Analysis

Could the government’s proposed Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS) get any worse? The unfortunate answer is yes. It can, it has already and it’s likely to get worse still before parliament ends for the year.

Freddo Frog charge A 12-year-old Aboriginal boy in living in Northam in regional Western Australia was charged with stealing a Freddo Frog chocolate. He was told he would face court over this matter. The worse part of this story is that he did

The Australian Human Rights Commission has condemned income management — a key plank of the Northern Territory intervention — as racist, in a report released on November 13.

The brutal nature of the Rudd Labor government’s “Indonesian solution” to deal with asylum seekers was revealed on November 15 when the Indonesian coastguard fired upon a boat carrying 61 Afghan asylum seekers headed towards Australia. Two of the passengers were shot and injured.

Justine Kamprad is a co-convenor of the Fremantle Socialist Alliance, and was the campaign director for the October 17 Fremantle City Council elections, in which socialist Sam Wainwright was elected with 33.44% of the vote.

For environmentalists, Indigenous rights activists, feminists, socialists and all progressive people, Latin America is a source of hope and inspiration today. The people of Venezuela, Cuba, Bolivia, Ecuador and El Salvador, among others, are showing that radical social change is possible and a better, more just society can be imagined and built.

On October 6, BHP Billiton and the South Australian Department for Correctional Services announced a new agreement allowing the company to employ prisoners from Port Augusta at Olympic Dam — the world’s biggest uranium mine.

In 2004, the Coalition government, with Labor support, banned marriage for lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transgender and intersex (LGBTI) people. This year, the Greens introduced the Marriage Equality Amendment Bill to federal parliament, to try to overturn the ban.

Most people reading or hearing the news story last week about the 12-year-old Aboriginal boy who was taken to court in Western Australia (WA) and charged with receiving stolen goods — a 70 cent chocolate Freddo — would have thought this was a sick joke.

Earlier this year, South African track athlete Caster Semenya was vilified in the international media for allegedly having both male and female biological characteristics. People with such characteristics are known as “intersex”. Green Left Weekly’s Farida Iqbal spoke to Gina Wilson from the Organisation Intersex International (OII) about Semenya and intersex politics.

Well known author and environmentalist Clive Hamilton recently announced he will stand for the Australian Greens in the December 5 by-election for the seat of Higgins in Melbourne.

Many Queenslanders assume abortion is legal, since 14,000 terminations occur every year in the state.