Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s imminent $90,000 pay rise is more than twice the estimated median wage of all Australian full-time or part-time employees, aged 15 years or over. More than half of all Australian workers have a yearly pay packet smaller than the PM’s expected pay rise.
The $40,000 pay rise expected for backbenchers will also be more than the total wage of many Australian workers.
Analysis
The phrase “organise, don’t agonise” has become a bumper sticker, a popular slogan in the feminist movement, the title of many speeches, conferences and newsletters. African-American civil rights activist Florence Rae Kennedy coined the term. Gloria Steinem quoted her in Ms magazine in 1973.
Since then, this powerful slogan has circumnavigated the world many times — used by many activists and movements.
It has lasted because the slogan reasonates strongly with the condition of the oppressed, exploited and persecuted.
WikiLeaks releases The Spy Files - exposing uncontrolled mass spying.
The State of Surveillance | TBIJ
WikiLeaks won the 2011 Walkley award for the “most outstanding contribution to journalism” on November 27. The Walkleys are annual awards for excellence in Australian journalism. In giving the award, the Walkley Foundation said WikiLeaks had “shown a courageous and controversial commitment to the finest traditions of journalism: justice through transparency.
Friends of the Earth, the Inland Rivers Network, the Nature Conservation Council of NSW, the Central West Environment Council, Fair Water Use Australia, the National Parks Association of NSW and The Wilderness Society Sydney released the joint statement below on November 28.
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Seven environment groups have described the draft Murray-Darling Basin Plan released today as a monumental failure for the rivers and the communities that depend on them.
Elders from the remote Northern Territory Aboriginal community of Ramingining, East Arnhem, released the statement below on November 28.
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Today, Elders of the remote NT Aboriginal community of Ramingining are shocked and angered by last week’s announcement that the fundamentally destructive measures of the intervention will be extended for another 10 years.
Just a few days before his appeal hearing over his extradition to Sweden over sexual assault allegations, which many believe may be a prelude to Assange’s extradition to the US on espionage charges, WikiLeaks won a stunning victory for citizen journalism and a free press when it took out the 2011 Walkley award for most outstanding contribution to journalism.
The Socialist Alliance released the statement below on November 25.
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The federal government, through its “Stronger Futures” bill and associated legislation, seeks to lock in “intervention mark II” — for 10 years.
“Gillard and Abbott fly in and out of Afghanistan under heavy protection from harm. Both curry political advantage from the khaki vote. The rest of us see young Ozzie lives ripped apart without any obvious gain to ordinary Afghans. Let the pollies go and fight their own useless war …”
“Dan51” from Sydney, who made this comment under a November 22 Sydney Morning Herald article, is part of the majority (64% in the November 21 Essential Poll or 72% according to Roy Morgan), who want Australian soldiers out of Afghanistan.
After months of relentless propaganda by mining companies and the corporate media, the idea of taxing the super profits of the big mining companies remains a popular measure. Recent Essential Research polling said 51% support such a tax (up from 50% since July 2010). Opposition to it rose from 28% to 33%.
The ban on marriage between persons of the same sex is an assault on the basic human dignity of same-sex attracted people. It subjects them to a damaging social stigma, a new report by the American Psychiatric Association (APA) has now recognised.
The document surveys 10 recent psychiatric studies that explore the consequences of the marriage ban on test-samples of thousands of everyday people.
Tahrir (“Liberation”) Square in Cairo was the birthplace of hope for millions if not billions of people this year. It was here that the Egyptian people launched a mighty democratic revolution, writes Peter Boyle.
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