Pokies are a ruling class con
It’s no secret that poker machines are rigged. What appears on the surface as pure chance is in fact a complex algorithm that ensures player losses always exceed wins eventually. What’s not as well known is just how far the scam extends. New South Wales has the highest density of pokies in...CONTINUE READING
‘They cry and call it dog food’ – the aged care disgrace
In the wake of prime minister Scott Morrison’s announcement of a royal commission into aged care in Australia, ABC’s Four Corners program on 17 September aired the first part of an explosive exposé on Australia’s aged care system. Families and staff revealed the damning reality of day to d...CONTINUE READING
When profits come before people
Australia has an ageing population and a free market economy. What does the former mean for the latter? The September 2014 edition of the ASX investor update newsletter spelled it out: “Old could be gold for companies that benefit from this powerful demographic trend”. Don’t adjust your ey...CONTINUE READING
Electing Labor is a failed strategy for the workers’ movement
The election of Sally McManus as Australian Council of Trade Unions secretary in March 2017 came with bold rhetoric about the right of unions to break Australia’s unjust industrial laws. All the usual sucks for the bosses condemned McManus’ “outrageous” statements. But she stood her ground...CONTINUE READING
Crime scenes: Aboriginal deaths in custody continue
There are few facts more damning than 407 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander deaths in custody since the end of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody in 1991. Except, perhaps, that the figures are hard to find. Among the 339 largely-ignored recommendations of the royal...CONTINUE READING
Labor’s tax policy hits the middle class, not big business
With the Liberals in disarray, the business establishment is seriously contemplating the prospect of a Labor government. Top business leaders and their media are unlikely to openly campaign for Labor, as they will not want to see too catastrophic a collapse in the vote for the Liberals, th...CONTINUE READING
Let Chelsea Manning in
The Australian government must immediately grant US whistleblower Chelsea Manning an entry visa so she can commence her long-planned speaking tour of the country. Manning, who is due to speak in Sydney on Sunday, was a junior intelligence analyst in the US military when, in 2010, she provi...CONTINUE READING
Why is parliamentary politics so volatile?
Australia is one of the most successful capitalist societies in history. An economy with 27 years of uninterrupted growth and relatively high levels of social mobility. A stable bourgeois democracy in which the military is rarely deployed to the streets and where states of emergency are ca...CONTINUE READING
No emissions reduction target, but $444 million for corporate greenwashing
The Liberal leadership spill has drawn attention away from what should rank among the biggest scandals in the history of Australian politics: the government’s gift of almost half a billion dollars to the Great Barrier Reef Foundation (GBRF), an organisation whose barely concealed role is t...CONTINUE READING