The future of childcare services in Australia has been brought into question by the financial collapse of ABC Learning, the largest childcare provider in the country.
Analysis
Workers across Australia are working longer hours, for less pay and with more job insecurity. These are the findings of a report released on October 29 and prepared by the Workplace Research Centre at the University of Sydney.
Concern about the threat of climate change and environmental destruction has probably never been higher. Opinion polls consistently show that a big majority of Australians support serious action on climate change and a move away from an economy based on the burning of fossil fuels for energy.
“We’re a listening government”, said Verity Firth, the NSW education minister and Labor MP for the now marginal seat of Balmain, when announcing the abandonment of the plan for a takeover by Sydney University of Callan Park in the heart of her electorate.
Given the Earth’s atmosphere and its oceans are a closely interlinked natural complex, steeply rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide are having dramatic impacts on the seas as well.
Palm Island Aboriginal man Lex Wotton was sentenced to six years’ jail for “riot with destruction” on November 7 — just four days after 22 police officers received “bravery awards” for their role in the 2004 Palm Island protests.
Morris Iemma and Michael Costa crashed out of NSW politics because they tried to ignore overwhelming public opposition to electricity privatisation.
In their first venture into local government elections, Geelong Socialist Alliance candidates Chris Johnson, Bronwyn Jennings and Lisa Gleeson are letting a fresh breeze into the stuffy room of Victorian municipal politics.
Many environmentalists believe that environmental destruction is a product of overpopulation, and that the world is already full up. So are population reduction strategies essential to solving the climate crisis?
In a double whammy for working parents, last week finance minister Lindsay Tanner indicated that paid maternity leave was in doubt as ABC Learning childcare centres went into voluntary administration.
John McCarthy, a veteran socialist and Queensland doctor, died at home on November 1 after a long struggle with cancer.
“Rats are loathsome beasts”, Paul Syvret of the Murdoch-owned Brisbane tabloid, the Courier Mail, remarked in his October 6 column. “Throughout millennia they have carried disease, pestilence, despoiled foodstuffs and caused untold misery.”
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