Analysis

Former Queensland Labor cabinet minister Gordon Nuttall was sentenced to seven years jail on July 17. He was found guilty of corruptly receiving secret payments from two Queensland businessmen.
The national ALP Conference was held in Sydney from July 30 to August 1. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s speech on the opening day of the conference was full of congratulatory remarks about the greatness of his party and the way the ALP federal government had handled the economic crisis.
We’ve heard it all before — especially those of us who can remember the rhetoric of the Hawke and Keating governments. A little pain now and everything will be much better for everyone in the long run.
I met Eddie Spearritt in the Philharmonic pub, overlooking Liverpool. It was a few years after 96 Liverpool football fans were crushed to death at Hillsborough Stadium, Sheffield, on April 15, 1989. Eddie’s 14-year-old son, Adam, died in his arms.
A national campaign calling for same-sex marriage called Equal Love has been running for five years and has attracted growing support. Its focus is to shift public attitudes to gay and lesbian relationships through a campaign involving education and direct action protests.
More than three months after a fatal explosion on an asylum seeker boat, only one new detail has come to light: Northern Territory police still have not formally identified the five people killed from the blast, ABC Online said on July 18.
For Pacific Islanders, climate change is not a threat looming somewhere in the future. Rising sea levels and unpredictable weather are having devastating effects right now. Climate change has already forced some communities to leave their traditional homes.
On July 15, elders left the remote Aboriginal community of Ampilatwatja for more remote ancestral lands. They were protesting a dire lack of basic services in their community, despite repeated government promises to “close the gap” and end Aboriginal disadvantage.
On August 11, Ark Tribe, a member of the South Australian Branch of the Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU), will appear in court charged with refusing to answer questions from the Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC).
International students are big business in Australia. Enrolments peaked at a record 543,898 and generated $15.5 billion in export income in 2008.
On July 21, Access Economics released its forecasts for the Australian economy. It predicted Australia was through the worst of the recession.
The Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) hosted a forum on the jobs crisis in Sydney on July 20. The Jobs Summit: Pathways to Recovery brought academics, economists and trade unions together to discuss the effects of the global financial downturn on working people, and solutions to the resulting jobs crisis.