Thai socialist faces jail in attack on democracy
The new Thai government has launched a wave of prosecutions against government critics and opponents of the 2006 military coup. In a major attack on democratic rights, it is...
Can the jobs massacre be stopped?
Throughout 2008, Kevin Rudd and Wayne Swan remained optimistic to the point of absurdity about the state of the Australian economy in the face of the global economic crisis....
Union puts university management on back foot
Union members in the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) have faced down compulsory redundancies at Victoria University (VU) and the University of Melbourne (Melbourne Uni) by taking industrial action.
In...
Noonkanbah: when Aboriginal people and unionists united for land rights
Under the cover of the NT intervention, governments are once again trying to force Aboriginal people off their land. If history is a guide, they are in for a...
Discontent with intervention policies widening
The intervention is more than a policy about what happens within 78 “prescribed communities”. It is a radical new ideology that combines a fierce new push for assimilation of...
Climate summit a chance to refocus the movement
Late this month the first national summit of climate action groups will be held in Canberra.
Only a few years ago mainstream debate on climate change still revolved around whether...
Carbon trading not the solution we need
Rudd’s method for reaching his meagre 5 per cent reduction target is the carbon pollution reduction scheme, a version of emissions trading.
The loopholes and concessions to Australia’s most...
Do we consume too much energy?
A common response to the climate crisis is to argue for restrictions on individuals’ energy use. As a result some environmental activists have supported initiatives like congestion charges or...
Labor not on target to stop climate change
Just after his election, Kevin Rudd called climate change “the defining challenge of our generation”. But his targets for emission reductions will not even go close to meeting the...
Governments bicker while time to act runs short
The world may be in great danger, but the annual summit of governments designed to progress a global agreement on climate change did very little to bring action.
December’s meeting...
Hamas and the struggle for Palestinian liberation
The US has blamed Hamas for causing Israel’s assault. Kevin Rudd has called them a “terrorist organisation”. Israel would have us believe they are “Islamic terrorists” who cannot be...
Gaza and the US war for control of the Middle East
Israel’s murderous assault on Gaza has, once again, been willingly backed by the US. Israel is the key US ally in the Middle East. Its army is, in effect,...
Plan to spread intervention
There are worrying signs from the Council of Australian Governments (COAG) that policy measures associated with the NT intervention will soon be imposed on Indigenous communities around the country.Recently...
