Here’s a fun game to play in lockdown: guess the name of the current NSW opposition leader. You get three tries. Give up? His name is Chris Minns, and, like the NSW Labor Party, he might as well not exist. Despite the Berejiklian government’s COVID clusterfuck, NSW’s Labor opposition has been virtually silent, having promised to “take politics out of the pandemic” as Minns put it in an interview on 2GB. That means that, despite a crying need for an approach that puts health before profits, what passes for an official opposition has quietly backed the government’s reckless policies.
The word “apartheid” is used today to describe Israel’s racist treatment of Palestinians. But the word, meaning “separateness”, originates in Afrikaans, the language of the white minority who ruled South Africa until the 1990s. In the eyes of the Afrikaners, “apartheid” wasn’t a slur; it was their affectionate name for South Africa’s brutal system of segregation.
Why do so many American socialists think it's important to back the Democrats? In part, you can thank Stalin.
In the 1970s, insurance clerks won equal pay for women by taking militant strike action. To do it, they had to confront conservative a biased arbitration system, timid union officials, and the sexism that pervaded society.
Sydney's theatres, stadiums, cafes and nightclubs are open. But try having a small, socially distanced outdoor protest, and the police will swoop–even if less than twenty people are there.
Australia’s scandal-ridden aged care sector is in crisis. More than 220 aged care residents have died of COVID-19, and 1,000 of the sector’s 3,600 personal care workers have tested positive for the virus. In the hardest hit state of Victoria, there have been outbreaks in 124 of the state’s 770 aged care homes.