Analysis

  • Save Medicare!

    Cuts of $314 million to public hospitals and $2.6 billion to Medicare over the next four years ensure that the public health system will be a lot sicker as a result of the August 20 budget. Combined with the Coalition's subsidies to the private

  • The hard sell

    Adding to the burgeoning list of lies that have accompanied the Coalition government, the bosses' media have been working overtime to sell Treasurer Costello's first budget as a "fair go" which "shares around the pain". The budget's vicious attacks

  • Brumby's Labor: Kennett with a human face

    According to DAVE HOLMES, Melbourne secretary of the Democratic Socialist Party (DSP), Victorian ALP leader John Brumby's bid to be that state's Tony Blair represents no big shift in political perspective. In assessing what all this means, we should

  • Looking out: White Power!?

    "Sometimes irony can be so socially constructive, as well as instructive, that it rises above even the highest court in the land." — Irving Elmer Bell For the sake of irony here, try to imagine a Ku Klux Klansman who takes great pleasure in

  • Challenging the Liberal agenda

    Challenging the Liberal agendaPERTH — The Perth and Fremantle branches of the Democratic Socialist Party and Resistance are organising a Fight Back Conference for September 14-15 for all those who believe the time has come to

  • Plasticisers in our food &&

    As consumers, we implicitly trust food manufacturers and government to maintain appropriate safeguards to prevent food contamination. Australian health officials recently ordered an investigation of locally manufactured baby

  • Why is housing so expensive? &&

    Whether buying or renting, the cost of housing eats up a considerable percentage of one's earnings. Housing costs have a vital effect on people's standard of living and yet receive remarkably little attention from politicians. While

  • Life of Riley: It's over and done with

    It's over and done with There's been a change, hasn't there? With the election of the Howard government, the country's political climate has shifted. Would you agree, Mr. Riley? — Oh, yes, definitely. I believe I'm right in saying that you

  • No return to Tweedledee!

    Revelations that Labor former prime ministers Gough Whitlam and Bob Hawke are on the payroll of billionaire businessman Richard Pratt should come as no surprise. After all, the former Labor government prided itself on its close relationship with the

  • Call for nuclear test ban treaty

    While China has said it will undertake a nuclear testing moratorium from July 30, nuclear disarmament campaigners in Australia warned that the July 29 nuclear test at Lop Nor may not be China's last and called on all nuclear weapons

  • Frontline editor: 'Logic in Brumby's approach'

    Victorian Labor Party leader John Brumby has touched off a minor controversy and media comment with his recent proposals to shift the party even further to the right — to the "middle ground". Green Left Weekly's KIM LINDEN spoke to DAVID SPRATT, a

  • Campaign against CD censorship

    ARIA (the Australian Record Industry Association) has recently brought in new guidelines which restrict the sale of many CDs and completely ban others. The guidelines are a harsher version of the system of