WA teachers reject concessions
By Anthony Benbow
PERTH — WA teachers have rejected a pay deal offered to them by the education Department on March 31. Teachers have been enforcing bans on unpaid out-of-hours work since the start of the
Issue 183
News
By Pip Hinman
Australia will be well remembered for its role at the two-week climate conference in Berlin. With the so-called left winger Senator John Faulkner at the helm, the Australian delegation collaborated with a handful of rich countries
Coogee women's pool saved
By Sarah Peart
SYDNEY — An anti-discrimination tribunal on March 31 dismissed as "vexatious" and "frivolous" against the Randwick and Coogee Ladies Swimming Club and the Randwick Council over McIver's Baths
Deal proposed on radioactive waste
A leaked letter from South Australian Premier Dean Brown to Prime Minister Paul Keating reveals that the SA government is attempting to trade its opposition to a radioactive waste repository at Woomera for a
By Anthony Benbow
PERTH — The latest public sector cuts announced by the Court Liberal government are the most direct attacks so far on working people, and on our right to organise and fight for better work conditions. Behind the somewhat
Support for Steel-Line Doors strikers
By Bill Mason
BRISBANE — Some 200 people attended a Multicultural Night to Support the Steel-Line Doors Workers at the Trades and Labour Council Building on April 7. Organised by the Central American
By Lisa Macdonald
Activists from the environment, women's, solidarity and workers' rights movements will be gathering at a Marxist Education Conference in Perth over the Easter weekend, April 15-17.
This conference, the first of its kind in
No fees campaign launched at Newcastle
By Alex Bainbridge
NEWCASTLE — Confirmation from the vice chancellor of Newcastle University, Raoul Mortley, that up-front fees are to be increased, as well as reports of the introduction of fees for
Kraft strike in sixth week
By Alana Kerr
MELBOURNE — Seventy-three members of the Electrical Trades Union and the Automotive, Food, Metals and Engineering Union have entered their sixth week of an around-the-clock picket outside Kraft's
Meeting supports sexuality bill
By Leon Harrison
PERTH — On April 4, 25 members of Perth's gay community met with Australian Democrat Sid Spindler to support his proposed bill to outlaw discrimination on the grounds of sexuality.
Victorian hospital jobs under threat
By Seetal Dodd
MELBOURNE — Jobs and job security are under threat at the Austin and Repatriation Medical Centre, formed in a recent amalgamation between Heidelberg and Austin hospitals in Melbourne's
By Lisa Macdonald
Two weeks ago, the ALP, Coalition and Australian Democrats voted themselves a windfall totalling over $15 million.
The Commonwealth Electoral Amendment Bill (No. 2) 1994, passed by the Senate on March 30, was a deal
By Peter Webster
SYDNEY — Social Security workplace delegates from all over NSW attended the Combined Delegates Conference (CDC) at the Community and Public Sector Union's Sydney Office on March 27 and 28.
Important issues discussed
World
By Ladislas Niyongira
[This article first appeared in the Rwandan newspaper Kinyamateka. An entire edition of the paper has been translated into French and English by the organisations Reporters Sans Frontieres and World Media Network and is
DITA SARI, general secretary of the Indonesian Centre for Working-Class Struggle (PPBI), came to Australia on the invitation of the Perth International Women's Day Collective and spoke at the IWD rally on March 11, where she highlighted the plight of
By Maire Leadbeater
AUCKLAND — The first structure to go up on the site of the occupied "Moutoa Gardens", now renamed Pakaitore Marae, was the traditional entrance gate. Tribal leaders assured the puzzled people of Whanganui, an attractive
By Tim Dauth
JOHANNESBURG — "Consolidate and advance": these are the tasks, delegates to the South African Communist Party Gauteng regional congress here decided on March 18-19. The congress recognised that the immediate task is to address the
In the light of the recent talks in Ireland, the British Labour Party have put forward a proposal to devolve more powers to Scotland. SARAH STEPHEN was recently in Scotland and spoke to SHONA ROBINSON from the Scottish Nationalist Party.
What is
By Boris Kagarlitsky
MOSCOW — Kazakhstan President Nursultan Nazarbaev has always stood out among political leaders in the former Soviet Union for his skill at manoeuvring in quickly changing situations. As a Communist Party official of Kazakh
By Renfrey Clarke
MOSCOW — Millions of workers throughout Russia are expected to join in job-site protests and street demonstrations on April 12, as the country's main labour federation mounts a day of action "against the worsening of the
The 130 islands of French Polynesia extend over 2.5 million square kilometres of ocean, and include coral reef systems in various states of health. There is little scientific information available on many of these reefs, but it's obvious that reefs
Abu Mazen poised to take up PNA post
By Karen Farrell
Declaration of Principles chief architect Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) will finally assume his role as head of the Palestinian Negotiations Supervisory Committee, according to an
Culture
Blowout Comb
Digable Planets
EMI
Reviewed by Zanny Begg
Digable Planet's 1993 release Reaching (a New Refutation of Time and Space) was unforgettable. It had a catchy, slick beat. But what made the album really stay in your mind was its
The Drilling Fields
SBS, Tuesday, April 18, 8.30pm
Reviewed by Norm Dixon
This graphic documentary details the dreadful environmental vandalism that oil multinational Shell has visited upon the Niger delta region in southern Nigeria and the
Lesbian Sex
By the ACON Women's Team 1994 (Women and AIDS Project & Glidup)
Reviewed by Kath Gelber
"This booklet is for anyone who identifies as a woman and who has sex with other women", proclaims the first line in this informative
Studs Terkel's Chicago
SBS, Thursday, April 20, 8.30pm
Reviewed by Norm Dixon
Studs Terkel is one of the United States' most celebrated radical writers. In his long life he has been a gangster (at least in radio soap operas), a DJ, a
Links: International Journal of Socialist Renewal
Issue number 4
New Course Publications
Reviewed by Salim Muktar
While the promise that the New World Order would usher in an era of peace lies in tatters, the claim by neo-liberal
Poor Super Man
By Brad Fraser
Sydney Theatre Company's New Stages
Wharf 2, Sydney, until April 29
Reviewed by Peter Boyle
Q: Have you heard the rumour that Superman was gay? His obituary in the November 20, 1992, Sydney Morning Herald
By Bronwen Beechey
MELBOURNE — The short film, a poor relation of cinema for years, is experiencing something of a resurgence. Films like Ana Kokkinis' Only the Brave have won international awards and cinema distribution. Some of the more
United States: Essays 1952-1992
By Gore Vidal
Abacus, 1994. 1295 pp., $19.95 (pb)
Reviewed by Phil Shannon
Gore Vidal has, for most of his 70 years, been writing novels, plays, essays and journalism in a brave attempt to hold back the
Australia 1995
By John Tomlinson
As we woodchip our way towards a forest policy,
setting up bilby abattoirs in Pitjantjatjara country,
our journalists inquire of highly paid bankers
whether we should put up interest rates
in order to
Rob Roy
Starring Liam Neeson, Jessica Lange, John Hurt, Tim Roth and Eric Staltz
Directed by Michael Caton-Jones
Reviewed by Barry Healy
Robert Roy MacGregor was a Scottish clan chief whose life, mediated through a great romantic book by
Not Necessarily Stoned
Society
Through Disculture
Reviewed by Norm Dixon
This terrific little CD single, by Sydney-based band Society, came as a pleasant surprise when I popped it onto my stereo. Two extended tracks focus on issues that
Editorial
Business as usual in NSW
The election of Labor right-winger Bob Carr to the NSW premiership has hardly created a ripple. The unanimous view, it seems, is that the Carr government's policies won't deviate significantly from those of its Coalition