How did Rudd go wrong so fast?
By the time the Labor caucus moved to knife him, Rudd’s public support had evaporated. This was a major turnaround. Rudd was elected in a thumping landslide, securing the...
Greens balance of power not enough to bring change
Gillard’s pitch to the right on refugees and her failure to offer anything on climate change have seen The Greens vote rebound again.
A vote for The Greens is a...
Is Gillard’s rise a step forward for women?
From serious lifelong feminist activists to fashion magazines, there is a widely held assumption that having Julia Gillard in the “top job” is a step forward for women’s rights....
Julia’s history is with the right, not the left
The palace coup that installed Julia Gillard as prime minister triggered a flurry of discussion about Labor’s factional heavy-weights pulling the strings. The irony was that right-wing power brokers...
‘Stop the boats!’—Labor singing Abbott’s song
That Tony Abbott is actually running an election campaign with a pledge to stop the refugee boats is a clear sign of just how low Abbott and mainstream politics...
Gillard hides the crisis inside detention
While most commentary has focused on Gillard’s East Timor solution, it has diverted attention from the ongoing abuses in Australian detention centres. The other elements of Gillard’s Lowy Institute...
Packed out launch hears how zero carbon possible by 2020
A standing room only crowd of around 700 people gathered at Melbourne University in July for the launch of Beyond Zero Emissions’ (BZE) Zero Carbon Australia Stationary Energy Plan....
Students debate climate politics at SoS
In early July students and activists from across Australia gathered at Flinders University in Adelaide for the annual Students of Sustainability (SoS) conference, a yearly environmental event.
In the past,...
Howard hit for a (well-deserved) six by ICC
John Howard’s bid to be the next International Cricket Club (ICC) vice-president has been blocked by African and Asian cricket nations. After bullying aside New Zealand’s candidate, whose turn...
Parental leave at last—but Labor won’t ask business to pay
In late June the government passed Australia’s first paid parental leave scheme, finally leaving the company of the US as the only other developed nation without one.
However, Labor’s...
Alice conference discusses fight for jobs and language
More than 200 people attended the “Defending Indigenous Rights” conference, held in Alice Springs from July 6-9, to discuss the campaign against the NT Intervention.
Delegates from “prescribed” Aboriginal...
Learning lessons from the past: 65 years after the liberation of Mauthausen concentration camp
More than 10,000 people gathered to commemorate the 65th anniversary of the liberation of the Mauthausen Nazi concentration camp in northern Austria.
Including its 49 sub-camps, more than 195,000 people...
Rebellion against austerity spreads across Europe
“Europe’s strike-filled spring turning into a strike-filled summer”—this was the worried headline of Europe’s Examiner, bemoaning the resistance spreading across Europe to austerity measures.
European states have borrowed and spent...
Capitalism’s crisis: Back with a vengeance
After a year of stabilisation, the global economy is once again on the brink of a new plunge into recession.
Europe has been convulsed by a new banking crisis, as...
Cuba: No model for socialism in the 21st century
Many see Cuban society as a model for socialism. But a look at its history presents different conclusions, argues Mark GillespieWhen President Obama moved into the White House, he...
The NSW BLF margins strike: How union members defied the law and won
Forty years ago, the margins strike provided a model example of how to involve rank-and-file union members in action in defiance of the law and win, argues Tom Orsag
In...
James Hardie: The Killer Company exposed
Review: Killer Company
By Matt Peacock, ABC Books, $35.00
In 1898 Britian’s Chief Inspector of Factories reported to Parliament about the “evil effects of asbestos dust”. The first deaths from asbestos...
Afghanistan—US war plan failing
As the war in Afghanistan approaches its 10th anniversary, political support for it among Western rulers is crumbling.
The Dutch are withdrawing their forces. New Zealand bluntly rejected a plea...
