As the Australian economy begins its “recovery”, economic and social indicators show the recession has disproportionately affected working people and the poor. The rich are just getting richer.
Analysis
Antonio Gramsci, an Italian Marxist, was an important contributor to Marxist theory with his idea of “hegemony”.
Australia has one of the highest rates of asbestos-related disease in the world. Asbestos kills and goes on killing for generations. The Australian Council of Trade Unions estimates that by 2020, 30,000 to 40,000 people in Australia will have contracted an asbestos-related cancer.
Not in so many words, mind you — frankness has rarely been the strong suit of News Corporation journalists and editors. The editorial in question, published in Rupert Murdoch’s Australian on September 10, argued in support of carbon capture and sequestration (CCS): in other words, “clean coal”.
The following Socialist Alliance statement was distributed at the “Switch off Hazelwood” power station protest in Victoria on September 12 and 13.
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With seven boatloads of asylum seekers intercepted in September, Australia’s Christmas Island detention centre is fast filling up. It now holds 677 detainees.
More and more people accept that we need emergency action to achieve a safe climate. The Copenhagen Summit in December will be a dramatic opportunity for governments to show whether or not they are prepared to be part of the solution.
“If you don’t give a shit, that’s what you get”, was a favourite chant of striking Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) city campus staff at their picket lines on September 16.
The problem is obvious to anyone who uses public transport — in Sydney or any other major city in Australia. Public transport networks, designed in the 1940s, are straining to service growing cities.
Eighteen-year-old South African athlete Caster Semenya has done nothing wrong. Yet she has been accused of deceiving the world about her gender. There is nothing wrong with Semenya’s body. Yet her body has been paraded in front of the world by the mass media as if she were a sideshow freak.
Over September 12-13, more than 400 people travelled to the Hazelwood coal-fired power station in Victoria’s Latrobe Valley to send a clear message: “Switch off Hazelwood, switch on renewables.”
The following sign-on statement asks people to join and/or support the Climate Camp protests at the Port Augusta power stations in South Australia from September 24 to 27. To add your name visit climatecampsa.org.
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