The Guardian • Anna Pha
Issue #2020
Our Members Be Unlimited – Sam Wallman
If the trade union movement is to have a future, then it is in today’s youth. There is not a great deal of material written...
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Issue #1979
Afghanistan: what’s next?
Little was said about the horrendous consequences of the US-led invasion of Afghanistan and the tens of thousands of Afghan lives that were lost, and the wreckage and chaos that was left behind following the hasty withdrawal by US and allied troops.
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Issue #1975
UN IPCC Report: Australia’s role
Australia has already warmed by an alarming 1.4°C since 1910.
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Issue #1947
Casuals Con
The centrepiece of the Coalition government’s industrial relations Omnibus bill is the schedule on casual employees.
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Issue #1988
Death knell for fossil fuels
On the 12th of November, the Coalition released its long-awaited plan to achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
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Issue #1989
Health care a right, not a privilege
The Liberal-National Coalition has never supported Medicare, constantly undermining it since its introduction.
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Issue #1949
Ignoring workers: the government’s “recovery” is grim
The underemployed need more hours of work. Low and middle-income workers need a wage rise, job security, and affordable public housing.
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Issue #1974
UN IPCC Report
“Climate change is already affecting every inhabited region across the globe with human influence contributing to many observed changes in weather and climate extremes.”
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Issue #1990
Legislating bigotry
It has taken three years and two previously aborted bills for the latest incarnation of the Coalition’s highly controversial Religious Discrimination Bill to appear.
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Issue #2025
Diversity – sustainability – socialism
Cuba is one of the world’s most sustainable economies despite the six decades’ long illegal and economically crippling US blockade. Since the 1960s, the Cuban...
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Issue #1973
No tax cuts for the rich!
Labor leader Anthony Albanese and Shadow Treasurer Jim Chalmers shocked many in their own ranks when they announced that Labor would support the Coalition’s tax cuts which overwhelmingly benefit the wealthy.
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Issue #1958
May Day: Fight for the right to strike
May Day 2021 is a time to take the struggle to the streets; to show the full strength and might of the working class; and take back the losses of recent decades.
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Issue #1976
Australia fails the Pacific islands
The small, low-lying Pacific islands are often described as “the canary in the coalmine.” The very existence and lives of their people are threatened by climate change.
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Issue #1984
Greenwashing dirty investments
Is there a company that doesn’t claim to support the Paris Agreement on climate change? The agreement was signed in 2015 and since then the...
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Issue #1991
BUDGET RAZOR GANG
Despite everything that the Morrison government says about not pursuing “budget repair”, that is exactly what it is doing.
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Issue #2000
Climate change: Capitalism killing the earth
“The cumulative scientific evidence is unequivocal: Climate change is a threat to human well-being and planetary health.”
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Issue #2018
Listen to the science! State of the environment report
During the 2019-2020 bushfires thirty-three lives were lost, more than seven million hectares were burnt, more than 3,000 home destroyed. In the most recent floods,...
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Issue #1961
Pro-business – Anti-worker
Women, aged care, and jobs were to be the focus of the 2021-22 federal budget – or so we were led to believe, prior to its release.
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Issue #2005
Shelter a basic human right
Australia is facing a massive housing crisis. As it becomes increasingly more difficult to find affordable rental accommodation, governments are turning their backs on renters...
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Issue #1951
A New Accord?
“Governments create the environment that enables business to prosper and create new jobs,” said Anthony Albanese in a speech to Queensland TAFE earlier this month.
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Issue #1969
What value has the country’s keeper of our history?
It says a lot about the values and priorities of the Morrison government when the body responsible for protecting Australia’s historical records is forced to go to the public with a begging bowl to save hundreds of thousands of important historical records.
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Issue #1948
Direct assault on wages and conditions
While the Coalition’s industrial relations omnibus bill looks very different to the Howard government’s notorious WorkChoices, in effect, it has the same aims.
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Issue #1987
COP26: Colonial plunder
As the COP26 climate change meeting entered its second week, the divide between developing and developed countries and their colonial history has been laid bare.
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Issue #1999
Climate change – ACT NOW!
Prime Minister Scott Morrison described the floods along the east coast of Australia as a “one-in-a-100-year event”; NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet called them a “one-in-1000-year...
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Issue #2017
State of the Environment report
“Overall, the state and trend of the environment of Australia are poor and deteriorating as a result of increasing pressures from climate change, habitat loss,...
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Issue #1977
Truckies in fight of their lives
Seven thousand Toll drivers are in a battle to save their jobs and working conditions.
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Issue #2021
Profiteering & neglect: the aged care crisis
The aged care sector is in crisis. The failings are systemic and require fundamental structural changes. Aged care has been commodified by corporate and church...
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Issue #1980
Australia’s own goal
US President Joe Biden, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, and Australia’s PM Scott Morrison lined up like three stooges in a stage-managed virtual presentation to announce the formation of yet another military alliance
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Issue #1966
The destruction of Medicare by stealth
Without warning, the government announced changes to more than 900 Medicare rebates, mostly in private hospitals, to commence 1st July.
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Issue #2007
Who rules Australia?
One of the striking features of federal elections is their increasingly undemocratic nature and Americanisation. Much of the electioneering by major parties has been short...
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Issue #1952
Domestic violence and its systemic perpetration
At least one child is killed by a parent every month; one woman is murdered every week by a partner or former partner; another hospitalised every three hours.
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Issue #1975
Income support during post-test isolation
Unions NSW have had a breakthrough for workers, winning a $320 COVID Test and Isolate support payment from the NSW Coalition government to cover obligatory stay-at-home time following a COVID test. Victoria has a similar $450 Coronavirus Test Isolation Payment.
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Issue #2016
Fund public health
Hospitals and their staff are at breaking point as the wave of BA.4/BA.5 COVID-19 sub-strains and flu send hospitalisations to breaking point. GPs across Australia...
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Issue #1960
COVID-19
The pandemic is ravaging India with more than one million new cases every three days – a figure which is undoubtedly a gross underestimate.
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Issue #2006
Toothless tiger in the capitalist jungle
The question of the integrity of government has emerged as a major issue in the lead-up to the May 21st federal elections as Prime Minister...
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Issue #1967
Govt white-ants super yet again
On 17th June, the government rushed through both Houses legislation on superannuation.
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Issue #2024
“Put children before profit”
Tens of thousands of early childhood educators walked off the job across the country to take part in rallies and marches on 7th September. More...
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Issue #1985
JOBS NOT WAR!
The AUKUS alliance between Australia, the UK and the US turns the meaning of security on its head.
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Issue #1959
Climate Summit: “THE WORLD IS ON RED ALERT”
The growing recognition of the urgency by world leaders was reflected at the virtual climate summit called by US President Joe Biden from 22nd to 23rd April.
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Issue #2001
Budget alternative: For peace and genuine security
As the cost of living soars the number of working poor is on the rise and more and more families are turning to charities for...
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Issue #1978
Wealth gap widens
The latest national income figures showing economic growth barely above zero are suggestive of a sluggish economy, struggling to avoid recession. The economy is hardly...
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Issue #1965
COVID: It is a race!
As the Victorian state government continued to grapple with the more virulent Delta variant of COVID-19, the federal government failed to recognise the seriousness of the situation.
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Issue #1982
Beware fake unions!
They claim they are a cheaper and “independent alternative” to registered trade unions.
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Issue #2008
Fight for change
“We want change,” was the message to the major parties. The Liberals copped a routing as millions of people sought change. Most of the Murdoch...
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Issue #1971
Bring back Jobkeeper!
Thousands of workers face a substantial loss of income with the extension of lockdowns in Victoria and NSW and a new one in South Australia.
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Issue #1957
Respect at work: sexual harassment not on!
Sex Discrimination Commissioner Kate Jenkins released the Commission’s Respect@Work report on sexual harassment in the workplace more than twelve months ago.
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Issue #2002
Budget 2022-23 – CLASS WAR
The budget announced by Treasurer Josh Frydenberg is a pre-election, last ditch, vote-buying exercise from the Morrison government. Voters struggling with rising prices and falling...
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Issue #2023
Jobs and Skills Summit: dangerous illusions for workers
Workers and their families are looking for real change – real wage rises, secure jobs, safe working conditions, with adequately funded and staffed health and...
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Issue #2025
Good planets are hard to find
La Niña event is under way for the third year in a row according to the Bureau of Meteorology. The Pacific, including Australia, can expect...
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Issue #2009
Feet on the ground
After nine years of corrupt, anti-people, climate deniers in office, the newly elected Albanese Labor government faces many challenges. Expectations of real change are high,...
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Issue #1970
HARD SHUT DOWN NOW!
The situation in NSW is extremely serious. The Delta strain is far more infectious and deadly than earlier strains. Almost ten per cent of those who tested positive have been hospitalised.
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Issue #1971
Vaccination the only way out
The delta strain of COVID-19 had spread to all states on the eastern seaboard and to South Australia and border closures are in place at the time of writing.
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Issue #2014
Time for a wage rise
The cost-of-living crisis has not abated as households face further economic pressures with interest rates and inflation on the rise. Trade union militancy is on...
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Issue #2015
Policy-induced violence
At least one child is killed by a parent every month; one woman is murdered every week by a partner or former partner; another hospitalised...
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Issue #2004
Boot the Coalition out!
The Coalition government has comprehensive plans to destroy militant trade unions and give employers arbitrary powers and unfettered rights over workers in the workplace. The...
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Issue #2022
The aged care crisis
How does a non-profit charitable organisation that is sixty-nine per cent funded by government, and claims to operate at a loss, find $1.4 billion to...
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Issue #1968
Only solidarity can defeat COVID
Around the globe, COVID-19 in its various mutations continues to spread, with the health systems of many developing nations unable to cope and vaccines in short supply.
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Issue #1986
“Code red for humanity”: Glasgow Climate Summit
The rich G20 countries, responsible for more than eighty per cent of human-made emissions.
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Issue #2010
Energy prices explode: capitalism in crisis
Consumers face soaring energy costs as Australia’s gas and thermal coal exporters rake in windfall profits. The incoming Labor government has inherited the legacy of...
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Issue #2011
Abolish the ABCC
The Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC) has used the courts to hit building and construction unions with fines of $15.262 million since 2nd December...
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Issue #2013
Big win for gig workers
Gig workers had a ground-breaking win last month when the Personal Injury Commission (PIC) awarded the family of Xiaonjun Chen $834,000 in workers’ compensation after...
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Issue #2012
The sun will shine, the wind will blow
Australia is on the brink of a total collapse of its domestic energy market amid a crisis that has been decades in the making. If...
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Issue #1956
Govt to hit Women’s super
Last month, Superannuation Minister Jane Hume (also Minister for Women’s Economic Security [sic]) announced that a draft bill would be released soon for superannuation changes, including new compassionate grounds for early access to super for victims of domestic violence. They would be allowed to apply for up to $10,000 “as an important last resort lifeline.”
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Issue #1955
Omnibus bill wounded but not buried
The Coalition’s omnibus industrial relations bill was torn apart in the Senate on Thursday 18th March, leaving only the section on casuals intact. On the same day Parliament passed a bill for the (pre-COVID base rate) unemployment benefit (JobSeeker) to be increased by an insulting and punitive $25 a week – just $3.57 a day extra – when the COVID supplement ceases at the end of March. JobKeeper is being withdrawn at the same time.
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