Analysis

In an address to the National Press Club on April 17, Robert Fitzgerald, president of the Australian Council for Social Services (ACOSS), provided a partial list of the problems faced by Australian society. These included: 1.8 million people living

As poverty, wars and systematic human rights abuses around the world continue to create thousands of new refugees every day, over the last few weeks the Coalition federal government has signalled moves to significantly restrict Australia's refugee

The federal Coalition's full-scale attack on the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC) for its supposed "haemorrhaging of public funds" is a cowardly and malicious act. By accusing the most oppressed sector of the population of

The establishment media in Australia are unanimous in portraying the presidential election in Taiwan as a "rebuff" for Chinese government attempts to intimidate "democracy" on the island. In this context, the US decision to send two carrier battle

It didn't take long for new treasurer Peter Costello to sound the lament, as every incoming government now does, about the cupboard being bare. We've been told by the treasurer that there is an underlying deficit of $7.6 billion. Not that this

According to some Coalition politicians, and some anonymous union leaders quoted in the media, the "turning point" in the federal election campaign was provided by ACTU secretary Bill Kelty's threat of a "wages break-out" that would follow the

Both the establishment media and the major party bosses have attempted to characterise the racist pre-election statements of National Party candidates Bob Katter and Bob Burgess, disendorsed Liberal Party candidate Pauline Hanson and former ALP

John Howard, the Liberals and the big business media are of course claiming that the Coalition's big election victory is a "mandate" for the policies they plan to implement. That's a lie. There is no mandate. There's no mandate for Howard's policies

Politics after elections The ACTU leadership launched into its usual pre-election bluster last week. Addressing an ALP union rally at Melbourne Town Hall on February 21, ACTU secretary Bill Kelty threatened "industrial warfare" and wage claims of

The Liberal-National Coalition's plan to cut $6 billion over four years, mainly from welfare and public sector jobs, has been greeted with draculaesque howls for more blood from the capitalist press. The Australian Financial Review's February 16

When the people of Australia go to the polls on March 2 they will be deciding between a Labour or a Liberal government. Whether or not any "third force" wins sufficient votes to hold the balance of power, Australian parliaments, state and federal,

Coalition leader John Howard has pulled out all stops to buy the votes of environmentalists on March 2. His four year "green plan", costed at $1 billion, is more than double the amount promised by Labor. However, there's a poisoned chalice in its