Analysis

As the quarantining of Indigenous welfare payments (50% of individual welfare benefits being received as gift cards for certain shops) rolls out across the Northern Territory, its alleged benefits need to be weighed against the possible cultural and economic consequences.

Venezuela As an Australian person currently living and working in Venezuela, I feel there are many important aspects to the ExxonMobil issue that have been, perhaps deliberately, ignored by the mainstream media in Australia. Legalities aside

“We’re approaching the future with some confidence notwithstanding the obstacles that are put in our path by institutions like the ABCC [Australian Building and Construction Commission]”, Dave Noonan, national secretary of the construction division of the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union told Green Left Weekly. Noonan spoke to GLW after the CFMEU national conference, held in Sydney from February 18-22.

Any day now the findings of the special Consultative Reference Committee (CRC), set up by the NSW government to “test the impacts” of its plans to privatise its electricity generation and retailing assets, will become public.

Palestine Clearly both Nigel Rogers and Kryten Walia in their respective letters (GLW #740) have some political differences with the Australian Jewish Democratic Society (AJDS). At a guess, they disagree with our support for a genuine two-state

Palestine Clearly both Nigel Rogers and Kryten Walia in their respective letters (GLW #740) have some political differences with the Australian Jewish Democratic Society (AJDS). At a guess, they disagree with our support for a genuine two-state

Barbara Shaw, a resident of the Mount Nancy town camp near Alice Springs and a member of the National Aboriginal Alliance, told Green Left Weekly on February 29 that the racist intervention into Northern Territory Aboriginal communities launched by the former Howard government “has been very negative for our people and undermined many of our own ways of dealing with issues”.

“I hear nothing, I see nothing, I know nothing!”, said Sergeant Hans Schultz in the 1970s US sitcom Hogan’s Heroes.

On February 19, Australian Defence Force chief Angus Houston told a Senate committee hearing that planning was underway for a mid-year withdrawal of the ADF’s 550 soldiers based in Iraq’s southern Dhi Qar province, as well as 65 army trainers. However, their withdrawal will leave in place 60% of the ADF personnel assigned to the Iraq war.

Aboriginal activist Natasha Moore has responded to the release of the Western Australian Coroner’s report into Indigenous deaths in the Kimberley by arguing only self-determination can make a fundamental difference to people’s lives.

During a 10-day tour of NSW, Victoria, South Australia and Western Australia in early February, Terry Boehm, vice-president of Canada’s National Farmers Union, and Arnold Taylor, president of the Canadian Organic Growers association, warned Australian farmers against adopting genetically modified (GM) crops.

Five days after the November 24 federal election, outgoing industrial relations minister Joe Hockey admitted, in a rare moment of political honesty, that Work Choices contributed to the Coalition government’s defeat. He declared that the new Labor government was given a mandate by the people to abolish the Work Choices legislation.