Analysis

“If changing the f****** leader would change f****** government policy to support the f****** 99% instead of the f****** 1% then we’d be f****** interested in this f****** soap opera!” This tongue-in-cheek Facebook status that I posted on February 21 ended up sparking a bit of political discussion. It expressed what a lot of ordinary people were thinking as round two of Kevin Rudd versus Julia Gillard came to a head.

On an oppressively hot Sunday afternoon on February 19, I visited the Villawood detention centre in Sydney’s west, a suburban prison for up to 400 refugees and asylum seekers. At the centre, in the same compound as the maximum-security “Blaxland centre” that holds male refugees, is the Sydney Immigration Residential Housing facility. Six children live with their refugee families in a small row of simple single-storey homes, replete with CCTV, ever-present guards and a spiked fence.

The Socialist Alliance released the statement below on February 23. * * * The Australian Council of Social Service (ACOSS) is running a campaign to raise the pittance that the unemployed are expected to live on — $243 a week on the Newstart Allowance — by $50 a week.

The Nyoongar Tent Embassy in Perth released the statement below on February 19. The statement was authored by embassy spokesperson Robert Eggington. * * * [Aboriginal warrior from the Nyoongar] Yagan stated: “You came to our country — you have driven us from our haunts, and disturbed us in our occupations. As we walk in our own country we are fired upon by the white man; why should the white man treat us so?”

There is a big story the media is missing and it must only be matter of time before a Murdoch tabloid splashes it on its front page. ABC News reported on February 19 that three queue-jumping boat people had escaped from a camp in Darwin. But the left-wing Bolshevik Gillard- and/or- Rudd-loving national broadcaster is hiding the true story!

More than 400 people crowded into a lecture theatre at the University of Technology Sydney on February 17 for a public forum, “Don’t shoot the messenger: WikiLeaks, Assange and Democracy”. The forum was organised by the Support Assange and WikiLeaks Coalition.

More than 400 people crowded into a lecture theatre at the University of Technology Sydney on February 17 for a public forum, “Don’t shoot the messenger: WikiLeaks, Assange and Democracy”. The forum was organised by the Support Assange and WikiLeaks Coalition.

More than 400 people crowded into a lecture theatre at the University of Technology Sydney on February 17 for a public forum, “Don’t shoot the messenger: WikiLeaks, Assange and Democracy”. The forum was organised by the Support Assange and WikiLeaks Coalition.

More than 400 people crowded into a lecture theatre at the University of Technology Sydney on February 17 for a public forum, “Don’t shoot the messenger: WikiLeaks, Assange and Democracy”. The forum was organised by the Support Assange and WikiLeaks Coalition.

The NSW Socialist Alliance released the statement below on February 18.

Liberal backbenchers will have a “conscience vote” when a proposal for marriage equality is put to parliament. This puts the equality campaign closer to victory in Australia than it has ever been before. Members of the shadow cabinet, including junior frontbenchers, will still be required to maintain the party position, which will be decided unilaterally by Liberal leader Tony Abbott, and therefore bound to vote against marriage equality.

The federal immigration department has drawn sharp criticism from refugee advocacy groups and Amnesty International for denying that refugee children continue to be held in detention. After Perth refugee activists visited the remote Leonora detention centre and reports emerged that children had been locked up for more than 12 months, the immigration department’s media manager, Sandi Logan, said on Twitter: “Misinformation about kids in detention centres is unhelpful, disingenuous. “As you know, kids are NOT detained in centres.”