex Salmon reports.
Uncle Kevin Buzzacott, an elder of the Triabunna people in the Lake Eyre region of far northern South Australia, is campaigning for Santos and other gas companies to be prevented from destroying country. Renfrey Clarke reports.
The Socialist Alliance will field two long-term activists for the Victorian Senate on People and Planet before Profit platform, reports Chloe DS.
Activists were treated to an early-morning raid by an anti-terrorist outift for chalking a protest sign against oil and gas giant Woodside Energy, reports Chris Jenkins.
A huge rally demanded the federal government extend its humanitarian visa program for asylum seekers from Afghanistan and grant permanent protection to refugees on temporary visas. Alex Bainbridge reports.
Anne McMenamin reports on another huge show of solidarity for the Afghan community.
A large a protest called for freedom for Afghanistan, women’s rights, refugee rights and much more support the Afghani community. Susan Austin reports.
Rachel Evans reports on growing community opposition to the proposed redevelopment of Blackwattle Bay.
Analysis
Australia’s already unrepresentative
Peter Boyle argues the federal government's increasingly shrill campaign to lift COVID-19 restrictions and "live with the virus" only serves the interests of big corporations.
The quick collapse of the puppet government in Afghanistan and its army should not come as a surprise given the imperialists' criminal record. Sue Bolton argues that Australia's war criminals need to be held to account.
No matter which landholder you talk to about water troubles in New South Wales, they all blame government failures. Daniel Pedersen reports.
On the 20-year anniversary of the formation of the Socialist Alliance, Peter Boyle reflects on its early days and the left's ongoing challenge to link up with broader forces in a struggle for system change.
A recording of a public forum on left perspectives of the Afghanistan war and aftermath hosted by Green Left and the Socialist Alliance.
Jim McIlroy argues that the lesson of Saigon in 1975 and Kabul in 2021 is that imperialist invasion and domination lead to disaster.
A political response is needed to win people away from those peddling conspiracies, or worse, in the growing so-called “freedom” rallies, argues Alex Bainbridge.
The US-NATO 20-year war on Afghanistan unleashed terrible suffering, including a massive loss of life and the wholesale destruction of the country’s civil infrastructure. Bevan Ramsden argues the Australia-US military alliance must be questioned.
The NSW government's policing-first approach to a complex health emergency has led to its own “social harms” including exacerbating existing prejudices held by police, writes Paul Gregoire.
So many aspects of the debate about how best to keep the community safe from COVID-19 relies on blaming individuals. Sue Bull argues governments prefer to focus on an individual's bad behaviour because it takes the focus away from systemic failures.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison boasts that Australia is rescuing Afghans, resettling refugees and will implement humanitarian programs. However, as Stuart Rees writes, this is cover for cowardice.
While the church hierarchy enjoys access to influence the federal government on its Religious Freedom Bill, those wanting to stay democratic and secular, are left out in the cold. Suzanne James reports.
World
A group of young Afghan women secretly held a press conference in a Kabul suburb on August 28 to launch a new women's movement against the Taliban and present their demands, reports Farooq Sulehria.
The daily Jeddojehad (Struggle), a left-wing online Urdu-language paper is posting reports from Kabul. Filed by Yasmeen Afghan (not the author’s real name), these reports depict picture from inside Kabul and cover what is often ignored in the mainstream media.
The daily Jeddojehad (Struggle), a left-wing online Urdu-language paper is posting reports from Kabul. Filed by Yasmeen Afghan (not the author’s real name), these reports depict the picture from inside Kabul and cover what is often ignored in the mainstream media.
The daily Jeddojehad (Struggle), a left-wing online Urdu-language paper is posting reports from Kabul. Filed by Yasmeen Afghan (not the author’s real name), these reports depict picture from inside Kabul and cover what is often ignored in the mainstream media.
The daily Jeddojehad (Struggle), a left-wing online Urdu-language paper is posting reports from Kabul. Filed by Yasmeen Afghan (not the author’s real name), these reports depict picture from inside Kabul and cover what is often ignored in the mainstream media.
The daily Jeddojehad (Struggle), a left-wing online Urdu-language paper is posting reports from Kabul. Filed by Yasmeen Afghan (not the author’s real name), these reports depict picture from inside Kabul and cover what is often ignored in the mainstream media.
The daily Jeddojehad (Struggle), a left-wing online Urdu-language paper is posting reports from Kabul. Filed by Yasmeen Afghan (not the author’s real name), these reports depict picture from inside Kabul and cover what is often ignored in the mainstream media.
The daily Jeddojehad (Struggle), a left-wing online Urdu-language paper is posting reports from Kabul. Filed by Yasmeen Afghan (not the author’s real name), these reports depict picture from inside Kabul and cover what is often ignored in the mainstream media.
The daily Jeddojehad (Struggle), a left-wing online Urdu-language paper is posting reports from Kabul. Filed by Yasmeen Afghan (not the author’s real name), these reports depict picture from inside Kabul and cover what is often ignored in the mainstream media.
Pakistani leftist Farooq Sulehria interviews Sudaba Kabiri, one of the women who organised the first protest against the Taliban in Kabul.
The tourist industry in Cuba has been hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic and the United States’ economic, financial and commercial blockade, reports Ian Ellis-Jones.
More and more US transnationals have opened up in Mexico over the past few decades, taking advantage of unfair trade agreements, super-exploitative labour conditions and cheap utilities, reports Tamara Pearson.
Indigenous peoples are mobilising in huge numbers against a proposal to open up their lands to mining and agribusiness, reports Felipe Goldman Irony.
The COVID-19 pandemic has worsened global food insecurity. An estimated 132 million more people have been tipped into acute malnutrition since the pandemic began, writes Barry Healy.
We cannot trust capitalism to do what is necessary to avoid runaway climate change, argues Barry Sheppard.
As a tsunami of crocodile tears engulfs Western politicians, Afghanistan's history is suppressed, writes John Pilger.
Afghan Women’s Mission co-director Sonali Kolhatkar spoke with the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA) about the unfolding situation on the ground.
The belief by liberal feminists in the ostensibly feminist nature of the imperialist interventionist project headed by the United States and its European allies is false, writes Yanis Iqbal.
As some of the world’s wealthiest countries move closer towards fully vaccinating their populations against COVID-19, there could not be a starker contrast when looking at countries in the Global South, writes Ben Radford.
Green Left’s Pip Hinman spoke to Shayaan, a member of the Solidarity Party of Afghanistan about the situation on the ground in the country.
Culture
Not content with f#%*ing our planet, billionaires are now competing in a self-indulgent race to f#%* space, while thousands die of COVID, writes Helchild.
Mat Ward takes a look back at August's political news and the best new music that related to it.
The primary inspiration for The Red Deal was the People’s Agreement of Cochabamba, adopted at the World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth in 2010, writes Simon Butler.
Barry Healy reviews Every Brilliant Thing, a new play from Black Swan Theatre in Western Australia.
French journalist Valentin Gendrot spent two years infiltrating the French police. Barry Healy reviews his disturbing account.