Analysis

  • Rudd's green paper = higher carbon pollution

    Whatever the final detail of the federal government’s carbon emissions trading scheme — the framework of which is contained in the green paper released by climate change minister Penny Wong on July 16 — there’s one thing we can be sure of: it won’t be of much use in cutting Australia’s carbon emissions.

  • Green Left Weekly\'s $250,000 Fighting Fund: No free pollution permits!

    We could see this disappointment coming a mile off. First, Professor Ross Garnaut’s report tells us the global warming problem is dire and demands immediate response, but then, he comes to the diabolical conclusion that we should leave the solution to a dodgy market mechanism: carbon pollution permit trading. Now, the Rudd Labor government’s Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme green paper on this all-important challenge offers to hand the biggest carbon polluting companies free permits to pollute.

  • Desal plant picket shut down

    On July 14, the Victorian police moved in to remove a group of protesters from public land near the site of the proposed $3.1 billion desalination plant in Wonthaggi.

  • The consequences of Miss Universe

    Venezuela has won Miss Universe again. Meanwhile, my friend in Bolivia wrote on her blog that day, “I don’t know if anyone as big as me deserves to be alive”.

  • NSW government: defending the indefensible

    The fact that the NSW Labor government’s World Youth Day laws — which would have made “annoying” Catholic pilgrims during WYD activities a crime punishable by fines of up to $5500 — was a failed attempt to silence criticisms of the Catholic Church was brought home when WYD organiser Bishop Anthony Fisher effectively dismissed criticism of the church’s handling of cases of child sexual abuse by clergy.

  • Working parents need a national paid parental leave scheme

    The Rudd government has asked the Productivity Commission to examine the economic, productive and social benefits of introducing a national paid maternity leave scheme. The Commission has heard submissions from a range of unions, business and community groups, and is due to release its report in February, 2009.

  • Responding to Garnaut: immediate action, not hand wringing

    Arctic sea ice reached a record minimum in the Northern summer of 2007, prompting the revision of scientists’ predictions of how quickly it will melt away altogether in response to global warming — perhaps as early as 2010-13, rather than the hundred years later estimated in the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports.

  • 25 years on — celebrating the saving of the Franklin

    The campaign to stop the damming of the Franklin River in Tasmania’s south-west wilderness resulted in a historic victory for the environment movement in 1983. More than 1000 people came together on July 1 to mark the 25th anniversary of this victory in a night of celebration at the Grand Chancellor’s Federation Ballroom.

  • Deal leaves teachers short

    On May 5, Victorian Premier John Brumby announced that a deal had been struck with the Australian Education Union that would end the union’s 16-month-long industrial campaign. Victorian state school teachers had campaigned to secure better working conditions and pay rises and to reduce contract teaching.

  • Nepal: Formation of new government frustrated

    While the historic elections for a constituent assembly were held in April — a product of the pro-democracy uprising that has ended Nepal’s monarchy and created a republic — Nepal is still yet to have a new government sworn in.

  • What union response to Garnaut?

    Right at the beginning of his draft report on climate change, Professor Ross Garnaut points out that global warming can’t be beaten unless an international “prisoner’s dilemma” gets resolved.