Murray Smith, a member of the European Left Party's executive bureau, looks at the emergence of new parties in Europe over the past 25 years. He responds to criticisms of his perspective by Mick Armstrong from Australia's Socialist Alternative.
News
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Australian environmental and international solidarity campaigner Natalie Lowrey was arrested and detained for six days in Kuantan, Malaysia for standing with Malaysian activists campaigning against Australian company Lynas Corp's toxic rare earth refinery near that city. At a peaceful protest of more than 1000 people outside the Lynas plant on June 22, 16 protesters were arrested and a number were injured by police, one very severely. Lowrey was released with no charge on June 27, the other 15 protesters faced court on July 8 on a variety of charges. She has since returned to Australia. -
More than 2000 people marched in Melbourne on June 28 to protest the proposed East West Link motorway. The East West Link is to be a partially tunnelled toll road that would give commuters crossing the Yarra River an alternative to the currently overloaded West Gate Bridge. Protesters, however, said the East West Link will be excessively costly, will contribute to pollution and will generate far fewer jobs than an equivalent public transport project. Demonstrators also voiced concerns that the East West Link would erode Melbourne鈥檚 culture of public transport.
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Communities in Maules Creek, New South Wales, are banding together with environmental activists in order to stop coal mining in the Leard State Forest, which threatens to kill wildlife, destroy forestry and worsen climate change due to increased greenhouse gas emissions.
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The NSW Coalition government's proposed private North West rail link, from Chatswood to Rouse Hill, will be "unfit for the purpose" it is intended for, according to Gavin Gatenby, co-convener of . Instead of being a more efficient mode of mass commuter transport, the planned single-deck line would be an "entry wedge for the privatisation of the city's rail system鈥. -
More than 80 people attended a community forum and organising meeting at the Ingleburn Community Centre in Sydney鈥檚 south west on June 29 in opposition to coal seam gas (CSG) mining. Stop CSG Illawarra spokesperson Jess Moore, Doctors for the Environment鈥檚 Helen Redmond and Australia Institute researcher Mark Ogge addressed the meeting. Moore presented a brief introduction to the nature of the CSG industry and detailed the environmental catastrophes that have followed the industry from the US to Australia. -
About 120 Sydney residents, concerned about the impact of the proposed WestConnex motorway, met at the Annandale Neighbourhood Centre on June 25. The meeting heard that WestConnex, the biggest and most expensive motorway in the Australia, will not reduce congestion and is just an excuse for a developer land grab along Parramatta Road.
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Many local residents in Victorian regional city Bendigo were shocked when right-wing groups from outside of Bendigo began mobilising residents against the proposal for the city鈥檚 first mosque. The mosque is planned to be built on underdeveloped industrial land in East Bendigo. It is to include a prayer centre, a cafe and a sports centre which would be available for the general community to use. A heated council meeting on June 18 approved the mosque plans by a vote of 7 to 2. However, opponents say they will appeal to the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT). -
Kirstyn Jones is from Davoren Park near Playford in Adelaide's northern suburbs, where there has been an income management trial for two years. She is the first Playford resident forced on to income management to speak publicly. She was put on income management, despite being financially competent and working part time, solely because she was on Youth Allowance and not living at home. -
Sunrays pierced the cold rain to make a sudden halo around the Blackbird as it approached the Collins Landing wharf in Melbourne on June 21, docking across from the Republic of West Papua鈥檚 new state of the art Department of Foreign Affairs, Immigration and Trade office. People in suits, high heels, dreadlocks and traditional Melanesian headdresses sang, danced and waved West Papua鈥檚 outlawed Morning Star flag as they gathered to greet the boat of West Papuan Foreign Affairs staff arriving to formally open their new office.
Analysis
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Moreland City Councillor and Socialist Alliance member Sue Bolton delivered the following speech at the Trains Not Tolls rally in Melbourne on June 28. The rally was organised to protest against the new East West Link motorway. *** It鈥檚 great seeing people here from all over Melbourne, because this issue affects not just people from the inner city where the East West Link is designed to go, but it affects people from all over Melbourne and all over Victoria. -
Palmer United Party leader Clive Palmer held an unlikely joint press conference on June 25 with former US vice president and climate campaigner Al Gore. It was one of those mindboggling moments in Australian politics that seem to be a more frequent occurrence in recent times. Palmer used the opportunity to announce his position on some key climate-related policies the incoming Senate will be voting on. -
The Tony Abbott government has recently been at pains to emphasise that it is 鈥減rotecting鈥 the community from Australian-born 鈥渏ihadists鈥 returning from participation in conflicts in the Middle East. Having learned the tools of the terrorist trade in zones of sectarian strife, they argue, these 鈥渆xtremists鈥 might well embark on a campaign of politically-motivated civil slaughter in this country. Citing this as a motivating factor, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade has recently cancelled several Australian passports. -
鈥淭he Australian government has reached a frightening new low as a human rights鈥 denier and perpetrator,鈥 the Tamil Refugee Council said on July 3. The council was responding to 鈥渃redible media reports鈥 about immigration minister Scott Morrison's 鈥渁bhorrent act of secretly sending back a boatload of Tamil asylum-seekers to the certainty of a Sri Lankan jail and the probability of rape and torture鈥. -
For controversial sporting bans for violating 鈥渃ommon decency鈥, forget Luis Suarez and his four-month ban from all football-related activities after the Uruguayan striker decided to taste a little Italian. If you want a really outrageous penalty for a sporting star, it is hard to overlook . -
Clive Palmer is proving to be a more adept and unpredictable populist than many of us gave him credit for. The latest surprise was his decision to back the abolition of the carbon tax while opposing the scrapping of the Renewable Energy Target, Clean Energy Finance Corporation and the Climate Change Commission. -
Prime Minister Tony Abbott said in a recent address to the Committee for Economic Development of Australia, 鈥渁ll fit young people should be ... expected to persevere for six months to find a job or to choose a further training programme before accessing welfare payments鈥. The government鈥檚 stubbornness in persisting with the changes to Newstart Allowance for job-seekers under 30 ignores the advice from welfare agencies and other parties that it will lead to poverty or crime, not increased employment. -
Conservative Murdoch mouthpiece Janet Albrechtsen and former deputy Liberal Party leader Neil Brown have been appointed as new members of the panel that oversees appointments to the ABC and SBS boards. The appointments by the Tony Abbott government come after the announcement of serious funding cuts to both public broadcasters in the May federal budget. The cuts were passed in parliament with the support of Labor and the Greens.
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Welfare groups have expressed anger at changes to welfare for people with disabilities, which the federal government released in a draft report on June 29. The McClure report proposes far-reaching changes to the welfare system and cuts the number of welfare payments to just four; a working age payment, disability support, child support and the age pension. There are 830,000 recipients on the Disability Support Pension (DSP). Social services minister Kevin Andrews has suggested only people with a permanent disability would be eligible for the DSP.
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Sri Lanka has confirmed plans for asylum seekers from its persecuted Tamil ethnic minority to be directly handed over by Australia at sea. Although the Australian government has refused to confirm or deny such plans, Prime Minister Tony Abbott said on July 3 that Sri Lanka was 鈥渁 society at peace鈥 that had made 鈥渕uch progress鈥 on human rights. That day, the Tamil Refugee Council released a statement explaining the true situation in Sri Lanka that included the ive points below. * * *
World
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Less than two weeks after concluding its largest military assault on the occupied West Bank in more than a decade, Israel has relentlessly pounded the besieged Gaza Strip since July 7. The ongoing bombing campaign is the most severe violence inflicted by Israel on Gaza since its eight-day assault in November 2012, during which more than 150 Palestinians were killed, 33 of them children. More than 1400 Palestinians were killed in Gaza, including 350 children, during Israel鈥檚 three consecutive weeks of attacks from air, land and sea during winter 2008-09. -
The Party of the European Left is a European-wide political grouping that unites 26 parties to the left of social democracy, such as SYRIZA in Greece. It released the statement below on July 2. For more information visit . * * * We consider the main factors in the Ukraine crisis to be the imperial atttitude towards the country, as shown by all major powers involved: the deliberately provocative and bellicose moves by the US, NATO and European Union, as well as the aggressive steps taken by Russia.
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Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro announced on July 1 the need for 鈥渁 complete and profound revolution within public administration鈥. Maduro appointed planning minister Ricardo Menendez and vice-president Jorge Arreaza to facilitate a 鈥渞estructuring鈥 of the government system, to take place until July 15. 鈥淔rom July 1 to 15, we鈥檙e going to shake-up the revolutionary government entirely, to change everything and authentically improve socialist efficiency in the Homeland Plan鈥檚 development,鈥 Maduro said from the Caracas working-class neighbourhood Los Magallanes de Catia.
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Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas challenged Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on July 2 to condemn the abduction and murder of teenager Mohammed Abu Khdeir in east Jerusalem. Abbas accused extremist Jewish settlers of 鈥渒illing and burning a little boy鈥 and demanded Israel 鈥渉old the killers accountable鈥. Just hours after Israel buried three teenagers recently murdered in the West Bank, relatives of Khdeir said the 17-year-old had been forced into a car in east Jerusalem before it sped off. His burned body was found shortly afterward in a Jerusalem woodland beauty spot.
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Venezuela: Social programs expanded in poorest communities The Venezuelan government has initiated its policy of expanding social programs in the country鈥檚 most deprived areas in a bid to eradicate extreme poverty, on June 30. The initiative, called 鈥淩ed Sundays鈥, involves teams of social program workers visiting poorer communities every Sunday to diagnose which households are deprived of certain basic needs and which social programs are required to attend to these needs.
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The stadium in Phokeng outside Rustenburg in South Africa's North West Province exploded in jubilation when the end of the longest strike in South Africa's history was announced on June 23. Men and women waved their arms victoriously in the air and resounding ululations and cheering reverberated as a great burden of domestic hardship lifted. Workers had changed history. -
Players in Algeria's national football team have announced that they plan to put prize money earned in the World Cup to good use, said on July 2. Striker Islam Slimani said the entire squad would donate the earnings to the people of embattled Gaza, saying 鈥淭hey need it more than us鈥. -
Kavita Krishnan is a socialist activist and a well-known international spokesperson for the movement against sexual violence in India.
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As the autocratic rule of Big Brother Generalissimo Prayut Chan-ocha trundles forward, we are seeing the militarisation of politics, economics and society in Thailand. All government ministries are controlled by military personnel. Civil servants who were in their posts before the May 23 military coup are being replaced by loyal lapdogs or cronies of the junta. -
Dr Paikiasothy Saravanamuttu, executive director of the Centre for Policy Alternatives in Sri Lanka, gave a talk on 鈥淭he challenge of moving from post-war to post-conflict in Sri Lanka鈥 at a June 21 meeting held in the Darebin Intercultural Centre in Melbourne. The following is a summary of his talk compiled by Michael Cooke. *** The end of the war [between the Sri Lankan state and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam in 2009] does not mean the end of conflict. The guns are silent, but the sources of conflict remain, and are being reproduced.
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If anyone can get the different forces of the Catalan left to unite in support of a common cause, it is Ada Colau. The spokesperson of the anti-eviction Mortgage Victims Platform (PAH) until early May, Colau is almost certainly the most popular and respected social activist in the Spanish state. On June 26, Colau launched Let鈥檚 Win Barcelona platform for next year's May municipal elections in the Catalan capital. -
When I was in Brazil for those first days of the World Cup, I was 鈥 with many other journalists 鈥 tear gassed by military police. I saw sleek, urban-outfitted tanks in the streets and I felt concussion grenades send subsonic shrapnel crashing into my eardrums. I didn鈥檛 see the drones flying overhead, but then again, no one without a Hubble telescope is supposed to see the drones. -
In the early hours of July 1, Israel Defense Forces (IDF) bombed dozens of sites across Gaza, hours after three missing teenage Israeli settlers were found dead. The Israeli government, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, predictably seized on the boys' disappearance and death as the pretext to raid Palestinian territory, attack Hamas and expand illegal settlements.
Culture
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鈥淏udget Reply (Hey Joe)鈥 is Australia鈥檚 first musical response to Joe Hockey鈥檚 deeply unpopular 2014 budget.
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Perth's May 18 March in May demonstration was led by a very interesting character. Baloney Abbott is quite a sex symbol in his bright red 鈥渂udget smugglers鈥, fake rubber chest and oversised 鈥淧roudly Australian鈥 badge.
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Diary of a Foreign Minister Bob Carr Newsouth, 2014 502 pages Too often, Bob Carr鈥檚 diary sounds like an episode of Grumpy Old Ministers. An 18-month stint as foreign minister in the doomed Rudd-Gillard-Rudd federal Labor government, the globe-trotting Carr gripes about the dead prose of his departmental talking points, the lifeless food and draining jetlag of plane travel, the awfulness of hotels, Canberra (鈥渢he City of the Dead鈥) and contracting viruses from shaking hands all day on the campaign trail 鈥渨ithout a hand sanitiser in the car 鈥 damn!鈥
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Reclaim Your Voice Various artists Released June 2014 Blue Mountain Sound Andy Busuttil of Blue Mountain Sound released the following statement on June 28. *** We would like to think of our Australia as a nation with a big heart. A nation that stands for the dispossessed and does its damndest to help those in need, especially those attempting to flee tyranny.