COVID-19

The Guardian • COVID-19

Issue #2016

Why Western predictions on China were mostly wrong in past decade

When commenting on China, some in the West only see a country constantly at the cusp of crisis, ranging from predictions of a “China hard...

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Issue #1947

Success of Cuba’s fight against Coronavirus

On the 1st of January, 2021, Cuban revolution completed 62 years.

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Issue #1953

Beyond digital capitalism: new ways of living

Only a socialist publication could, in the midst of COVID-19, expose “for all to see the severe consequences of longstanding neoliberal state practices” and take on the challenge of capturing the significance of the pandemic and what it spoke to in terms of imagining, struggling for, and planning for, new ways of living.

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Issue #1966

US intelligence community meddling in COVID-19’ origins echoes the tactics of Iraq war

At the end of May, US President Joe Biden ordered the intelligence community to “redouble” its efforts in the investigation of the origin of COVID-19 and report back to him in ninety days.

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Issue #1972

Study reveals shocking decline in life expectancy in the US

The United States life expectancy fell by more than a year, from 78.8 years to 77.3 years, during the first half of 2020.

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Issue #1969

The [UK] PM is giving bosses, not workers, the right to “exercise judgement” on COVID safety

Boris Johnson is a gambler and lifting remaining COVID restrictions this month is a gamble with unpredictable consequences.

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Issue #1973

Eye-witness account of US attempts to destabilise Cuba

Approximately two weeks after Father’s Day, the COVID-19 Delta variant began to take hold, particularly in the province of Matanzas.

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Issue #1961

Federal court upholds India travel ban

In a judgment handed down on the 10th May, the Federal Court of Australia (FCA) upheld the federal government’s India travel ban.

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Issue #2001

Unite under the Olympic spirit

Following more than six years of preparation and nearly thirty days of exciting competition, the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics and Paralympics, which have successfully presented...

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Issue #1976

Coronavirus upends world of work, opens workers’ eyes to unions

In the months since the coronavirus pandemic was officially declared in the US on 13th March, 2020, the nation’s world of work has turned upside down.

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Issue #2032

22nd International Meeting of Communist and Workers’ Parties

“Solidarity with Cuba and all the struggling peoples. United, we are stronger in the anti-imperialist struggle, together with social and popular movements, in the face...

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Issue #2021

Public sector alliance rally – WA

In Western Australia there has been a campaign of industrial activity over the past six weeks by more than ten trade unions who make up...

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Issue #1966

COVID-19 and child labour

The International Labour Organisation (ILO) reported that child labour has risen by over 8mil to 160mil children in the four years from 2016 to 2020.

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Issue #1991

Interview with comrade Ekin Sönmez from the Communist Party of Turkey

Comrade Ekin Sönmez is a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Turkey (TKP). Our comrades at the Guardian – The Workers’...

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Comrades from the Sunshine Coast and Brisbane branch marched together, and supporting Vote Yes at the Brisbane May Day rally. Issue #2052

May Day – Millions march around the world

People squeezed by inflation and demanding economic justice took to streets across Asia, Europe, and the Americas to mark May Day, in an outpouring of...

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Issue #1953

Socialist and capitalist response to COVID-19 and vaccinations

Now more than ever is probably a good time to look at the difference in responses between socialist and capitalist countries

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Issue #1969

Cuba is not alone

The Communist Party of Australia recently sent a diplomatic delegation to Canberra.

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Issue #1949

Ever increasing precarity for public education amidst TAFE funding cuts and privatisation

The Federal Government continues to neglect public Vocational Education and Training, diminishing accessibility for many Australians.

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Issue #1973

Anti-mask is anti-working class

Thousands of anti-maskers have gathered in major centres around the country in opposition to COVID-19 restrictions.

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Issue #1993

Distractions

Under the cloak of the global pandemic, the US military-industrial complex is gleefully organising another war to rescue capitalism. The propaganda machine has certainly made...

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Issue #2017

“We don’t need no (bourgeois) education!”: Comrades congregate at national school

On the 22-24th July, comrades from across the country from South Australia, Victoria, New South Wales, Canberra, and Queensland met in Sydney to learn about...

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Issue #1991

BHP can’t enforce vaccine mandate: Fair Work Commission

Workers at NSW’s Mt Arthur BHP coal mine have won in the Fair Work Commission (FWC), which ruled on 3rd December that BHP can not enforce a vaccine mandate at the site until it undertakes genuine consultation with workers.

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Issue #1992

Australians “shielded”  from systemic problems during pandemic

Alexander Michaels is a Scientific Officer for Laverty Pathology and says that people are aware of problems in the health system but not to the full extent. 

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Issue #1973

Businesses exploit JobKeeper subsidy

It has been revealed that businesses have rorted the JobKeeper program during 2020, with many of them using it to turn a profit.

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Issue #2035

Contributions to IMCWP 2022

Editor’s note: The following are contributions from the Iraqi Communist Party and the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia (Czech Republic) to the International Meeting...

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Issue #2033

Cuba wins for the 30th consecutive time at the UN General Assembly

Activists around the world celebrated Cuba’s win at the UN General Assembly as 185 countries voted in favour of Cuba’s draft resolution to end the...

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Issue #2001

Letter from Denmark

In July of 2020, I was given “special permission” by the border authorities to leave Australia and join my partner in Denmark. For almost two...

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Issue #1992

Thanks but no tanks, rats please?

“You can’t make everything free,” said Prime Minister Scott Morrison ...

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Issue #1979

COVID-19 vaccines: community groups urge trade minister to deliver on waiving monopolies at WTO

Following months of campaigning, Australian civil society organisations last week welcomed the comments from Trade Minister Dan Tehan

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Issue #2025

Wa State Myanmar makes great progress!

“Our study of the laws of revolutionary war springs from the desire to eliminate all wars; herein lies the distinction between us Communists and all...

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Issue #1973

No politicisation of COVID origin tracing

As COVID-19 continues to wreak havoc across the globe, the current situation is still grave.

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Issue #2033

LETTER

Dear Editor, I am very happy about the recent victory of Lula in regaining the presidency of Brazil, but he has a lot of work...

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Issue #1998

The “new normal” life with COVID, two years on

New data shows that the cost of living has increased 3.5 per week in the past year and poverty is once more on the increase...

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Issue #2041

GLOBAL BRIEFS

PERU: Hip hop, rock reggae, and punk songs are accompanying the continuing protests of thousands of Peruvians. Displaying unprecedented creativity, Peruvian youth have composed songs...

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Issue #1992

Djokovic, Hillsong reveal COVID contradictions

“No Rapid Antigen Tests available” – the now ubiquitous message can be found in just about every supermarket and chemist in the country.

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Issue #1973

Working class over-policed, while the rich enjoy freedom

The response to the pandemic from Australian governments has revealed (perhaps more than any other event in recent history) their contempt for the Australian working class.

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Issue #1993

Logistics and manufacturing industries in chaos due to government’s Omicron crises

The recent Omicron crises, the result of the incompetent Coalition government’s “let it rip” strategy, is reeking chaos in Australia’s logistics industry. High numbers of...

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Issue #1982

Nurses and midwives deserve better working conditions

Two weeks ago, a petition with over 50,000 signatures called for Australia’s nurses and midwives to receive a COVID disaster payment for their work during...

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Issue #1994

The challenge of dealing with COVID-19

In the world of the 24-hour news cycle, we are being bombarded with information overload. The mass media move from picking at one warped point...

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Issue #2036

New year’s greeting from the president

It feels like only a few months have passed since I wrote a season’s greeting for 2022. It was the year our 14th Congress, delayed...

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Issue #1991

Season’s greetings and for a better 2022: the people need socialism more than ever

As we approach the end of 2021, we must reflect on how almost two years of COVID-19 have changed people’s lives.

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Issue #1965

ACTU calls on government to save lives and support a waiver on vaccine patents

Australia is just one of twelve countries stopping a waiver on patents for COVID-19 products which would allow developing countries to manufacture COVID-19 vaccines and treatments.

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Issue #2002

Fight for public health and workplace safety rally – Melbourne

CPA Victorian Branch comrades marched to and attended the Fight for Public Health and Workplace Safety rally on Saturday 19th March at Melbourne’s State Library....

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Issue #1966

Industrial policy for Australia post COVID-19 webinar

This webinar proved to be a most interesting Q&A debate between Sarah Howe, chairing the session and Professor John McKay, Hon. Prof of the Faculty of the Arts and Education at Deakin University.

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Issue #1951

Communist Party of Greece, Joint Statement

A year has passed since the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, which also acted as a catalyst for the deepening of the capitalist crisis ...

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Issue #1981

A Melbourne perspective: lockdowns, “freedom” rallies, and mandatory vaccination

The topics covered were discussed at a recent Melbourne CPA branch meeting.

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Issue #2016

DINGO

At its Jobs and Skills Summit in September, the federal government will respond to staff shortages in nursing and aged care with a plan to...

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Issue #1991

Year in review

2021 has been a year that has intensified the elements of the class struggle we have been experiencing since the pandemic arrived in Australia in 2020.

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Issue #2046

GLOBAL BRIEFS

HONDURAS: The President of Honduras has announced that the country will seek to establish diplomatic relations with mainland China instead of Taiwan. The Foreign Minister...

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Issue #2003

May Day 2022: WORKERS DEMAND CHANGE!

Australian and international workers’ struggle is taking the demand for change to the ruling class who always put the weight of any crisis back onto...

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Issue #2008

COVID-19 is worse than ever in Australia

It is hard to believe that after over two years of harrowing fears of COVID-19 that people in Australia would be experiencing the worst situation...

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Issue #1954

ACTU CALLS for GLOBAL SOLIDARITY ON PANDEMIC

The ACTU stated that “[t]he pandemic has highlighted the world’s stark social and health inequities".

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Man next to shopping trolley. Issue #2065

USA: Hunger and food insecurity

The United States is a net exporter of food, yet hunger is a worsening phenomenon with many Americans unable to buy basic foods, due to...

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Issue #1993

“Freedom” rally, Supreme Court Gardens – Perth

In the shadow of WA Premier Mark McGowan’s announcement of a new mandate and restrictions to be imposed once the WA hard border falls on...

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Issue #2032

We demand more for teachers

Education was one of the industries most effected by the COVID-19 pandemic with teachers experiencing some of the worst workplace conditions with inadequate resources. But...

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Issue #1982

Fair Work Ombudsman finds wage theft in hotel quarantine

In July this year, the Fair Work Ombudsman (FWO), Sandra Parker, launched an investigation into thirty-seven companies who ran security for hotel quarantine in Melbourne...

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Issue #2014

RBA and ALP want workers to pay for the crisis

After decades of wage stagnation and increasing living costs, the Reserve Bank of Australia has told workers to tighten their belts and accept further real...

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Issue #1983

Fremantle council workers win

The recent attention to trade union activity is unsurprising; victories of the unions bring admiration for workers but worry the capitalist elites.

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Issue #1996

Unions join to give voice on job casualisation and COVID-19

It was great to see so many people joining together to listen and give voice to the major problems of casualisation and the pandemic that...

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Issue #2046

A return to Cuba

Since January 1983, dedicated groups of Australian and New Zealand friends of Cuba have made their way to the Caribbean to show their support for...

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Issue #1950

Op-ed: the global class struggle post-pandemic

Over one year ago (30/1/2020), the World Health Organisation (WHO), declared that the outbreak of COVID-19 constituted a Public Health Emergency of International Concern.

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Issue #1979

Campus action as report reveals university job devastation

Uni staff will launch a week of action as a new report lays bare the devastation of COVID in tertiary education, with close to one in five staff losing their jobs in 2021.

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Issue #1967

WA police access COVID app

The WA government has butted heads with their police force over the police’s ability to access data from the state’s contact-tracing app, SafeWA.

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Issue #2009

Dingo

Hedge fund shark George Soros’ speech to the World Economic Forum in Davos last week was essentially an anti-communist diatribe, seeing communism correctly as a...

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Issue #1982

Queensland police fight vaccine mandate

Members of the Queensland Police Service (QPS) have launched a legal challenge in the Supreme Court of Queensland (QSC) against a vaccine mandate issued by...

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Issue #2015

DINGO

Amid attempts to drag Australia into the nuclear cycle, news from France casts yet another pall over the non-future of nuclear fission. France gets about...

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Issue #2036

Build the fightback

Decades of privatisations, job cuts and wage suppression and more recently the cuts masked by measures taken during the COVID-19 pandemic, have taken a huge...

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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 #2003

More support for teachers needed

While the Morrison government acts as if the pandemic is for all intents and purposes  over, workers on the frontlines know that this is far from...

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Issue #1972

Ideology before health

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the failures of capitalism and its neoliberal policies.

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Issue #2024

Remove Alan Joyce

Throughout the pandemic Qantas CEO Alan Joyce has consistently proven himself to be the walking embodiment of corporate greed. Alan Joyce took in $5,575,000 –...

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Issue #2011

DINGO

A historical perspective brings into sharper focus US imperialism’s strategies in the Asia-Pacific since WW2. The victory over fascism – German Nazism and Japanese militarism,...

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Traditional and modern China. Issue #2067

China’s good momentum

The good momentum of China’s economic development is conducive to the economy of Australia and the world. Achieving modernisation is a dream that the Chinese...

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Issue #1957

Workers forced to pay for crisis

Australian government income support for the COVID19 crisis, JobKeeper and JobSeeker, has ceased and been revised from April despite ongoing hardships for workers in Australia relating to the pandemic.

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Issue #1958

JobKeeper used to profit the corporations, not help people

The purpose of JobKeeper should have been to help keep the working class employed during a once-in-a-century pandemic that devastated the global economy. However ...

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Issue #1996

Where’s our federal anti-corruption commission?

There were many issues driving the 2019 federal election – wages and the cost of living, climate change, and negative gearing, among others. One issue,...

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Issue #1974

The people will not be silenced – COVID needs a social response

Our governments want us to accept the failures of their pandemic response as just chance events, bad luck or someone’s personal fate.

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Issue #1989

The sinister side of the anti-vaxxer “freedom rallies”

Across the country, anti-government anti-vax “freedom rallies” have erupted over vaccine mandates, pandemic restrictions, and at the broadest level, the government itself.

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Issue #1963

Vaccine rollout disgrace!

The federal government’s vaccine rollout continues to be a disappointment.

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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 #2017

Scomo’s contempt of government explains why Australia was so poorly managed

It is unfathomable to think that a man who was Prime Minister no less than three months ago has so thoroughly dismissed the institution he...

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Issue #1976

Covid crisis in outback NSW: Indigenous communities at risk

The COVID crisis deepened this week as New South Wales began recording over 800 cases a day, and regional Victoria went back into lockdown.

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Issue #2002

Reflections on the outcomes of the CPA 14th Congress

The Communist Party of Australia successfully hosted its 14th National Congress at the end of February 2022 and elected a new Central Committee. COVID restrictions...

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Issue #2020

Scotty’s gotta go

With the Morrison government over, you’d think we’d have heard the end of it – but you’d be wrong! It turns out that former prime...

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Issue #2047

US maternal death rate highest in developed world

According to a recent report by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) maternal mortality rose by 40 per cent at the height...

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Issue #1972

The workers and the people first!

Incredibly, fifteen months after the first COVID-19 lockdown in Australia was declared, the Sydney outbreak of the Delta variant is now being called a national emergency by the NSW government.

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Issue #1979

Can employers mandate vaccinations?

Editorial note: This article does not purport to give legal advice. It is for general informational purposes only With the national COVID-19 vaccine rollout well...

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Issue #2022

Venezuelan film premieres in Perth

On Saturday 13th August 2022 in a joint venture between the Embassy of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela in Canberra, the Australia-Cuba Friendship Society and...

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Issue #2008

Private schools got richer under JobKeeper

To say that JobKeeper was a program designed to benefit the ruling class during the pandemic would be an understatement. As we have seen, Harvey...

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Cubans dancing and singing. Issue #2054

In solidarity with Cuba

A recent Construction Forestry Mining Energy Union (CFMEU) delegation of seven from around Australia attended the celebration of May Day in Cuba. More than 1200...

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Issue #1993

Forklift license fiasco highlights deepening pandemic crisis

Earlier this month, it appeared as though Australia had returned to the 19th Century when it became known that prime minister Scott Morrison had floated...

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Issue #1982

Morrison plays favourites with the Commonwealth

A hallmark of conservative rhetoric is to decry that the opposition is being opportunistic and politicising a sensitive situation.

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Issue #1974

Palmer’s dangerous rhetoric is all self-interest

Mining magnate Clive Palmer is once again ramping up the populist rhetoric.

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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 #1970

How the “red rooster line” affects COVID-19 police response

Often referred to light-heartedly, the “Red Rooster line” highlights the class border separating two parts of the city – east and west Sydney – where...

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Issue #1975

CPA Central Committee statement: for COVID-safe community

The CPA Central Committee expresses its sympathy to the many working people and the broader community suffering in the wake of the COVID Delta strain...

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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 #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 #1972

Call for urgent vaccinations for Sydney workers and an end to pandemic handouts to big business

The people of south-western and western Sydney need 24-hour vaccination hubs and pop-up vaccination centres as the Delta variant continues to pose a threat to...

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Issue #1979

Getting left behind: people at high risk and lockdown

As many Australians eagerly await the seventy per cent vaccination rate so we can finally begin “opening up” and start easing the lockdowns, there is an enormous group of Australians who are being left out of the conversation

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Issue #2023

Nurses strike for better pay and conditions

Earlier this month, Nurses and midwives across NSW went on strike for 24 hours, while maintaining life-preserving care. The demands are simple: The NSW Nurses...

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Issue #1993

RAT stoush worsens amid continuing shortages

Rapid antigen tests (RATs) are still proving hard to get a hold of across the country. Since the Liberal Party made the decision for Australia...

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Issue #1969

Teachers demand Federal Government make their vaccinations a “priority”

The Australian Education Union (AEU) wants educators across the country to be considered higher up on the list for those to be inoculated against COVID-19.

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Issue #1970

Charities under threat from coalition’s legislation

Undisputedly, the pandemic has caused economic disruption, much to the chagrin of the Morrison government.

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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 #2046

The fight against public service austerity

No matter how much employers want workers to understand otherwise, the COVID-19 pandemic has been a boom period for capital. Finance capital, represented most obviously...

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Issue #1972

ATAGI not the problem, our prime minister is

With less than fifteen per cent fully vaccinated and less than twenty per cent only having their first dose, to say that the Morrison government’s vaccine rollout has been a disaster would be an understatement.

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Issue #1979

Getting fully vaccinated

Despite the COVID-19 vaccination not being a panacea against the pandemic, currently it is the best option people have to protect themselves, their families, friends and comrades.

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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 #1983

Massive delivery delays cripple Melbourne, Sydney

With demand up thirty per cent from last year, Australia Post has been experiencing long delays in Victoria and New South Wales due to extended lockdowns in Melbourne, Sydney and regional areas in both states.

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Issue #1964

“THE INEQUALITY VIRUS”

“COVID-19 has been likened to an x-ray, revealing fractures in the fragile skeleton of the societies we have built.”

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Issue #1972

Major floods a timely reminder to humanity’s greatest threat

Recent major flooding across Germany, Belgium, and China, along with wildfires in Northern America have sharply brought back into focus the need for urgent united action on climate change.

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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 #2012

AMA President urges immediate action on healthcare crisis

Earlier this month, ahead of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s first national cabinet meeting, Dr Omar Khorshid, Australian Medical Association (AMA) President, stated in a media...

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Issue #1971

Aus gov’ts favour celebrity racist over citizens

Last week, Far-right British commentator Katie Hopkins had her visa cancelled and subsequently was deported from Australia.

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Issue #2070

DINGO

As temperatures climb, and heatwaves become more common, it’s worth remembering that unions achieve and enforce protection against heat. As a comrade in the Rail...

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World Federation of Trade Unions – logo. Issue #2053

“We stand shoulder to shoulder”

The World Federation of Trade Unions, the militant, class-oriented voice, representing 105 million workers who live, work, and struggle in 133 countries of the 5...

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