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In the lead up to the federal election, your guide to what’s really happening behind the spin of the official campaign.

Know your candidate: Dr Tim Kirchler (Moncrieff, Queensland) In a candid chat with 91������̳ Weekly, Kirchler, who works as a general practitioner on the Gold Coast, spoke about his reasons for running. "I believe it's time that we in

In the lead-up to the federal election, your guide to what’s really happening behind the spin of the official campaign.

As the 2007 federal election gets underway, an odd trend is showing up in the opinion polls. After eleven-and-a-half years of Coalition government and an ALP “opposition” that stood “shoulder to shoulder” with it in so many of its crimes, the combined vote for the two “parties of government” is back up to 90% (48% for Labor and 42% for the Coalition according to the Nielsen poll released on October 19).

In the 2004 federal election, the name “Socialist Alliance” appeared on the ballot paper for the first time.

Kevin Rudd’s decision to convene a special ALP national executive meeting to expel Joe McDonald marks a new high tide of anti-unionism in the so-called party of the unions. The ACTU, and unions like the CFMEU, should cut funding to Labor if its attacks on unionists don’t stop.

The Victorian Socialist Alliance held a successful special state conference in Melbourne on June 16. Ninety people attended, with a strong presence from Geelong and Ballarat. The conference also attracted activists from environmental organisations, a range of unions and Latin America solidarity groups.

After the NSW elections it looks very much like your time’s up, John Howard.

When former naval officer and NSW opposition leader Peter Debnam began his campaign to overthrow the NSW Labor government there were hopes in the Liberal camp that the scene was set for a repeat on March 24 of the party’s last win — Nick Greiner’s 1988 walloping of the Barrie Unsworth administration.

On February 21, senators Franco Turigliatto from the Party of Communist Refoundation (PRC) and Ferdinando Rossi from the Party of Italian Communists (PDCI) disobeyed party instructions and abstained on a vote in support of the foreign policy of the government of prime minister Romano Prodi. Because of their action the vote was lost and, although not obliged to, Prodi chose to resign, throwing his nine-party “Union” coalition into crisis.

October 2007 will be the 40th anniversary of Ernesto “Che” Guevara’s death in the mountains of Bolivia. It will also be the occasion of what will hopefully be the biggest anti-imperialist convergence Australia has seen in decades — the Latin American and Asia Pacific International Solidarity Forum.

On November 9, for the 15th year in a row, the UN General Assembly called on the US government to lift its 44-year-old “economic, commercial and financial embargo against Cuba.”. The non-binding resolution was approved by a record 183 votes, with only four countries (the US, Israel, Marshall Islands and Palau) voting against, and only one (Micronesia) abstaining.