News

  • D-Day for drug companies

    BY JACQUIE MOON & RACHEL EVANS MELBOURNE — Ten years after the original "D-Day" for action on the HIV/AIDS crisis, activists in the group QUEER have called a D-Day of their own for June 6. The group, whose acronym stands for Queers United to

  • Socialist Alliance sets date for founding conference

    Through the first telephone hook-up of its National Liaison Committee since its founding in March, the Socialist Alliance last week decided to have its founding conference in Melbourne on the weekend of August 4-5. The conference

  • Blockaders determined to save Badja Forest

    BADJA FOREST — The South East Forest Rescue Squad of about 30 activists is blockading two roads, one of them recently bulldozed, to stop logging in the old-growth Badja Forest wilderness on the escarpment overlooking the NSW south

  • Workers' compensation rights defended

    SYDNEY — Chanting "Hands off workers' comp!", 2000 construction workers and their supporters brought lunchtime traffic to a halt as they marched through the city on May 29. The rally was smaller than originally expected due to a

  • Jails, private schools favoured in NSW budget

    health, hospitals, schools, education, state budget"> = Jails, private schools favoured in NSW budget Jails, private schools favoured in NSW budgetSYDNEY — NSW treasurer Michael Egan delivered the state

  • Law encourages vigilantes

    SYDNEY — After 18 robberies, Sefton newsagent Les Clark armed himself with a pick handle. He declared, "It's a big relief to know you'll be able to defend yourself without breaking the law. I've got a pick handle beneath the

  • Incat fails to rule out more job cuts

    HOBART — Voluntary and forced redundancies at the Incat boat-building company have resulted in Incat’s work force being reduced from 900 to 710. Last year the work force was 1000-strong but workers who left have not been

  • NSW school closures postponed

    SYDNEY — Community rallies and protests have resulted in the postponement of the NSW Labor government's plan to close and "restructure" several Sydney schools until 2003. However, public outrage has not prevented education

  • New evidence emerges of overcrowded universities

    The Australian Vice-Chancellors’ Committee has released a new survey of post-secondary education demonstrating the effects of funding cuts on teaching. Overall the staff to student ratio for the industry has increased by 3%

  • Loose cannons

    Greed is good — for the rich only "The ACA story on Monday was all about inflaming the mean, envious streak in Australians that confuses success with wrongdoing... It is a characteristic we should endeavour to suppress, not cultivate like a

  • Qantas trains strike-breakers

    Unions claim that Qantas is training management to act as strike-breakers in anticipation of a labour dispute over a new enterprise bargaining agreement. Secret training operations, which include teaching up to 75 managers

  • Where did all the money go?

    The Australian Financial Review's May 23 headlines said it all, "There's a hole where the surplus used to be", "Even the 1.5 billion isn't as good as it looks" and, on May 24, "The incredible shrinking surplus". Behind the