Issue 770

  • What role for socialists?

    In the two years that have passed since the Socialist Alliance’s fifth national conference, the Australian political terrain has shifted a lot.

  • Protest against Afghanistan war

    The seventh anniversary of the US invasion of Afghanistan was marked by a protest calling for the withdrawal of all foreign troops, organised by the Stop the War Coalition (StWC) on October 7. More than 100 people participated. Featured speakers

  • Speak-out for human rights

    The Canterbury Bankstown Peace Group (CBPG) is organising a speak-out at Paul Keating Park, Bankstown, on October 18 to demand respect for human rights. Mamdouh Habib, a member of CBPG, is still fighting for the Rudd government to investigate the

  • Labor MP joins Greens

    The Queensland Greens now have their first MP in the state parliament, after Ronan Lee, ALP member for Indooroopilly, announced on October 5 that he was defecting to the Greens. Lee won his seat from the Liberal Party in the Labor landslide of

  • Activist misses out on award

    A Students Against the Pulp Mill organiser, Gabby Forward, was a finalist in the "Junior Hero" category of news.com.au's Green Awards. Announcing the winner on September 23, presenter Axle Whitehead described it as "the hardest category to

News

  • Who's Australia's worst environment minister?

    On September 15, Resistance kicked off our competition to determine who is Australia’s worst environment minister. Resistance members in Melbourne headed down to 50 Lonsdale Street to present Gavin Jennings, Victoria’s environment minister, with the illustrious award of Australia’s Worst Environment Minister.

  • TAFE students outraged

    On October 7 a group of students from Chisholm, Bendigo, Kangan Batman and Victoria University TAFE campuses demonstrated their opposition to proposed TAFE reforms at Parliament House. Their cries were for education for everyone, not just the rich.

  • Abortion reform passed in Victoria

    After much debate, mounting pressure from the Catholic Church and attempted legislative amendments, the Victorian Abortion Law Reform Bill was passed unamended by the Victorian Upper House on October 10.

  • Vietnam PM to visit Australia

    An official visit to Australia by Vietnam’s Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung, beginning October 13, is aimed at boosting economic and trade relations between the two countries. Australian companies have direct investment projects worth more than US$1 billion in the country Australia once invaded alongside US forces.

  • Climate emergency: no more business as usual

    On October 10, 200 people attended “This is an emergency: an introduction to the real science of global warming”. The public forum was also the official launch of a new environmental organisation in Adelaide, the Climate Emergency Action Network (CLEAN).

  • Industrial cops target building workers

    Noel Washington, vice-president of the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) Victorian branch, has been charged by the Australian Building and Construction Commissioner with new offences under the Building and Construction Industry Improvement Act.

  • Devil in the detail for NSW public servants

    Trade-offs agreed to by the NSW Public Service Association (PSA) are now coming to light, weeks after the union signed off on a 12% pay rise — 4% a year for three years — on September 17.

  • Epic kayak journey takes petitions to Garrett

    Carrying the views of thousands of people who oppose the construction of a dam on Queensland’s Mary River, Steve Posselt will kayak from Brisbane to the Sydney office of federal environment minister Peter Garrett to deliver their petitions.

  • Unionists to visit Saharawi Camps

    Ron Guy and Garry Holliday, trade union activists with the Australian Workers’ Union (AWU), and Margarita Windisch, a member of the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA) and Socialist Alliance candidate for the Maribyrnong council elections, will be part of a delegation attending the 6th congress of the Western Saharan trade union UGTSARIO.

  • Workcover under attack

    On October 8, around 500 workplace delegates and occupational health and safety representatives attended a meeting called by the Victorian Trades Hall Council (VTHC).

  • 'Shame, Anna, shame!'

    Public sector workers across Queensland demonstrated in large numbers on September 30. Public servants are seeking a minimum 5.1% annual pay rise, simply to keep pace with inflation.

  • Voices from Venezuela book launched

    “It is important that this book is being released at this time. It allows us to better understand the reality of the Venezuelan revolution”, Nelson Davila, Venezuelan Charge d’affaires, told a meeting in Wollongong on October 4. Davila was launching Voices from Venezuela: Behind the Bolivarian Revolution, a new book by Green Left Weekly correspondents Jim McIlroy and Coral Wynter.

  • Garnaut final report met with protest

    Professor Ross Garnaut delivered his final report on impacts of — and responses to — climate change to Australian federal and state governments on September 30.

Analysis

  • Sydney's transport crisis: build railways, not roads

    There has been intense media speculation on the fate of New South Wales infrastructure plans following the “discovery” of a supposed $20 billion dollar “black hole” in the NSW budget, announced by departing treasurer Michael Costa on September 5.

  • Banks are bastards

    The Reserve Bank (RBA) of Australia announced on October 7 that they would cut the official interest rate by 1% — the largest single cut since 1992 — in response to the US financial crisis.

  • From Clarrie O'Shea to the ABCC - the struggle for union rights

    The campaign against the jailing of tramways union leader Clarrie O’Shea, in Melbourne in May 1969, for refusing to pay fines imposed under the infamous anti-union penal powers of the time is rich with lessons for today’s campaign against the Australian Building and Construction Commission’s (ABCC) witch hunt of construction unionists.

  • Methane study reveals serious new climate threat

    Millions of tonnes of the potent greenhouse gas methane have apparently begun leaking from the seabed beneath wide areas of the Arctic Ocean, the British Independent reported on September 23.

  • Write On: Letters to the Editor

    In defence of civil liberties Colin Mitchell's article, "Terror trial: criminalising speech", and the column of the Socialist Alliance, "We won't be silenced by terror laws", (both GLW #769), on what has been happening pursuant to Australia's

World

  • Afghan war: Unwinnable, unjust — end it now!

    Britain’s most senior military commander in Afghanistan, Brigadier Mark Carleton-Smith, told the British media about the US/NATO occupation of Afghanistan that “We are not going to win this war”.

  • A guide to the Wall Street meltdown

    Many people are understandably frustrated when they try to make sense of the world financial crisis based on what they read in mainstream newspapers.

  • Peruvian government in crisis

    Peru’s entire cabinet tendered their resignations to President Alan Garcia on October 9 in the wake of a corruption scandal involving kickbacks in return for oil contracts.

  • United States: Boeing workers strike

    More than 26,000 members of the International Association of Machinists (IAM) working at Boeing commercial plants in the US began strike action on September 6. The strike, which was supported by 87% of IAM members, followed Boeing’s insistence that a new contract include significant contract concessions. Boeing offered only an 11% wage over three years increase to workers; Boeing’s lowest paid workers receive just US$10 an hour.

  • Mumia Abu Jamal: Fall of the House of Capital?

    The below October 1 article was written by Mumia Abu Jamal, a political prisoner currently on death row in a US prison. Mumia is a radical African American journalist and activist who has been wrongfully imprisoned since 1981 over the shooting of a police officer. He writes weekly columns from death row. For information on his case, and to get involved in the campaign for his freedom, visit http://freemumia.com.

  • Need versus greed: a different kind of nationalisation

    “The idea that markets were always right was mad”, right-wing French President Nicolas Sarkozy stated, according to a September 29 Businessweek.com article. “The all-powerful market that always knows best is finished.”

  • John Pilger: The fall of Mbeki — the hidden truth

    The political rupture in South Africa is being presented in the outside world as the personal tragedy and humiliation of one man, Thabo Mbeki. It is reminiscent of the beatification of Nelson Mandela at the death of apartheid.

  • West Papuans demand their freedom

    “The right of self-determination is important because it’s part of the pure principle of democracy”, Jacob Rumbiak, foreign affairs co-ordinator of the West Papua National Authority (WPNA), explained to Green Left Weekly during the national conference of the Australia West Papua Association (AWPA) on September 13-14.

  • World indigenous people's meeting in Venezuela

    On October 8, Prensa Latin reported that the Second International Congress of Indigenous People of America (Abya Yala) had begun in the Venezuelan state of Zulia, focusing on imperalism. The multi-national event, to be run until October 12, will also debate topics related to the strengthening of Indian-American peoples sovereignty.

Culture