2023

Former Judge Walter Sofronoff’s report on his Inquiry into the Lehrmann trial is a white wash of the entrenched sexism in the ACT police.

Anthony Albanese is locking in the biggest US military build-up here since the Second World War, while establishing Australia as a major arms manufacturer.

The Albanese government has been enraged by The Greens’ refusal to fall in behind its housing fund legislation.

Heatwaves and wildfires have been raging across the northern hemisphere. July was the hottest month ever recorded.

Over two months into the much vaunted Ukrainian counter-offensive there has been no serious movement of the front lines.

The coup in Niger in west Africa is a huge blow to Western imperialism.

Over 200 people attended the Climate Action Conference in Sydney on 29 July. Here are some of the highlights of the speeches.

The Treaty of Waitangi did nothing to stop the onslaught of colonisation, argues Jayden Rivers, but renewed struggles in recent decades have brought change

The base at Pine Gap near Alice Springs plays a key role in US surveillance and military operations, as well as the Australia-US alliance, writes Feiyi Zhang

Anthony Albanese is still stalling on cost of living relief, even after announcing a further budget windfall. The budget surplus has swelled to $19 billion, well ahead of the $4.2 billion tipped in May.

University bosses are already racing to support the government’s ambitions for nuclear submarines under the AUKUS agreement.

There are increasing warnings that Australia’s renewable energy rollout is stalling. This puts even the chance of reaching the hopeless emissions target of the Albanese government at risk.

The Sydney University strike campaign ended in June, with 80 per cent of union members voting to accept management’s offer, and 96.5 per cent of workers supporting the agreement in the final ballot.

Riots swept France in early July after cops shot dead a 17-year-old, Nahel M, and then lied about it.

While the desperate search for a missing submersible covered our news feeds, 750 refugees were left for dead in the Mediterranean after a fishing vessel capsized.

The last ten years of the Australian government’s abuse of refugee rights are bookended by Labor governments.

Solidarity spoke with Marianne Mackay, a Nyoongar woman from WA who travelled to Canberra to join Lidia Thorpe and other Aboriginal people opposed to a Voice to Parliament, and Wayne Wharton, a Kooma man and longtime Indigenous activist organising with the Brisbane Aboriginal Sovereign Embassy, who is campaigning against the Voice.

The aborted rebellion in June by Yevgeny Prigozhin exposed fractures in Putin’s regime. But this could easily make the war in Ukraine even more dangerous as Western escalation continues.

The idea of degrowth recognises capitalism’s destructive nature, argues Martin Empson, but ends up looking for solutions within capitalism rather than looking to overthrow it.

There are worrying signs of a return to some of the racial politics of Fiji’s past after the end of the Bainimarama government, argues Jasmine Ali.

Miro Sandev looks at the Indonesian military’s deadly new operation in West Papua—and how the Australian government helps its crackdown on the independence movement.

Millions of workers are being pushed into poverty by the surging cost of living, yet the Albanese government does nothing.

Governments across the country are targeting climate activists with draconian anti-protest laws, at a time when climate protest is desperately needed.

The Labor government has been talking up its commitment to women’s rights since it came to power.

Workers at the Brotherhood of St Laurence in Melbourne have rejected management’s proposed enterprise agreement in a non-union ballot, 61 per cent to 39 per cent.

At the time of writing there are just seven refugees left on Nauru, with the final few expected to be transferred to Australia by the end of June.

Liberal leader Peter Dutton used his budget reply speech to drum up racist scaremongering in a desperate bid to try and boost the Coalition’s plummeting support.

The scandal over PwC’s attempt to profit from confidential government information has shone a light on the scale of government outsourcing.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has confirmed that his country’s long-awaited counter-offensive is under way.

Spanish and Greek elections have seen the collapse of the once radical parties Podemos and Syriza. The results shows that the parliamentary road to change is a dead end for the radical left.

Transphobic mobilisations must be opposed, writes Sophie Cotton, but this should be linked to a fight against the broader institutional transphobia in the political mainstream

As Australia became the test site for nuclear weapons in the 1950s, opposition developed through the unions and a new peace movement, writes Lucy Honan

Maeve Larkins reviews a new book by Marxist writer Alex Callinicos that analyses the succession of crises facing the world—and the prospects for catastrophe and revolt

Selective leaking of text messages and other evidence has been used to try to discredit Brittany Higgins, as part of a backlash against demands for action on sexism.

A year since his election, it’s clear Anthony Albanese wants to avoid serious change. Instead he is appeasing the rich and powerful to keep Labor in power for as long as possible.

One year since their election Labor’s claim they would “end the climate wars” has been exposed as cover for supporting fossil fuel expansion at an alarming rate.

At dawn on 10 May, special operations police shouldering firearms moved in on a group of 14 youth detainees maintaining a protest on the roof of Banksia Hill youth detention centre south of Perth.

A year after Labor's election, protests have returned to immigration detention.

The fraud scandal that has engulfed the Australian arm of PricewaterhouseCoopers, a global accounting and consulting company, stems from its own greed.

University workers across Victoria are moving into action over enterprise bargaining, with a Melbourne-wide strike-day meeting overflowing Trades Hall on 3 May.

Over 50 workers at hospital and health care supplier Onelink in western Sydney have won higher pay and improved redundancy payments after five days of strike action over two weeks at the end of May.

Joe Biden has declared he will run again for US President. The 2024 election is looking increasingly like it will be a repeat of 2020, with Biden taking on Donald Trump.

A power struggle has erupted in Sudan between two military generals—Abdel Fattah al-Burhan of the Sudanese Armed Forces and Hemedti of the Rapid Support Forces militia.

James Supple examines why carbon offsets are a climate disaster that don’t genuinely reduce emissions—and why Labor is so committed to them

Israel was founded 75 years ago through the massacre and expulsion of Palestinians, argues Raul Haagensen, and the brutality and dispossession continues today.

Anthony Albanese welcomed Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Sydney in late May, with 20,000 packing the Qudos Arena at Sydney Olympic Park to hear them speak.

The results of the recent Thai election are a slap in the face for the military junta, which has been in power since overthrowing the elected Pua Thai government in the coup of 2014.

The Defence Strategic Review points to a future where the military is much more prominent throughout Australian society, under the banner of a “whole-of-nation approach”.

Labor’s budget fails workers and the poor so it can keep big companies, the military and the rich all on side.

Anthony Albanese and Treasurer Jim Chalmers are hosing down hopes of any serious action on cost of living, health or aged care in the upcoming budget.

The Victorian Labor government, which claims to be the most progressive in Australia, is laying the ground for a horror state budget on 23 May.

The US and NATO have stepped up weapons deliveries to Ukraine further, aiming to prepare it for a highly anticipated spring counter-offensive.

Spontaneous protests exploded in cities across France in April after its constitutional court, stuffed with elite political and state figures, declared that President Emmanuel Macron’s pension attacks had been passed legally.

Cassandra Pybus’s book, Truganini, highlights the damning treatment and decimation of First Nations in lutruwita—now known as Tasmania.

Activists in Wollongong are organising against plans for nearby Port Kembla to host the East Coast base for the AUKUS nuclear submarines. Solidarity spoke to Alexander Brown from Wollongong Against War and Nukes about local opposition and how unions have dedicated this year’s May Day march to opposing the plan.

Peter Dutton is leading the Liberals into disaster. His decision to campaign for a No vote against an Indigenous Voice to Parliament is a further sign he wants to keep the party well to the right.

On 25 March, in a shocking case of racist brutality, police shot dead Aubrey Donahue, a 27-year-old Muluridji man from Mareeba, Far North Queensland, while he was experiencing a mental health crisis.

When Labor turned on them in 1990, Melbourne tram workers fought job cuts through occupying their depots and taking control of the transport system, writes David Glanz.

Luke Ottavi looks at how the Communist Party launched the 1930s Movement against War and Fascism, continuing our series on war and workers’ resistance.

Angus Dermody looks back at how the Jewish population of the Warsaw Ghetto staged a heroic uprising against the Nazi Holocaust—and the leading role of Jewish socialists in it.

After a historic nine days of strike action over the past 21 months, NTEU members at the University of Sydney have voted 364-290 against a further three days’ strike in their current enterprise agreement campaign.

Thousands of construction workers took to the streets around the country today, demanding a decent pay rise, an end to the scourge of silicosis and the cancellation of vicious prosecutions against their unions.

Anthony Albanese’s decision to press ahead with buying nuclear submarines despite the astronomical $368 billion cost is a demonstration of his abject commitment to the system.

Anthony Albanese has unveiled proposed constitutional changes to introduce an Indigenous Voice to Parliament, as well as “design principles” for the body itself.

Queensland’s Labor government has passed new right-wing law and order measures that will increase already disgraceful levels of Indigenous over-imprisonment.

The Royal Commission into the Liberals’ Robodebt scheme has exposed the scale of lies and cover up that went into defending an illegal policy designed to punish the poor.

French workers are staging a mass, rolling strike wave against President Macron’s attempt to force people to work longer before they can retire.

Israel has stepped up its murderous rampages in the West Bank as the Netanyahu government encourages greater settler violence against Palestinians.

An Indigenous Voice to Parliament would only be the latest in a succession of Indigenous advisory bodies that have all been ignored and then scrapped, writes Jasmine Ali.

Adam Adelpour continues our series on war and workers’ resistance, looking at Australian unions’ support for workers’ struggles in the Pacific against imperialism in the 1920s.

Labor has won government in NSW, with a thumping swing of almost 6 per cent ending 12 years of Liberal government.

The Greens and Labor have struck a deal to pass the climate Safeguard Mechanism bill. While this may restrict the number of new coal and gas projects, it won’t reduce actual emissions—and is a disaster for the climate.

The appearance of a handful of Nazis at the “Let Women Speak” rally in Melbourne last weekend has caused a furore.

Mark Gillespie looks at the chaos and death the US unleashed on Iraq following the invasion in 2003—and why we need a new movement against war.

Labor’s announcement that it will buy or build up to 13 nuclear-powered submarines at a price of $368 billion is a horrifying step towards war with China.

Labor says it can't do any more on the cost of living and its climate policies are a gift to big polluting companies

Lidia Thorpe’s resignation from The Greens has exposed the limits of the party’s radicalism and invigorated the debate about the Indigenous Voice to Parliament.

The reintroduction of blanket alcohol bans on NT town camps and communities heralds the return of racist Intervention-era controls over Aboriginal people.

The Albanese government wants to force changes to the climate Safeguard Mechanism through parliament by 31 March.

On 30 January, coroner Simon McGregor handed down his report into the death of Gunditjmara, Dja Dja Wurrung, Wiradjuri and Yorta Yorta woman Veronica Nelson in Melbourne’s Dame Phyllis Frost prison.

Labor Treasurer Jim Chalmers has followed in the footsteps of previous Labor ministers, including Prime Minister Kevin Rudd in 2009, by penning a theoretical article in the pages of the Monthly.

The NSW Liberals are unravelling in the face of growing scandals, with polls showing Labor comfortably ahead as the state election approaches on 25 March.

Under Ardern's leadership, Labour went into decline, and is still heading for defeat in October.

Labor’s announcement on permanent visas has been overshadowed by the fact that thousands of other refugees have been left in a hell of uncertainty.

The plan for an Indigenous Voice to parliament was a result of the government-funded push for constitutional recognition that would deny any real rights, argues Paddy Gibson.

Tom Orsag looks at the bitter class struggles ignited by the First World War in Broken Hill, in the first of a Solidarity series on war and workers’ resistance.

The longer the war drags on, the more deaths there will be and the greater the nuclear threat, either from a desperate Russia in the face of looming defeats, or indirectly from fighting around nuclear power plants.

Poverty, war and climate change drive millions to fight back. But we need to turn resistance into a challenge to the whole system, writes James Supple.

It is already clear enough what the Voice would look like—a powerless advisory body that could be ignored the minute it raised any real demands for change.

On 19 December last year, President John Dowsett from the national Native Title Tribunal shamefully ruled in favour of gas giant Santos against Gomeroi native title applicants.

Anthony Albanese has trumpeted Labor’s efforts to cap coal and gas prices as a solution to soaring power bills.

Labor will allow coal, gas and other companies to buy their way out of cutting emissions, allowing unlimited use of offsets under newly released details of its “Safeguards Mechanism”.

Anthony Albanese visited PNG in January, but said nothing of the refugees who had been sent to Manus Island in 2013 when he was deputy prime minister in the Rudd Labor government that imprisoned them offshore.

The 15-month jail sentence handed to climate protester Violet Coco in Sydney in December has drawn outrage.

The Australian Electoral Study has released a report after every election for the last 30 years. Its most recent on the 2022 election sheds light on Labor’s victory and current political attitudes.

The protests in Iran that began following the death of Mahsa Amini in September have now continued for more than 100 days.

Peru has been rocked by weeks of strikes and protests following the impeachment and arrest of left-wing president Pedro Castillo in December.

Many Indigenous people are sceptical about the planned Voice to parliament, despite the media focus on its support. Solidarity spoke to Indigenous activists Callum Clayton-Dixon, Suellyn Tighe and Michael Mansell about the problems with the proposal.

Scott Morrison’s ministerial power grab was not an aberration but an example of the secrecy and lack of democracy that exists under capitalism, argues Maeve Larkins.

Stephen Gapps’ book Gudyarra is a compelling account of the opening phase of the genocidal invasion of Wiradyuri lands by British imperialism and the fierce anti-colonial insurgency waged by Wiradyuri people.

The US is the biggest bully in the Pacific, with rings of military bases blocking and threatening China, writes Tom Orsag.

The “We Quit” declaration by Extinction Rebellion in Britain that it will step back from disruptive, direct action to build a 100,000-strong rally has ignited a debate about the best approach to fighting climate change.