Elections

Housing Action, a ticket running in the September 8 council elections in the City of Sydney, released the statement below on August 9. * * *

A team of progressive activists has formed an independent “Housing Action” ticket to run in the September 8 council elections in the City of Sydney. The united platform “Decent housing is a human right” is a further step towards practical unity between independent socialists and members of the Communist Party of Australia (CPA) and the Socialist Allliance (SA). The team has come together to challenge City of Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore’s pro-corporate development stance. It is also championing public housing and human rights over pro-development and big business.

The ALP has narrowly held on to the Victorian seat of Melbourne despite a swing to the Greens in the July 21 by-election. Greens candidate Cathy Oke won the highest primary vote, getting 36.5% to ALP candidate Jennifer Kanis’ 33.4%. But distribution of preferences gave the ALP 52% and the Greens 48%. The Greens’ vote increased by 4.6%. The Liberals did not run in the election, although a Liberal Party member running as an independent won 4.7% of the primary vote.

The second Green Left Report, filmed in front of a live audience, features Mike Karadjis (political economist at Sydney University and member of We Are All Greeks), Antony Loewenstein (independent journalist and author of Left Turn), comic Carlo Sands, plus footage of the Christmas Carol Crims, WikiLeaks and more.

The first Green Left Report features: Austin Mackell (independent journo in Egypt); Cassie Findlay (Support Assange & WikiLeaks Coalition); David Hicks; Carlo Sands; the Christmas Carol Crims; WikiLeaks advert + more!

Austin Mackell, an Australian journalist based in Cairo who has reported on the Egyptian revolution, speaks about his arrest by the regime, and Egyptian politics around the elections.

Afrodity Giannakis, Green Left correspondent in Greece and an activist in SYRIZA, gives her first impressions of the result of the June 17 election where the conservative New Democracy beat the left coalition SYRIZA to the highers vote by just 3% of votes.

On the eve of the June 17, 2012 elections in Greece, Green Left correspondent Afrodity Giannakis reports from Thessalonika, on the hopes and fears of a people being forced to bear the burden for a global capitalist economic crisis built on the greed, speculation and corruption of the rich and powerful minority.

Green Left columnist Carlo Sands takes "Carlo's Corner" to Green Left TV, hailing Clive Palmer's decision to seek pre-selection for the Liberal National Party to challenged Treasurer Wayne Swan. You can read Carlo's Corner columns and subscribe to Green Left TV.

Footage from the 'Malaysian Spring': the inspiring 250,000-strong Bersih ('clean') rallies for free and fair elections in Malaysia plus from Australian support rallies in Melbourne (1200 people), Sydney (500) and Perth (400).

Liam Flenady has been endorsed as the Socialist Alliance’s candidate in the April by-election for the South Brisbane seat of former ALP Queensland premier Anna Bligh. Flenady released the statement below on April 11. * * * Within two weeks of taking office, Premier Campbell Newman and his Liberal National Party (LNP) government show signs of returning to the bad old days of the Joh Bjelke-Petersen regime.

The Queensland ALP “snatched disaster from the jaws of defeat,” socialist activist Gary MacLennan told a public forum at the Activist Centre here on April 3. The forum, sponsored by Green Left Weekly, discussed the Liberal National Party’s (LNP) rise to power in Queensland, the crisis in the ALP and what this meant for the labour movement. MacLennan said: “When the Queensland people said no to the [Anna] Bligh Labor government, they were not saying yes to an LNP government.