Analysis

Like all wars, the “price war” between the two big supermarket chains — Woolworths and Coles — has its casualties. It is in the countryside and ordinary households that the toll is being counted, not in the profits of the two giant corporations.

It can seem like there is nothing but bad news in this country sometimes. Corporations are shedding jobs, governments are slashing spending and Essendon went down to Collingwood by one fucking point on ANZAC Day.

Jackie Kriz, an Australian Nurses Federation delegate from Geelong, will be the special guest speaker at Sydney’s annual Green Left Weekly May Day dinner, where she will share her experiences of the Victorian nurses’ remarkable victorious campaign and some of the lessons we can learn from it.

Socialist Alliance gay and lesbian rights spokesperson Rachel Evans spoke in Sydney on April 24 at a rally calling to free accused WikiLeaks’ source Private Bradley Manning from prison in the US, where he is being held in solitary confinement. The protest was part of an international day of protest for Manning, who faces a court martial and possible life in prison if convicted. Evans’ speech is below. * * *

In his excellent discussion piece in the lead up to the recent Climate Action Summit in Sydney, climate activist David Spratt concluded: “The problem is now so big, and the scale and urgency of the solutions required so great, that it is impossible to talk about them within the current public policy frame. “The business and political spheres have horizons too narrow and too limited in time to be able to deal with the challenges and complexities of global warming.”

For weeks, Labor Prime Minister Julia Gillard and treasurer Wayne Swan have focused on one thing: using the coming federal budget to prove that they are “good economic managers”. But good managers for who? The Labor government is determined to deliver a surplus and cut public debt at the cost of more public sector jobs, services and cuts even to the meagre welfare support for single parents.

Twiggy could dodge tax for five more years Billionaire Australian mining tycoon Andrew Forrest boasted on May 3 that he may pay nothing in tax for the first five years of the federal Labor government’s new Mining Resources Rent Tax (MRRT), which comes into effect in July.

The Victorian Liberal government has taken to the state’s public sector with a razor blade and announced huge cuts in the 2012 budget. Victorian TAFE institutes in particular will be hard hit. GippsTAFE chief executive officer Peter Whitely told ABC Radio that his institute faces a loss of 10% of its operating budget. TAFE courses that are not in high demand are expected to be slashed.

Historians will look back at this year’s two parliamentary inquiries into marriage equality as the beginning of the end of the religious right’s disproportionate influence on Australian politics. On April 13, the Senate marriage equality inquiry announced it had received 75,000 submissions with 44,000 or almost 60% in favour.

A case of the unspeakable, to paraphrase Oscar Wilde, in pursuit of the unsinkable? It is actually rather fitting that the multi-billionaire mining “magnate” Clive Palmer should be drawn to the idea of recreating the ghastly Titanic experience.

Sydney’s May 1 rally, called by the NSW Farmers Federation to “Protect our Land and Water” from coal seam gas (CSG) and irresponsible mining, represented an incredible diversity and unity from communities across NSW. Organisers said 8000-10,000 people took to the streets, making it easily the biggest action to stop CSG to date in Australia.

About 50 supporters of the “Max Brenner 19” — Melbourne Palestine solidarity activists being prosecuted in the wake of a protest in July last year — gathered outside the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court on May 1 to show their support for the defendants at the beginning of their trial. One of the defendants, Jerome Small, read out a statement on behalf of the accused. The statement appears below. * * *