The ALP's centenaryIn this, the Australian Labor Party's centenary year, the party has been racked by internal controversy and is on the nose in many parts of its former heartland. This is especially ironic in view of the
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'Invisible' work The national census 6, is designed to give the government a freeze-frame of the Australian population. But in its picture of the labour market, at least 1.7 million women are left out. Women engaged as housewives, farm workers
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Seven myths about public transport Myth 1: Melbourne, like other Australian capitals but unlike most European cities, is a low-density city, and public transport does not work in low-density cities. Fact: There are many cities with densities
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Australia is committed, by the Toronto agreement it signed in 1988, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 20% of the 1988 rate by the year 2005. There seems no way this target could be achieved without a major shift from private
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Claiming that Iraq is hiding materials that could fashion a nuclear weapon, the US government is threatening a resumption of bombing unless the materials are handed over. But how close is Saddam Hussein's government to producing a
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PERTH — The Greens (WA) were unable to discuss prospects for a national green party at their annual general meeting on August 1. Due to a long debate over the group's budget, the meeting went overtime and the booking on the hall
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Tas Greens threaten no-confidence Green Independent members of the Tasmanian parliament reaffirmed on August 1 that they will move a no-confidence motion, which would bring down the Field Labor government, if it tables resource security
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A national teleconference initiated from Western Australia at short notice on July 30 decided to proceed with a top-down process towards formation of a green party, incorporating a NSW proposal for a national
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CANBERRA — Pensioners and beneficiaries risk losing access to and control of their entitlements as a result of moves by the Department of Social Security to allow other agencies to make deductions from benefits. The move is
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Immigration In his article "Dawkins revives Immigration debate" (GLW 10/7/91) Peter Boyle implies that support for migrant welfare and support for the immigration program are equivalent. This is not the case. The real estate sharks strongly support
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What a delightful little fairytale at the National Press Club from the great workers' leader, little Billy Killthem, or Prince Billy as we know and love him. As Prince Billy said, "Once upon a time there was a handsome prince called
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US citizen STUART WAX visited Hiroshima last year, on the 45th anniversary of the atomic bombing. Here he describes his impressions of the Memorial Peace Park. Across the street from ground zero is a huge baseball field. A modern
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SYDNEY — Georgina Abrahams is one of the lesbians who helped organise the conference, "Living as Lesbians — Strengthening Our Culture", held at the University of Technology here July 12-14. Georgina is motivated by her
News
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Juana was repeatedly raped and tortured during her two-year imprisonment in Central America. She is still receiving medical attention for the wounds. Her husband was killed while she was in prison, while her one-year-old
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Rainforest activist jailedPERTH — A local Rainforest Action Group member, Nancy Rolfe, is serving a 60-day sentence for criminal trespass in Sarawak. She was one of eight protesters arrested two weeks ago during a logging
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CHAELUNDI — NSW Forestry Commission operations in the Chaelundi forest were halted at least temporarily on August 1 by the discovery of a rare beech skink habitat in the path of proposed roading and logging operations.
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A call for a national public inquiry into the policy of removing Aboriginal children from their families has been launched by the Secretariat of the National Aboriginal and Islander Child Care (SNAICC). Under the assimilationist
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NEWCASTLE — An estimated 4000 people marched through the city on July 30 to an open air rally in Civic Park in support of Hunter health services. Hospital workers, public servants and the waterfront unions stopped work to
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By Bernie Brian. WOLLONGONG — Southern District coal miners will hold stop-work meetings on August 7 to discuss moves by NSW coal companies to deregulate safety conditions in the mines. South Coast District check inspector Glen Dwyer told
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Story and photo by Kim Shipton SYDNEY — A group of expectant and fully equipped whale watchers left the wharf at Birkenhead Point at 8 a.m. on July 13 hoping to catch sight of humpback whales as they migrated north from the Antarctic to the
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MELBOURNE — Ford Australia announced on August 1 that it would cut about 550 jobs in its Broadmeadows and Geelong plants partly through voluntary redundancies because it was halving its production of Capri sports cars. The Vehicle Builders Union is
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Setbacks for AIDEX By Tim E. Stewart NEWCASTLE — The Newcastle University Students Association at a meeting last week passed a motion opposing the proposed Australian Industry Defence Equipment Exhibition (AIDEX) in November at Canberra. The
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Nuclear-free Brisbane campaignBRISBANE — Hiroshima Day was the launching pad for a public campaign to call on the new Labor-controlled Brisbane City Council to declare the city nuclear free. Brisbane's previous nuclear-free
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BRISBANE — "When I become Lord Mayor of Brisbane there will be no dump in Rochedale." So said Jim Soorley at a fundraising dinner for the campaign against the Rochedale dump in Brisbane several weeks prior to the poll at which
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Qld Aborigines take fight to UNBRISBANE — In protest against the Goss government's land rights legislation, a group of Aboriginal community leaders have organised a trip to the United Nations on behalf of the Queensland
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Tell 'em, Dan! "We're going to have the best-educated American people in the world." — US Vice President Dan Quayle. If they have jobs "People don't object to paying a tax when they buy things. But they resent the high level of tax they have
Analysis
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The bomb and Iraq If a worldwide referendum were held tomorrow, there's little doubt an overwhelming majority of 5.3 billion people would vote for the elimination of all nuclear weapons. The question arises, why can't humanity rid itself of this
World
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MOSCOW — When the draft of a new Union agreement, meant to lay the basis for relations between the Soviet government and the republics of the USSR, emerged on June 17, it provoked intense discussion in the press. But enthusiasm
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WELLINGTON — Workers at the Ashton Rest Home in Marton (a small rural town in the central North Island) are experiencing the exploitative nature of the Employment Contracts Act. Five workers were pressured by the manager of the
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Peter Annear The national question in Czechoslovakia has taken some peculiar twists, among them the sacking earlier this year of the popular premier of the Slovak republic, Vladimir Meciar. PETER ANNEAR concludes a series of reports from Prague
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Middle-class supporters of New Zealand's ruling National Party were hit hard by last week's tough budget. But unemployment is expected to continue growing, and economists are divided as to the future. Already lagging in opinion
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The defeat of the federal army by Slovenia's territorial militia and the July 7 signing of the Brioni Declaration produced a temporary stand-off in Yugoslavia's long-simmering national crisis.
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The South African government's (and Australian media baron Kerry Packer's) secret funding of Chief Mangosuthu Gatsha Buthelezi's Inkatha movement, following revelations of police and military complicity in murderous attacks on
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The Burma Support Group is a Sydney-based group of Burmese and non-Burmese volunteers supporting a free and democratic Burma. A recent "Burma Alert!" dinner and talk raised over $3200, which has been sent to the student camps on the Thai-Burmese
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Burma is rich in natural resources — forests, fish, oil, minerals, gem stones and jade. In 1962, Burma was the world's largest rice exporter and the richest country in South-East Asia. By 1987, Burma had been reduced to
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The Bush administration appears to have succeeded in convincing Israel, Syria and the Soviet Union to participate in preliminary negotiations on Middle East conflicts. However, the Israeli government insists — and the Bush
Culture
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Terra Australis em = By John Queripel [In last week's issue, we accidentally omitted the last line of John Queripel's poem. This is the full text.] It's a bloody big land this Australia With its great wide brown barren plains. For hour after
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Pacific book wins grant AUCKLAND — A book about peace and social, environmental and political issues in the South Pacific is one of the projects awarded grants by the Rainbow Warrior trust fund. Auckland-based Asia Pacific Network was awarded
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New World New Mind: Changing The Way We Think To Save Our Future By Robert Ornstein and Paul Ehrlich Paladin Grafton Books/Collins. 302 pp. $15.95 (pb) ReviewedWhen humanity was a young and hairy species just
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a city at war with itself em = By Phil McManus lights on the hill above the river; even the Romans couldn't site a city this well. neon signs between stone and darkness are like colours in an oil spill. there is beauty hidden in the
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Biospheres: Metamorphosis of Planet Earth By Dorion Sagan Arkana/Penguin. $18.95 (pb) Reviewed"It would be difficult to wax poetic about medical waste, CFCs and carbon dioxide. Yet ... " this is what Dorion
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Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead A film by Tom Stoppard Starring Gary Oldman, Tim Roth and Richard Dreyfuss ReviewedRosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead and nobody cares. But Shakespeare couldn't have
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In print Amnesty International's summer catalogue is now out. Offering a range of progressive apparel from board shorts to T-shirts to sarongs, it also includes a range of other items including cards, kettles, rugs, hammocks and recycled paper