Analysis

Dr Mona El Farra, Vice President of the Red Crescent Society for the Gaza Strip, answers questions at a forum hosted by Friends of Palestine WA on 4 June 2013 and was part of a national tour by Palestine solidarity groups in Australia.

This issue introduces a few changes that have been made to the look of Green Left Weekly. The front cover logo has been updated and the layout inside has been refreshed. This is a change we’ve been working on since last year based on feedback about how to improve the paper. For 22 years, GLW has remained independent from corporate interests and this has allowed us to expose the lies and distortions of those in power.

Current political campaigns by Queensland trade unions in defence of public sector jobs, to maintain public assets or for education reform would be ruled out under a new industrial relations bill proposed by the Liberal-National government. Should the bill pass, unions would be required to conduct a ballot of members before spending more than $10,000 on any activity that is for a political purpose. The union also has to pay for the costs of conducting the ballot.

The new changes to NSW planning laws proposed by the Barry O'Farrell Liberal government involve "the most significant backward step in public participation and environment protection in more than a generation. They are significantly worse than Part 3A," James Ryan from the Nature Conservation Council told a public forum of about 60 people at Redfern Town Hall on May 27. Part 3A was the infamous law under which the previous Labor state government could override community and environmental concerns in making planning decisions in the interests of big developers.

Aid organisation Oxfam International said this year that the annual income of the world’s richest 100 people would be enough to end extreme poverty four times over. It said the richest 100’s net income — rather than wealth, which is much higher — was about $240 billion last year. Oxfam went on to make some modest demands:

As asylum seekers face years of detention in the Nauru and Manus Island detention camps, where not a single claim has been assessed, the Australian government refuses to answer to scrutiny or calls for human rights oversight. The ABC’s Four Corners and SBS’s Dateline have now tried to investigate the conditions inside each “regional processing centre”. The camps are believed to be abysmal, inadequate and places of widespread physical and psychological breakdown among detainees.

An abridged speech given by the Andrea Glazier at the March Against Monsanto rally in Sydney on May 25.

Australian Workers Union (AWU) leader Paul Howes has taken the offensive to bolster what he sees as a faltering unconventional gas industry. He wants the industry to step up its campaign to stop the federal Coalition and the NSW Labor opposition from “buying the arguments” of an “extremist fringe” on coal seam gas (CSG).

It seems the one thing all Australians can agree on is that they hate Tom Waterhouse. It is not much of a surprise, since anyone watching any sporting event is bombarded with ads for his sports betting business prominently featuring his smiling face.

There is a rising tide of worrying economic news in this country and it highlights once more the need to cut back on unnecessary spending, like allowing single mothers to eat.

This is an edited version of the Socialist Alliance’s agriculture policy adopted in May. The full version can be read at socialist-alliance.org. *** There are approximately 134,000 farm businesses in Australia, 99% of which are family owned and operated, and as of 2010-11 they employ only 307,000 people to manage 417.3 million hectares of land, including the 46.3% of Australia that is marginal land. Any sustainable and justice-oriented agricultural practice needs to place Aboriginal self-determination, empowerment and participation as its framework.

Coalmining company Coalpac Pty Ltd lodged a development proposal with the NSW government in July 2011 to expand its open-cut and high-wall coalmines in central western NSW. The sites are in a proposed extension to the Gardens of Stone National Park and surround the small town of Cullen Bullen. Coalpac’s “consolidation project” involves expanding its Invincible and Cullen Valley coalmines, and building a new quarry in the Ben Bullen State Forest near Lithgow.