Analysis

It is 95% certain that human activity is causing climate change, a new report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) says. The final report has not been released, but a leaked copy of the draft has revealed a stark image of the destructive impact climate change will cause in our lifetimes. -----

At every election since its founding in 2001, the Socialist Alliance has decided preferences on a principled basis, by giving preferences to other parties based on how closely their policies and actions align with its own. This federal election, the Socialist Alliance is running two candidates in the NSW Senate and six candidates in lower house seats around the country. In the NSW Senate, the Socialist Alliance has preferenced Ron Poulsen of the Communist League second, followed by candidates from the Greens and then the WikiLeaks Party and other small progressive parties.

The Socialist Alliance Senate candidates for New South Wales, Jim McIlroy and Reg Dare, spoke to Green Left Weekly about two of the party’s key platforms in this year’s federal election. McIlroy, 67, is a retired public servant and 15-year workplace delegate for the Community and Public Sector Union. He radicalised during the 1960s anti-Vietnam War campaign, and has been involved in the socialist movement for more than 40 years.

The WikiLeaks Party has come under fire for its Western Australia and New South Wales preference allocations for the federal elections, which put right-wing and racist groups ahead of Greens and socialist candidates. WikiLeaks Party senate candidate for Western Australia, Gerry Georgatos, has defended a decision to preference two National Party candidates ahead of Greens Senator Scott Ludlam. Of all Australian parliamentarians, Ludlam has been the most outspoken in defence of WikiLeaks and Julian Assange.

Peter Boyle, Socialist Alliance candidate for the seat of Sydney, confronts the racism of Liberal and Labor, and explains Socialist Alliance's pro-refugee alternative.

Jim McIlroy, the lead NSW Senate candidate for the Socialist Alliance (ticket AM), explains the party's policy in support of workers' rights and union organising.

Student protesters will take to the streets in all capital cities and some major regional centres on August 20. The protests will stand up against the planned cuts to tertiary education by the federal government. Earlier this year, the government announced $2.8 billion in cuts to higher education, via cuts to universities and student welfare services. But the demands will go further than an end to cuts. “Education for all” is one of the demands of the protests. But is a free and accessible education even possible in the age of austerity politics?

The Australian environmental movement is under attack by populationist and anti-immigration forces in a calculated attempt to divide the Green Party vote at the federal election. The Stable Population Party (SPP), the Stop Population Growth Now (SPGN) Party in South Australia and their mother organisation, Sustainable Population Australia, are “green washing” their anti-immigration policies to make them more palatable to the electorate.

We recently suffered the very sad loss of Mick Goldstein. Goldstein was a stalwart of Jews Against the Occupation (JAO), who campaign for the rights of Palestinians. Like Bernie Rosen, whom we lost earlier this year, Goldstein was in the proud Jewish tradition of the international socialist left. The mass participation of Jewish people on the left was largely decimated by the Nazi Holocaust, and lamentably, it has been overtaken by a reactionary Zionism which has now come to dominate Jewish communities around the world. But activists like Goldstein reminded us of what once was.

Rupert Murdoch upset a few people by using the media outlets he owns to campaign for the Coalition in the federal elections, with his Daily Telegraph going so far as to greet Labor PM Kevin Rudd's announcement of an election date with a front page urging readers to “KICK THIS MOB OUT!”

There are approximately 60,000 public and community housing tenants in NSW and about 85% of them are receiving welfare benefits. Several non-government organisations (NGOs) such as Mission Australia are now providing clothing, food, job training and housing to welfare recipients. As more and more public housing gets transferred into the hands of NGOs as part of a push for privatisation, many of the organisations who were traditionally advocating for the poor have now become their landlords. These organisations receive a large part of their clients’ income through their rent assistance.

Before the 2007 federal election, Julia Gillard turned her attention to what the Labor Party needed to do to win back government in a book called Coming to the Party. She said reforming Labor’s factional system was high on the agenda because, “we are no longer talking about factionalism, we are talking about fractionalism – a Party in which almost anyone with a pocket full of votes, often procured in dubious circumstances, believes it is their right to demand something from the Party in return.”