Workers rally against South Australian state budget
The first Liberal government in South Australia for 16 years has delivered its inaugural state budget, and it’s filled with brutal cuts to public services. Treasurer Rob Lucas is eager to pick up where he left off. He’s infamous for privatising the electricity grid in 1999, a move that led to ballooning power prices, decrepit infrastructure and the energy crisis we’re dealing with today. His budget will sac...CONTINUE READING
Students protest against SA’s biggest Downer
The University of Adelaide’s decision to give former foreign affairs minister Alexander Downer an honorary doctorate has been met with protest. On 11 September, Downer spoke to graduates at the university’s Bonython Hall, where a small contingent of protesters from the campus Disarm campaign were waiting. Downer was a leading figure in the government that sent troops to invade Iraq in 2003, and he played a...CONTINUE READING
Adelaide’s public space privatised
The land surrounding Adelaide’s central grid has traditionally been public space. Wide green parklands surround most of the CBD, while along the northern edge are various public buildings: the hospital, parliament, library, art gallery, museum and two public universities. Over the last decades, the public nature of this space has been eroded. Skycity Casino now operates in the heritage-listed railway buildi...CONTINUE READING
Chelsea Manning’s case reveals the right’s hypocrisy
US whistle blower Chelsea Manning’s speaking tour has been thwarted by the Department of Home Affairs. And the political right, which complains endlessly about the curtailment of freedom of speech, has been noticeably silent. Manning was a US intelligence analyst in Iraq in 2010, with reports and videos daily coming across her desk detailing the horrors of the United States’ war crimes in the country. She r...CONTINUE READING
Biloela children becoming sick from detention
The Tamil Refugee Council has condemned the ongoing detention of a Tamil family removed earlier this year from their home in Biloela, central Queensland, after a new medical report noted emerging behavioural problems in the children. The family – Priya, Nades and their infant daughters Kopiga, 3, and Tharnicca (Dharuniga), 14 months – has been held in Melbourne Immigration Transit Accommodation, Broadmeadow...CONTINUE READING
Australian activists sing in solidarity with East Timor
A combined Union and Solidarity Choir from NSW, ACT and Victoria on 4 September concluded a nine-day singing visit to Timor-Leste. Most of the choir members have been activists in the solidarity movement with Timor-Leste, some of them going back to before the Indonesian invasion and occupation in late 1975. Since the restoration of the country’s independence with the withdrawal of Indonesian troops in 1999,...CONTINUE READING
Far right terrorism in Perth
On 26 August, the Al-Taqwa Masjid mosque in the Perth suburb of Mirrabooka, where more than 2,000 Muslims regularly come to pray, was firebombed using improvised explosives. While fortunately nobody was hurt, the mosque suffered up to $250,000 worth of damage. Had a church been firebombed by Muslims, the city would have been in lockdown and a state of hysteria declared. In this case, the arson squad has yet...CONTINUE READING
Farage met with protests in Perth and Melbourne
Since the election of Donald Trump, Australia has become the “it” destination for far right provocateurs. The latest is Nigel Farage, former leader of the UK Independence Party and notorious anti-Muslim racist. Farage began his speaking tour of Australia and New Zealand on 2 September, arriving in Perth to heap praise on One Nation leader Pauline Hanson and US President Donald Trump at the up to $300 per he...CONTINUE READING
More than 550 people attend Sydney Socialism conference
“It’s not enough to just think left wing thoughts. Without being embodied in movements, without being embodied in unions and without being embodied in socialist organisations, ideas alone cannot change the world”. With this call to action another successful Socialism conference was brought to a close. The conference – held in Sydney on the first weekend of September and attracting more than 550 people – ref...CONTINUE READING