Ownership law changes spark media merger frenzy
Australia has for many years had one of the most monopolised media sectors in the world. Eighty percent of newspaper circulation in the capital cities is controlled by just two companies – NewsCorp, owned by Rupert Murdoch, and Fairfax. This means that print news consumption is almost enti...CONTINUE READING
Socialism for the rich
The Liberals love to say that they’re the party of private enterprise and that free markets must rule. In the name of capitalist efficiency and consumer choice, essential infrastructure has been sold off to private owners over the last decades. And a range of businesses now provide basic i...CONTINUE READING
A history of the nuclear arms race
For seven decades, the world has been on the edge of a nuclear precipice. The United States and the Soviet Union each had at their disposal a massive array of aircraft, submarines and land-based missile launchers that were ready to fire a barrage of nuclear weapons that could, in a single...CONTINUE READING
Why class struggle matters
There is general agreement that the inexorable rise in inequality, Scott Morrison’s denials notwithstanding, has something to do with government policies over the past quarter of a century. Everyone from the IMF’s Christine Lagarde to ALP leader Bill Shorten agrees on that. But it’s more t...CONTINUE READING
Super rich rip off tax office, accumulate more loot
“Behind every great fortune there is a great crime”, 19th century French novelist Honoré de Balzac is supposed to have written. Two centuries later, this same precept applies. An international university research team based in Norway has just published its finding that the super rich syste...CONTINUE READING
You know we’re in trouble when the Reserve Bank sounds Bolshie on wages
After decades of alarms by bosses, central bankers and conservative politicians that even the smallest increase in wages is about to develop into a full-scale “wages breakout” driving the economy to ruin, the very same people are now lining up to lament the fact that wages are now growing...CONTINUE READING
All the cardinal’s men
“A fine human being … One of the greatest churchmen that Australia has seen.” That was Tony Abbott on the ABC’s Lateline in 2004 when asked his opinion of cardinal George Pell. Abbott has not been Pell’s only conservative defender. Every part of the right wing establishment has at one time...CONTINUE READING
British election shows that left wing politics can appeal to millions
The general election result in Britain is a stunning vindication of Jeremy Corbyn’s left wing leadership and a damning indictment of all those on the right of the Labour party who have, since his election as leader in 2015, tried to bring him down. It is also an indictment of the right in...CONTINUE READING
It’s champagne for the bosses as workers are shafted
Australia has now experienced 26 years without a recession, a world record. But the rising tide is not lifting all boats. Corporate Australia is enjoying a profits bonanza while workers are under pressure on every front. The national accounts published this week show that, in the first thr...CONTINUE READING