Analysis

  • Six reasons to phase out coal exports

    The export of coal is an important issue for climate campaigners to consider. Australia exports more carbon dioxide in the form of coal than its entire domestic emissions of the gas.

  • Letters to the editor

    Howes doesn't speak for me I am an Australian Workers Union member and totally disagree with Howes' article "Give workers a voice in climate change solutions" in the July 24 Age, where he advocates free emissions trading permits for individual

  • How to ease the rent squeeze

    The July 24 Sydney Morning Herald reported Australian Bureau of Statistics figures showing that rents across Sydney had increased by 8% over the 2007-08 financial year, almost twice the rate of inflation.

  • Casino economy destroys super funds

    Millions of Australian workers have faced the worst losses in their superannuation since 1992. Super funds have shown losses of on average 6.4% for the last financial year, with some showing losses as high as 15%, putting workers’ retirement funds in jeopardy.

  • Rev. Helen Cox (1937-2008): passionate advocate for Palestine

    The Reverend Helen Elizabeth Cox died on July 15 after a short illness in hospital in Melbourne. A service was held on July 21 at Doncaster East Uniting Church, and was attended by her extended family, friends and the many people touched by her ministries.

  • Fighting Fund: Waking up from a deadly dream

    Remember the “wealth effect”? Rapidly rising housing and share prices made people feel wealthy and so they borrowed big-time and became big-time spenders, and this supposedly makes for an endless economic boom. Just about every capitalist economist was singing from that cheery song sheet — until recently.

  • Rudd's secret industrial inquisition

    Former PM John Howard’s blandly named Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC) remains under PM Kevin Rudd. It is prosecuting Victorian vice-president of the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU), Noel Washington, who faces six months’ jail for not answering questions about a union meeting.

  • AWU quackery on the aluminium industry and greenhouse

    The Australian Workers Union has many members in the aluminium refining and smelting industry, which accounted for 45.3 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions in 2006 (7.9% of Australia’s total). Obviously, such a major greenhouse polluter — the dirtiest for every dollar of value added — has to be radically restructured if carbon emissions are to be cut to sustainable levels.

  • Islam, racism and women's rights

    A French court has denied a woman citizenship because she wears a burqa — a veil covering the entire body — according to a July 11 Reuters report.

  • Colin Campbell, 1958-2008

    Socialist Alliance and Democratic Socialist Perspective (DSP) member Colin Campbell died suddenly in the early hours on July 17.

  • Unionists to Rudd: 'Where are our rights at work?'

    Labor won the November, 2007 federal election on the promise to “tear-up” Work Choices, abolish the hated Australian Workplace Agreements (AWAs — individual contracts) and overhaul the entire industrial relations system. Of course, all of this was promised to contain ample consultation and be in the spirit of balance.

  • Labour law expert calls for ABCC to be scrapped

    “The ABCC [Australian Building and Construction Commission] should be abolished … and its powers should be subsumed by the Workplace Authority and its successor, Fair Work Australia”, Professor Ron McCallum AO from the law faculty at the University of Sydney told Green Left Weekly on July 22.