SYDNEY In NSW in the 2001 federal election the swing against the
ALP was twice the national average. Federal Labor's posture as pro-worker
and a defender of public services such as schools and hospitals could not
hold
-
-
Fond Memories of Cuba Despite his use of the tired old cliche "cappuccino revolutionaries", David Bradbury's criticisms of Cuban socialism (Write On, #501) may well be valid. At least it is good to see this issue being debated (if that is the word)
-
Actively Radical TV — Sydney community television's progressive current affairs producers tackle the hard issues from the activist's point of view. CTS Sydney (UHF 31), Sunday, 9pm. Phone 9565 5522. Visit <;
-
In the last few years, the increasing use of labour-hire workers in the construction, manufacturing and telecommunications industries has generated a discussion among unionists about how to best fight it and preserve
-
NAURU — I am an Afghan asylum seeker from Nauru camp. I am writing this letter hoping that you would understand and help us. About nine months ago the Australian government brought us to Nauru Island and put us in a very bad camp called
-
[To add your name to this statement email <nick.everett@lycos.com>.] US President George Bush is preparing for a new war on Iraq using the pretext that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein is threatening the world with "weapons of mass
-
HOBART — The Greens won four seats in the July 20 Tasmanian election, the result of a record Greens vote. ALEX BAINBRIDGE and DARREN JIGGINS spoke to Greens' leader PEG PUTT. Putt described the Greens' result as a "community victory, not simply
-
Museworthy: Unborn At 3am I paint the solesof my daughter's feetwith red glitter There are no reasons to deathbut how greatunreason The silver cars on their dark wheelsare parkingin our street The baby of the poor womanhas put its
-
The Australian government has the dubious distinction of being one of only three governments — along with Britain and Israel — to have unconditionally endorsed the United States' impending invasion of Iraq. Washington is
-
Two Indonesians of Chinese descent fled to Australia from Indonesia seeking asylum on the basis of religious and ethnic persecution after the fall of the Suharto dictatorship in 1998. Assessed as separate cases, they were
-
MELBOURNE — The Moreland City Council is proposing rate increases as high as 22%. The rate increases, which are scheduled for September, are the highest ever proposed in Victoria and are as high as seven times the inflation
-
Refugees on temporary protection visas make up an expanding component of the Australian government's intake of refugees. At the end of May, there were 8400 people living in Australia on TPVs. Between July 2000 and June 2001, more
-
ADELAIDE — Janet Giles, former president of the South Australian branch of the Australian Education Union (AEU), was recently elected unopposed as the secretary of the South Australian United Trades and Labor Council (UTLC). She
-
and aint i a woman: Refugees: A feminist issue Figures from the office of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) indicate that 51% of refugees are female. The oppression and exploitation of the Third World forces millions of
News
-
SYDNEY August 6 was the 12th anniversary of the imposition of sanctions on Iraq by the United States. To mark the day and demand that the sanctions be lifted unconditionally, a 24-hour picket was staged outside the US
-
BY TAMARA PEARSON BATHURST Charles Sturt University's (CSU) solution to federal funding cuts is to axe courses and fire staff. The students' response has been to organise. The students have been camping outside CSU management's
-
1000 sign to oppose refugee policy HOBART — More than 1000 people have signed a handmade, leather-bound book in one week to demonstrate their dissent from the federal government's refugee policies. The project was launched by Tasmanians for
-
BRISBANE — More than 200 people, including representatives of Indigenous groups from all over Queensland, protested in the Roma Street Forum on August 3 against the state Labor government's compensation offer on the "stolen wages"
-
BRISBANE In a mostly peaceful action on August 7, 200 people picketed the Narangba irradiation facility construction site. Protesters have maintained a protest camp against Steritech and its contracted company Statham
-
CANBERRA — The ACT conference of the Australian Labor Party on July 26 voted to end the ALP's support for mandatory detention of asylum seekers. A number of motions initiated by the Labor for Refugees group were passed
-
After a two-year fight, the Badraie family, who fled to Australia from Iran in March 2000, have been granted refugee status and issued with temporary protection visas. The Refugee Review Tribunal (RRT) announced its decision on
-
BRISBANE Centrelink, the federal government's social payment delivery agency, is demanding that its staff agree to work seven days a week at standard pay. Workers would be rostered as required by management, rather than
-
Unless it's private health insurance funds "Well we're not in the business of bailing out commercial enterprises... I can assure you that that won't be happening." — Prime Menzies John Howard, speaking to 3AW's Neil Mitchell on August 2, in
-
PERTH — Refugees' rights activists at the University of Western Australia pledged to turn their campus into a refugee safe haven at the launch of the campaign on August 8. The campaign is being organised by the UWA Refugee
-
CAIRNS — A meeting of health union delegates and members on August 7 launched a campaign committee to organise the intensifying health workers' industrial dispute. This followed a similar meeting the week before which voted to
-
Around a thousand people participated in rallies across the country commemorating the 57th anniversary of the US nuclear attacks on the Japanese cities of Nagasaki and Hiroshima at the end of World War II. In Sydney, some 500
-
WOLLONGONG — The Illawarra Refugee Action Collective (RAC) is campaigning to make the University of Wollongong a refugee safe haven. During the first week of August, students were greeted with life-size cardboard "refugees"
-
CANBERRA A library display highlighting the plight of asylum seekers was removed on August 9 after it prompted a violent response. The Refugee Action Collective (RAC) was asked to pack up its display because library
-
Afghan temporary protection visa holder and refugees' rights activist Riz Wakil is embarking on a whirlwind speaking tour on university campuses along the east coast. Wakil, who is an activist in Free the Refugees
-
SYDNEY The mood among the 52 delegates, representing nine NSW Socialist Alliance branches, was confident while tinged with a sense of urgency, when they gathered for the alliance's state conference on August 3. The
-
BY NATALIE ZIRNGAST & KYLIE MOON MELBOURNE — In a victory for the staff and student campaign against RMIT's bid to provide education and recreational facilities to asylum seekers in detention, RMIT vice chancellor Ruth Dunkin announced on
Analysis
-
A blue-print to shift further right After six months of hoopla, the much-anticipated review of the ALP's structures was released on August 9. The document is part distraction proposing minor changes to make the party appear more
World
-
WASHINGTON, DC — Last week's trip to South America by US treasury secretary Paul O'Neill is Washington's latest response to growing discontent about economic failure in the developing world. O'Neill, who has become known for
-
CHICAGO — "I'm all name and no money", George Bush claimed in 1986. In 1975, Bush returned to Texas after his stint at Yale and Harvard in the hope of copying his father's success in the Texas oil business. By the end of the
-
The suffering of ordinary Palestinians inflicted by the Israeli occupation since September 2000 extends beyond the almost 1700 killed and the more than 20,000 injured by the Israeli army and paramilitary "settlers". A new report
-
PHNOM PENH — A showing of John Pilger's documentary film The New Rulers of the World drew a crowd of more than 200 people on the evening of July 24. The showing, sponsored by the Foreign Journalists Club of Cambodia, was
-
A ceasefire between the Sri Lankan government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, the organisation fighting for the national self-determination of the Tamil people in the island's north and east, has lasted almost six months.
-
ISTANBUL — Top Pentagon brass may have doubts about the feasibility of the circulating war plans for Iraq, but George Bush's envoys have convinced Turkish decision-makers that a US military operation to overthrow Saddam
-
SAN FRANCISCO — A labour war is looming on the west coast docks, which could become the defining union conflict of the Bush administration. But the traditional issues of union bargaining — wages, benefits and working
-
"They were all swept along by the one idea: that they might still get through the adjoining disused mine if they could get there before the way was cut off... In their frightened hearts old slumbering beliefs came back to
-
The Australian government has defended its embassy officials in Jakarta who lobbied Indonesian security forces and officials to deal with "illegal miners" at an Australian-owned mine. In three separate incidents after the lobbying
Culture
-
REVIEW BY IGGY KIM Abducting DianaWritten by Dario FoDirected and adapted by Shane MorganWith Hayley Buckley, Martin Viski, Moira Hunt, Mark Duffy, Mandy Thomas, Joanne Trentini and Shaun ParkerPlaying at the New Theatre, Sydney, until August 31
-
SYDNEY Every Sunday at 9pm, 91̳ Weekly readers in Sydney can escape the usual Hollywood tripe for two hours and enjoy radical news and current affairs analysis. Channel 31's Actively Radical TV (ARTV) broadcasts a mix of documentaries,
-
Steve Earle has always been intrigued by fighters, and by the reasons why they fight. He has championed union organisers, the impoverished, death-row inmates and indigenous rights activists. As one of America's most prominent
-
Strikebreaking and Intimidation: Mercenaries and Masculinity in Twentieth-Century AmericaBy Stephen H. NorwoodUniversity of North Carolina Press/Chapel Hill, 2002328 pp, $50 (pb) REVIEW BY PHIL SHANNON On 26 May, 1937, United Automobile Workers