The fight for Deebing Creek
Since early February, Indigenous activists and supporters have been camping at Deebing Creek, Ipswich, in protest at a developer’s plan to build flats on a former mission and heritage site. Red Flag spoke to Yuggera women Aunty Faye and Karen Coghill about Deebing Creek’s history and the c...CONTINUE READING
Class war in Australia
A report published by the Australian Council of Trade Unions shows that class inequality in Australia is deeply entrenched. The authors of “Inequality in Australia: an economic, social and political disaster” estimate that the top 20 percent of households “earn” just shy of 50 percent of t...CONTINUE READING
NSW election: a road to nowhere
“Leave a poo at Gladys Berejiklian’s doorstep.” This was the title of a recent Facebook event to leave the NSW Liberal premier “a little present since she’s being so shit lately”. It attracted more than 14,000 “going” or “interested” clicks. With the NSW election coming up, the government...CONTINUE READING
The Catholic Church is a stain on civilisation
For many of us, the conviction of cardinal George Pell comes as a shock only because a guilty verdict was reached by a court. It’s extremely difficult to prove criminal guilt (beyond reasonable doubt) in cases of historic abuse where the evidence is limited to the recollection of a victim....CONTINUE READING
‘Socialism sounds good, but how are you going to pay for it?’
Whenever some measure to alleviate the lot of the poor or oppressed is proposed, you can always rely on some right winger to chime in: “Where’s the money going to come from?” They accuse socialists of believing there is some bottomless pot of government cash that can pay for what they reck...CONTINUE READING
What Adani tells us about capitalism
“I want kids to be at school to learn about how you build a mine, how you do geology, how you drill for oil and gas … The best thing you learn about going to a protest is how to join the dole queue because that’s what your future life will look like.” As the rantings of resource minister M...CONTINUE READING
The road that ate Sydney
Picture a giant pig wearing a top hat hovering over Sydney with its snout in a Macquarie Street trough, and the other end dumping a $40 billion, 33-kilometre pile of concrete on the western suburbs. That describes WestConnex, Australia’s largest infrastructure project, smashing its way thr...CONTINUE READING
Royal commission lets banks off the hook
Tens of millions of dollars outlaid on the Commission’s hearings. Ten thousand submissions from aggrieved customers. A mountain of corporate crime unearthed. But the main outcome of the Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Financial Services Industry has been to let the big four banks o...CONTINUE READING
‘Enough is enough’: resisting the criminalisation of poverty
Debbie Kilroy doesn’t mince words. “Poverty in Western Australia is a crime – and the state government is ensuring that Aboriginal women are being criminalised because they’re poor.” Kilroy is head of prisoner advocacy group Sisters Inside, which last month launched a GoFundMe campaign to...CONTINUE READING