News

  • 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

  • Students attracted to Socialist Alliance

    SYDNEY — Coming hard on the heels of launches of local Socialist Alliance groups across the city, 25 students at Sydney University gathered on May 23 to launch the alliance on their campus. Student activist Dom Rowe,

  • Incat workers suffer redundancies

    HOBART — Seventy of ship-builder Incat's 900 workers finished work on May 25 after accepting voluntary redundancies. The company extended an earlier deadline for workers to apply for redundancies but threatened forced sackings

  • Environmentalists attack budget

    Environment groups have slammed the May 22 federal budget for failing to provide much-needed funding for environmental repair, for creative accounting and disguising corporate welfare as environmental reform. The Coalition government

  • Loose cannons

    Mea culpa? "While the GST is basically here to stay, it is now clear its benefits were grossly exaggerated by economists who climbed on the 'tax reform' bandwagon." — editorial in the May 26-27 Australian Financial Review, one of the chief media

  • Socialist Alliance will help 'win victory'

    BRISBANE — “Twenty-nine years ago, the Labor Party came to Musgrave Park and promised to do something for Aboriginal people, 29 years later and nothing's changed”, indigenous activist Sam Watson told the 135 people who

  • News briefs

    Vodaphone workers face sackings MELBOURNE — Forty workers for telecommunications company Vodaphone turned up to what they thought would be an ordinary day of training on March 15, only to find themselves being marched out of the gates flanked by

  • Socialist Alliance establishes local campaign groups

    SYDNEY — Five local campaign groups of the newly formed Socialist Alliance held inaugural meetings across Sydney on May 15 and 16. The meetings — held in Sydney city (Ultimo), Burwood, Parramatta, Marrickville and Chatswood —

  • Socialist Alliance launched in WA

    @box text intr = PERTH — On May 9, 45 people attended a meeting to launch the Socialist Alliance in Western Australia. Roberto Jorquera from the Democratic Socialist Party and Wade McDonald from the International Socialist

  • SAFU disaffiliates M1 group

    ADELAIDE — Despite the presentation of a petition signed by 80 students which called for the re-affiliation of the Flinders University M1 Action Group, the May 16 student council meeting of the Students' Association of

  • Multinational or 'Big Australian'

    At an ACTU conference in April unions representing workers employed by BHP decided to put aside demarcation differences to "walk arm-in-arm" against the hard-line industrial moves of BHP. On May 10 the Construction, Forestry,

  • Pro-choice campaign takes to streets

    BRISBANE — The International Women's Day Collective launched its abortion law repeal petition campaign at the May 7 Labour Day festivities in Musgrave Park. The petition demands repeal of the Queensland criminal code sections