Editorial

  • Lest we forget what?

    In case you missed it, April 25 was Anzac Day. And in case you didn't get the message of the day, it was printed on the Australian flags that lined the march routes: "Their Sacrifice. Our Heritage." Anzac Day is not about commemorating the

  • Time for drug decriminalisation

    Time for the decriminalisation of drugs The second phase of Prime Minister John Howard's “Tough on Drugs” campaign is a $27 million “education” campaign involving a series of TV advertisements and a glossy booklet to be distributed to

  • World Bank, Australia out of PNG!

    Rank and file soldiers of the Papua New Guinea Defence Force rebelled on March 23, giving PNG Prime Minister Sir Mekere Morauta until noon on March 26 to repudiate a cabinet decision to sack more than half of all PNGDF personnel. The soldiers also

  • Australian ownership of Woodside in whose interest?

    On March 6 eight West Australian Liberal MPs wrote a letter calling on Prime Minister John Howard to block the imminent $10 billion takeover of Australia's 12th largest company, Woodside Petroleum, by the Anglo-Dutch oil giant Royal Dutch/Shell.

  • Hanson's "anti-globalism" and ours

    It was entirely predictable that Pauline Hanson's One Nation would try to jump on the "anti-globalisation" bandwagon. After all, that's what right-wing populists do — jump on bandwagons — and there's no issue more popular at present than hatred

  • No to 'user pays' unionism

    The Industrial Relations Commission has endorsed the ability of unions to collect a "service fee" from non-unionists who benefit from union-negotiated pay rises. "Fee for service" unionism was adopted as policy at the 2000 ACTU national congress.

  • Dairy devastation

    The Australian Bureau of Agricultural Resource Economics (ABARE) released its report on the outcome of dairy deregulation on January 30. It confirmed that in the six months since the final stage of dairy deregulation was implemented on July 1, 200

  • Lift sanctions against Libya

    With the verdict handed down on January 31 by the judges presiding over the trial of the two Libyans accused of the 1988 bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, the conditions imposed by the United Nations Security Council for the

  • Close the detention centres!

    Editorial: Close the detention centres! Philip Ruddock, the federal minister for racism, has argued that last week's protests by asylum seekers at the Port Hedland detention facility were caused by a small group of “troublemakers” who were

  • The Federation furphy

    You would think that discussions in the Australian capitalist press about politics in the coming year would be exhibiting some excitement. After all, there is going to be a federal election and several state elections. Most bourgeois economists

  • Greenhouse gangsters and the environment movement

    The failure of the November 13-24 international climate change conference at the Hague presents a major challenge for the environment movement. The seriousness and urgency of climate change has recently been highlighted by the Intergovernmental

  • Support Palestine's call for a UN protection force!

    It is time for the opponents of Israel's colonialist war against the Palestinian people to mobilise in support of Palestinian Authority (PA) President Yasser Arafat's demand that a United Nations force be sent to protect the unarmed and defenceless