Few things enrage me as much as protesting outside a detention centre.
Residents of Melbourne’s west took to the streets on 25 September to protest terminal neglect and environmental contamination of working-class suburbs. The protest was organised by Victorian Socialists alongside local community groups. The demonstrators demanded an end to the industrial fires that plague the area, a crackdown on industrial waste dumping, the halting of the third Tullamarine runway project and improved infrastructure, including public transport and green space.
The Productivity Commission’s interim report into Australian schools confirms what those of us working in the system have known for years: the education gap is widening for students from disadvantaged and diverse backgrounds, students are falling behind their international peers, and teachers are overworked and underpaid.
“Jack Charles is Up and Fighting” is the title of one of Uncle Jack Charles’ early shows for the Indigenous Theatre Group, Nindethana, and it sums up his life. An actor, musician, potter, activist, proud gay man, this Boon Wurrung, Dja Dja Wurrung, Woiwurrung, Palawa and Yorta Yorta elder was, as actor and director Rachel Maza put it, “a shining, vibrant celebration of life”.
Workers’ living standards are being pushed down as capitalists raise prices and hold down wages. While the wages share of national income is the lowest on record, corporate profits are at their highest. Big companies, especially the energy giants, are profiteering from a global supply shortage by jacking up their prices to take more money out of workers’ pockets and put it in their own.
Australian vice-chancellors continue to rake in huge salaries even as they propose pay cuts for university staff. Figures compiled by James Guthrie of Macquarie Business School show that at least twelve vice-chancellors were paid more than a million dollars last year, and several of them served for only part of the calendar year.