Welfare

Hundreds of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander grandmothers from across the country converged on Parliament House in Canberra on February 11, to demand an end to the high child removal rate of Aboriginal children. Most of the elders participating in the protest were members of the Stolen Generation themselves, snatched from their families as children as part of official government policy. Today, they say, the removals continue unabated, continuing to tear families apart, denying Aboriginal children their culture and creating a new generation of lost children.

Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders and Republican candidate Donald Trump have won the New Hampshire primary, according to the the Associated Press and NBC news. Early exit polls had suggested that Sanders and Trump could secure victories with big margins. According to the Washington Post, Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton conceded defeat before voting finished, as Sanders claimed victory while urging people to continue voting. Exit polls showed Sanders secured more than 85%of the vote among young people in the state compared to 14% for Clinton.

Democratic presidential nominee Bernie Sanders came close to winning the Iowa caucus on February 1. His opponent Hillary Clinton got 49.9% while Sanders got 49.6%. This was a remarkable achievement for a candidate who many commentators said was too radical and stood no chance against the well-entrenched and well-resourced Clinton.

The Malcolm Turnbull Coalition government has launched a new assault on the public health system. It comes in the wake of the failure of the previous Tony Abbott government to impose a $7 Medicare co-payment and a $5 surcharge on prescription medicines.

Anti-Poverty Network SA hosted the “Stand Up! Speak Out!” conference in Adelaide on October 16 and 17. The grassroots gathering of welfare recipients, community workers and activists from South Australian and Victorian groups was part of Anti-Poverty Week. One of the highlights was the “War On The Poor” session. Rob Graham from Green Left Weekly and Pas Forgione from Anti-Poverty Network SA spoke to Owen Bennett from the Australian Unemployed Workers' Union and Kerry Arch from the Australian United Sole Parents Network about the attacks on welfare recipients.

In an October 26 editorial in the Medical Journal of Australia Caroline M de Costa and Heather Douglas argue that laws relating to abortion are out of date, and variations in laws between states have led to serious barriers for women access terminations. The editorial calls for uniform legislation across the country, “so that the law is in step with modern medical practice and so that women regardless of where they live have equal access to abortion services”. “Current Australian abortion laws continue to disadvantage many women.

Podemos activists The December 20 elections in the Spanish state will attract the usual large field of runners. Challengers will represent every imaginable position along the Spanish state's two main political dimensions — the left-to-right social axis and the axis of national rights. This second dimension reaches from the centralism of the ruling People's Party (PP) to the pro-independence stance of various Catalan, Basque and Galician parties.

Photo: dpac.uk.net. Campaigners warned on August 27 that reports that 2380 people died within months of being branded “fit for work” under the British government's new welfare laws grossly underestimate the true impact of invasive government assessments into the lives of severely ill and disabled people.

Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams, writing for his Leargas blog, has warned that the 1998 Good Friday Agreement that formally ended more than two decades of armed conflict in the six counties in Ireland's north still claimed by Britain, “hangs by a thread”.

More than 60 lawmakers from Germany’s Die Linke (The Left) party voted against the proposal for further austerity for Greece on July 17. They accused the German government of “destroying Europe” by forcing Greece to accept hard-hitting austerity measures required by the eurozone for a third bailout deal.

The Greek Parliament voted in the early hours of July 16 to back the deal agreed to by Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras on the tough economic measures demanded by Greece's creditors. The vote came despite street protests and strikes -- and in the face of a statement released the day before by the governing SYRIZA party's central committee against the deal.

The British Conservative Party government introduced new austerity measures on July 8, which include slashing millions of pounds in social spending, increasing the military budget and cutting corporate taxes. Chancellor George Osborne announced the new budget to parliament, which includes some 12 billion pounds in social spending cuts over three years.