Sally McManus and the crisis in the unions
On her appointment to the position of ACTU secretary 12 months ago, Sally McManus lost no time in making a splash. On the day she stepped into the role, she appeared on the ABC’s 7.30 and told interviewer Leigh Sales, “I believe in the rule of law when the law is right. But when it’s unjus...CONTINUE READING
The battle for Batman shows the need for a new way
The battle between Labor and the Greens in the Batman by-election illustrated a lot about what is wrong with left politics in this country. The two previous contests in the inner-Melbourne seat – at the 2013 and 2016 federal elections – pitted long-time Greens candidate Alex Bhathal agains...CONTINUE READING
Backlash after Monash University slashes arts funding
The trouble at Monash began at 9am on the first morning of semester. New students enrolled in the popular first-year Introduction to International Relations unit arrived for class, only to find themselves in a silent and abandoned lecture theatre. To deal with overcrowded lectures, the adm...CONTINUE READING
Dream, believe, do nothing, succeed. Rinehart’s children make the big league
“There is no monopoly on becoming a millionaire. If you’re jealous of those with more money, don’t just sit there and complain – do something to make more money yourself.” Inspirational words from Australia’s richest woman, Gina Rinehart, in Australian Resources and Investment magazine. Ri...CONTINUE READING
Profit put before people in aged care
Aged care facilities in Queensland are dumping sick elderly residents into hospitals as a way of cutting their own labour costs – putting even more pressure on staff working in hospital emergency departments. Cuts to staff mean that staff-patient ratios in some aged care facilities are at...CONTINUE READING
Anti-Adani activists fined while company gets kid glove treatment
It’s an old adage: there’s one rule for the rich and another for the poor. And that’s precisely how courts are treating Adani’s Carmichael mine and the protesters opposed to it. In a first for Queensland courts, on 14 March nine activists from Frontline Action on Coal were found guilty of...CONTINUE READING
Sunrise host calls for new Stolen Generation
Had you tuned into Channel Seven’s Sunrise at just the right moment on 13 March, for a second you might have thought that right wing commentator Prue MacSween cared about Aboriginal children and the abuse they face at the hands of racist politicians, mining magnates and police officers. “W...CONTINUE READING
A family snatched at dawn, fighting for their lives
It’s the stuff of nightmares. A family with two infant daughters, their house raided by 20 or more armed strangers, bundled into vans, flown half a continent away, imprisoned for a week before again being put into vans, flown thousands of kilometres and placed on another aircraft bound for...CONTINUE READING
Australia’s hunger games
More than 3.5 million Australians, 15 percent of the population, experienced food insecurity in 2017, according to Foodbank, Australia’s largest hunger relief organisation. Food insecurity, as defined by Foodbank and the United Nations, is “a situation that exists when people lack secure a...CONTINUE READING