By Peter Boyle MELBOURNE — The dominant Socialist Left faction in the Victorian Labor Party seems irrevocably split in the wake of the June 15-16 state ALP conference. Two days before the conference, an SL general meeting expelled five people
Issue 18
News
By Tom Flanagan HOBART — Churchgoers leaving St Mary's Cathedral on June 16 were confronted by a banner declaring "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone". Gay and lesbian rights activists handed out stones and leaflets protesting
By Stephen O'Brien NEWCASTLE — "It was my job to paint 'Forgacs Floating Dock' over the old name", said Bruce Ryan. Ryan was one of a number of painters and dockers on day seven of the picket line outside the Muloobinba at Carrington, an
SYDNEY — Sixty people demonstrated outside the opening of the new ABC offices in Harris Street on June 22, in an action organised by the Public Sector Union against cuts of at least 500 jobs. A harassed-looking Bob Hawke, there to open the plush
SYDNEY — 100 people picketed the NSW headquarters of the ALP here on June 20 to express their opposition to uranium mining. Requests were made for members of caucus, five of whom were in the building, to address the meeting on how they would vote
By Ron Skinner SYDNEY — Six exiles from Somalia ended a 13-day hunger strike on June 21, after two of the men were granted temporary refugee status. About 34 other asylum-seekers from the strife-torn northern African nation are being held at
By Marit Hegge BRISBANE — On Sunday, June 16, the Queensland Green Network met to discuss the formation of the new national Green Party. Nearly 500 notices were sent throughout the state, and about 40 persons attended the meeting, with
Workers at Vista Paper Products, in the outer Sydney suburb of Emu Plains, continue to maintain their picket 17 weeks after management sacked 70 workers for refusing to work longer hours for less pay and to give up the right to negotiate through
By Steve Painter SYDNEY — About 150 people attended a June 19 meeting in support of 17 Aborigines charged with riotous assembly over clashes with the NSW Police Tactical Response Group (TRG) in Brewarrina on August 15, 1987. The meeting was
By Maurice Sibelle and Karen Fletcher BRISBANE — At a meeting of the Queensland Green Network on June 16, members of the Rainbow Alliance, supported by members of the Australian Democrats and the New Left Party, split the green political
Interview by Debra Wirth The decision by the Hawke government on June 17 not to allow mining at Coronation Hill in Kakadu National Park is a victory for the traditional owners, the Jawoyn, and for the conservation of the region. DEBRA WIRTH spoke
By Lara Pullin CANBERRA — The trial of anti-apartheid activist Kerry Browning has now entered its third week. Browning was originally charged with fire-bombing three cars belonging to US and South African embassies in 1988. After nearly three
By Garry Walters and Peter Boyle MELBOURNE — Premier Joan Kirner's plan to axe 10,000 permanent and 2500 temporary public service jobs — confirmed in her June 19 "share the pain" economic statement — may provoke industrial action. Kirner
World
By Renfrey Clarke What is it called when the leading opposition candidate in an election is excluded from the ballot, despite the express wishes of the legislature? In the Soviet Union today, you might well find it called "democracy" — to
By Peter Annear The unexpected collapse of Communist regimes across Eastern Europe in 1989 is a continuing subject of analysis and debate among politicians of all hues. From Prague, PETER ANNEAR reports in the first of a series. In the early
Three United States GIs who resisted the Gulf War are facing the death penalty at the hands of military courts. Of some 2500 GIs who resisted participation in operation Desert Storm, Erik Larsen, Kevin Sparrock and Corporal Tahan Jones have been
By Sally Low Not only the world's Jewish community were appalled by the pope's declaration in Poland in early June that abortion should be equated with the Nazi Holocaust. Repeated opinion polls have shown at least 60% of John Paul's compatriots,
By Renfrey Clarke A senior Soviet economist and leader of the left wing of the Social Democratic Party, GALINA RAKITSKAYA is involved in the movement for people's self-management in the USSR. She was interviewed in Moscow by Jim Percy and Renfrey
Interview by Andrew Nette In the five years that the Aquino government has held power in the Philippines, wages have declined while prices have skyrocketed. The conditions of the latest IMF loan require further cutbacks in government expenditure
Nuclear power plan for Java Indonesia has selected a unit of Japan's second-largest power company to carry out a feasibility study on a proposed nuclear power project in northern Java, according to news reports. The reports quoted Indonesian
By Renfrey Clarke MOSCOW — Boris Yeltsin will have almost unlimited powers under new government structures recently approved by the Congress of People's Deputies of the Russian Federation. As president, Yeltsin is both head of state and head
By Norm Dixon The claim that Iraq was developing a nuclear weapons capability and ballistic missile technology was one of the major justifications for the US-led war in the Gulf. Yet it has been revealed that the US government turned a blind eye
COLOGNE — Boring! Ordinary! Productive! These were three of the words most used to describe the second leg of the first all-German Green Party's "Neumünster" congress, held here June 8-9.
Culture
By Angela Matheson Happy Days By Samuel Beckett Director Simon Phillips Designer Mary Moore With Ruth Cracknell and Allan Penney Sydney Theatre Company Wharf Theatre Reviewed by Angela Matheson Buried to the waist in sand, Ruth
By Steve Painter Fading Loyalties. The Australian Labor Party and the working class By Andrew Scott Pluto Press. 1991. 74 pp. $6.95 Reviewed by Steve Painter Andrew Scott makes a useful contribution to discussion of the Labor Party, starting
By Debra Wirth Women of Sand and Myrrh By Hanan al-Shaykh Translated by Catherine Cobham Allen & Unwin. 280pp. $14.95 Reviewed by Debra Wirth Four women, whose lives cross at different stages and places, are the narrators of this book.
By Tracy Sorenson State of the World 1991 A Worldwatch Institute Report on Progress Toward a Sustainable Society Project director Lester R. Brown New York, Sydney: W.W. Norton/Allen and Unwin, 1991. 254 pp., $19.95 pb Reviewed by Tracy
By Jacqui Kavanagh Mahlathini and the Mahotella Queens with the Makgona Tshole Band in concert Mbaqanga album released by SBS records Reviewed by Jacqui Kavanagh After 27 years of dominating the South African music scene, Mahlathini and the
By Rod Webb Opera in Italy involves more than music. ROD WEBB reports from Milan. It's 8.15 on the morning of the second 1991 performance of La Scala's favourite opera, Giuseppe Verdi's La Traviata. I have scored sixth place in the queue — la
Editorial
ALP national conference Rather than the slick media event we've become used to in the past decade, this year's ALP national conference is shaping up as a three-ring circus. While the big business media push their campaign for Paul Keating to lead