Analysis

Victoria's severely stressed public housing system is under threat from the state's Liberal government, with cutbacks and sell-offs being discussed under the guise of “reform”.

And the winner is: solar power. Residents in the South Australian town of Port Augusta have voted overwhelmingly for solar over gas to replace the town’s coal-fired power stations. The result, announced on July 22, was 4053 votes for a concentrating solar-thermal power plant, 43 for gas. In the end, 98% of voters favoured solar. The result is testament to newly-formed local group, Repower Port Augusta, whose dedication ensured that almost one-third of residents voted, an impressive outcome for the voluntary exercise.

The antics of Gina Rinehart and Clive Palmer have served as a useful foil for Labor. They're like caricature capitalists lifted from a comic book. Attacking them has given Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Treasurer Wayne Swan the opportunity to make up for their earlier capitulation on the Rudd mining tax with a bit of populist rhetoric, while letting BHP and Rio Tinto just get on with it.

The ALP has narrowly held on to the Victorian seat of Melbourne despite a swing to the Greens in the July 21 by-election. Greens candidate Cathy Oke won the highest primary vote, getting 36.5% to ALP candidate Jennifer Kanis’ 33.4%. But distribution of preferences gave the ALP 52% and the Greens 48%. The Greens’ vote increased by 4.6%. The Liberals did not run in the election, although a Liberal Party member running as an independent won 4.7% of the primary vote.

Nuclear fission is an innately dangerous process – and the nuclear industry’s record of handling the dangers has been well short of perfect. Traditionally, that’s been enough for the environment movement to reject nuclear energy. Climate change, though, subjects this established position to an important challenge. The final death toll from the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, by some estimates, could reach hundreds of thousands. But a full-scale climate disaster could kill most of humanity − thousands of millions of people.

A 100 second compilation on the question 'what does socialism mean to you?' from participants at the Resistance national conference in Adelaide, held from July 20 until July 22.

A nuclear war using as few as 100 weapons would disrupt the global climate and agricultural production so severely that the lives of more than a billion people would be at risk, according to research released in April by International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War and its Australian affiliate, the Medical Association for Prevention of War.

A team of progressive activists has formed an independent “Housing Action” ticket to run in the September 8 council elections in the City of Sydney. The united platform “Decent housing is a human right” is a further step towards practical unity between independent socialists and members of the Communist Party of Australia (CPA) and the Socialist Allliance (SA). The team has come together to challenge City of Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore’s pro-corporate development stance. It is also championing public housing and human rights over pro-development and big business.

The obvious question posed by Labor's recent attacks on the Greens for being dangerous extremists is: who the hell keeps asking Paul Howes for his opinion?

Australia’s spy agencies are seeking to drastically expand their powers to spy on Australian citizens online and through social media. They are also hoping to collect and keep the phone and internet data of all individuals for two years. Some of the proposals appear to be broad enough to allow whistleblowing groups like WikiLeaks to be directly targeted.

The world's super-rich have hidden between US$21 trillion and US$32 trillion of their wealth in various tax havens around the world, according to a new study by the London-based Tax Justice Network (TJN), a collection of tax experts and economists advocating the end of secrecy and tax evasion.

The recent attacks on the Greens by notable Labor Party figures over the refusal of the Greens to compromise on offshore processing of asylum seekers represents a new low for the Labor Party. The attacks by assorted Labor right-wingers are predictable, but most disappointing was Labor Left Senator Doug Cameron’s criticism, outrageously accusing the Greens of being responsible for asylum seekers dying because of their “purist approach”.