The nationwide outage of Australia’s second-largest telecommunications companies should prompt a reconsideration of bringing these essential services under public ownership, argues Isaac Nellist.
Anti-privatisation
The Victorian state Labor government's Housing Statement allows for residential developments valued at more than $50 million to be fast-tracked, proposes the demolition of all public housing towers for public-private development and sells off public land to developers, report Jacob Andrewartha and Jordan AK.
Ahead of a significant day of industrial action across Britain, Terry Conway discusses the significance of the strikewave and what it will take to force the government’s hand.
Ontario’s Conservative government has officially repealed its anti-worker, anti-union legislation, reports Jeff Shantz.
For decades, the Maasai have been resisting displacement by mining, tourism and conservation, reports Hibist Kassa.
Peter Boyle reports that the NSW Liberal-National government wants to sell 600 Elizabeth St, Redfern — vacant public land that was previously 100% public housing — to property developers.
Protests continue against Modi’s three new farm laws amidst a deadlock between farmers’ unions and the government. Indian socialist and feminist Kavita Krishnan discussed the situation with Green Left.
The NSW government wants to privatise hospitals in Maitland, Wyong, Goulburn, Shellharbour and Bowral. But people are fighting back. Brett Holmes, general secretary of NSW Nurses and Midwives’ Association, lays out the arguments.
Early one morning last month, the Chief Commissioner of the Greater Sydney Commission (GSC) Lucy Turnbull — a lifelong resident of the city’s most privileged suburbs along the south-eastern edge of the harbour — quietly slipped across to Sydney’s inner west where she was taken on tour by a WestConnex manager of the M4 East tollway tunnel corridor. There she presumably saw for the first time the gigantic construction sites in Haberfield where scores of heritage homes, businesses, gardens, parks and trees stood until a few weeks ago.
While hundreds of thousands of people with disabilities will now get services they have never had under the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS), we must closely examine how the scheme is being implemented.
The public should demand nothing less in return for the $22 billion of public expenditure and the vulnerability of the recipients. But that is not happening.
The NDIS is brilliant for people with physical disabilities, but the scheme risks further marginalising thousands of people with profound intellectual disability.
"NSW Liberal Premier Mike Baird is in danger of going the way of his Queensland counterpart Campbell Newman, if he continues down the path of selling essential public assets," Howard Byrnes, Socialist Alliance candidate for the NSW Legislative Council, said on February 11.
"The issue of power industry privatisation effectively brought down the Newman Liberal-National Party government in the Queensland elections on January 31, and could cause a huge upset in the upcoming NSW elections as well," he said.
The local residents’ action group "Hands off Glebe" held a protest on May 18 to stop the demolition of public housing in Cowper St, Glebe. The 15 buildings on the Cowper St site have the capacity to house 289 people but the former NSW Labor government decided to sell most of the land to private developers, with the remnant being earmarked for new public and so called affordable housing. The newly-elected Greens MP for Balmain, Jamie Parker, joined and addressed the protest. Workers on the site stopped work for the day in support.
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