The Guardian • health
Issue #2023
Striking Kaiser mental health clinicians joined by colleagues in Hawaii
Over 2,000 striking mental health clinicians hit the picket lines in front of Kaiser Permanente facilities in northern California and the Central Valley on the...
Read morePeter Dutton continues to abuse the rights of refugees to healthcare
The Minister for Home Affairs Peter Dutton has once again shown his utter disregard for the health and wellbeing of refugees and asylum seekers.
Read moreStudy 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 #2069
Big pharma not working
The big pharmaceutical monopolies’ profit-driven model of making medicines is bad for our health. While in theory these companies exist to make the medicines we...
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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...
Read moreSocialist 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
Read moreDistractions
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 #2022
Cuba’s day of liberation celebrated in Sydney
On 26th July 26 1959 an armed force led by Fidel Castro stormed the Moncada Barracks in Cuba, leading to the liberation of the Cuban...
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Issue #2065
Nicaragua: the path to independence
The years under neo-liberalism in Nicaragua saw trade union rights stripped away, collective bargaining agreements junked and, as trade union strength waned, living standards plummeted....
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Issue #2018
Public sector health services workers make a stand – WA
As part of the campaign by public sector workers in Western Australia, members of the Health Services Union and United Workers Union – the two...
Read moreNo politicisation of COVID origin tracing
As COVID-19 continues to wreak havoc across the globe, the current situation is still grave.
Read moreThe Aged Scare industry: how privatisation leads to suffering and death
Horrifying stories of neglect, abuse and poor treatment of elderly people in Aged Care facilities and homes across Australia have been exposed
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Issue #2022
The 2022 Tibet Think Tank Forum
On 26th August this year, I participated in the China Tibet Think Tank International Forum, hosted by the Institute of Tibet Studies in Beijing. It...
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Issue #2002
A matter of life or death
On 31st March, thousands of nurses and midwives took strike action across NSW, with many walking off the job for 24-hours from 7 AM, over...
Read moreHealth care a right, not a privilege
The Liberal-National Coalition has never supported Medicare, constantly undermining it since its introduction.
Read moreThe 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...
Read moreSick Pay Guarantee a step in the right direction
The Victorian government has recently launched a Sick Pay Guarantee pilot program for casual workers. Under the scheme, casuals and contract workers in certain industries...
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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 #2029
Anti-poverty protest – Adelaide
Poverty is about people struggling, and becoming sick, less employable and ultimately homeless, especially if survival on “jobseeker” is involved. These were the stories of...
Read moreAged care workers expose industry’s dirty secrets
After years of Federal Government inaction on aged care, aged care workers are speaking out to expose the daily understaffing and safety risks facing older Australians across the country.
Read moreANMF launches new national aged care campaign: “It’s not too much”
The Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation (ANMF) has launched its new national campaign aimed at ensuring that aged care is a priority in the...
Read moreACTU 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 #2020
DINGO
Banks and insurance companies raked in billions according to financial year end of interim results, with CEO pay increasing by tens of millions of dollars....
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Issue #2033
DINGO
In a massive escalation of the simmering industrial conflict being waged by Svitzer Towage’s Australian management against local tugboat crew, the company gave notice that...
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Issue #2038
DINGO
As the Albanese government pours billions of dollars of taxpayers’ money into fuelling the war in Ukraine it is offering the fossil fuel miners $500...
Read moreGovernment closes loophole on e-cigarettes
Changes to the law on 1st October will make it illegal to possess or import an e-cigarette (or “vape”) containing liquid nicotine without a prescription.
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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 #1997
On the formation of the CPA Logistics and Manufacturing Branch
The Communist Party of Australia Logistics and Manufacturing Branch is proud to announce its formation. We are an industry-based branch of the Communist Party of...
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Issue #2028
A big short: Australia’s manufactured skills shortage
The National Skills Commission has revealed in its 2022 Skills Priority List Key Finding Report, that 286 occupations were dealing with shortages at a national...
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Issue #2031
The legacy of asbestos mining at Wittenoom
“If the sugar refining company won’t come to my rescue/Who’s going to save me?” So goes the song Blue Sky Mine by Australian band Midnight...
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Issue #2014
DINGO
While the Prime Minister was talking trade deals with the European Commission, who should pop up but Simon Crean, former ACTU President and erstwhile leader...
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Issue #2032
A peace & peoples’ budget
Annual budgets are a mirror held up to the class divide. The income and expenditure sides of the budget come down to priorities. The budget...
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Issue #2028
Bed block
“We are not excelling, we are drowning.” This is the headline of the NSW branch of the Australian Paramedics Association’s (APA) submission to the NSW...
Read moreThe 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 #1976
Breast screening not seen as an essential service
Earlier this month, BreastScreen mammogram appointments across New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory have been postponed as centres have closed due to the Coronavirus outbreak.
Read moreThe 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.
Read moreIdeology before health
The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the failures of capitalism and its neoliberal policies.
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Issue #2064
GREEN NOTES
Over 900 health professionals from across the country have signed a joint letter speaking out against fracking the Beetaloo Basin and the Middle Arm gas...
Read moreCovid 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.
Read moreCOVID-19
The pandemic is ravaging India with more than one million new cases every three days – a figure which is undoubtedly a gross underestimate.
Read moreCan 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 #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 #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...
Read moreHow 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 #2031
Class war budget
The budget, delivered on 25th October, is set in the context of a looming global recession, ongoing wars, rocketing prices, extreme weather events, famine, and...
Read moreGetting 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
Read moreCOVID: 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 #2040
DINGO
“Exhausted,” “struggling to cope,” “let down,” “dangerous,” and “overwhelmed” is how nurses have described working conditions at the prestigious St Vincent’s Private Hospital in Darlinghurst...
Read moreRAT 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 #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 #2028
Health care is a human right
Reports of emergency patients waiting up to thirty-six hours or more to be off-loaded from ambulances at public hospital emergency departments (EDs) are indicative of...
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Issue #2006
VOTE THEM OUT
The Coalition Morrison government has got to go. On Saturday 21st May vote them out! The Communist Party of Australia rejects the undemocratic electoral system...
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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 #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.
Read moreHARD 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 #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 #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...
Read moreOnly 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 #2049
NO to AUKUS! – YES to Medicare!
Medicare as a public health insurance scheme offering universal access to bulkbilling, and funded through central revenue is becoming a distant memory. GPs are fully...
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Issue #2057
GLOBAL BRIEFS
NORWAY: A new report commissioned by the Norwegian police into a deadly shooting during Oslo’s annual LGBT Pride festival last year blasted Norway’s domestic security...
Read moreEDITORIAL – Cabinet shuffle does not bode well
Last Monday, Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced a cabinet reshuffle that saw Defence Minister Linda Reynolds and Attorney-General and Industrial Relations Minister Christian Porter lose their portfolios.
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Issue #2044
Less than eight years to live
Silica dust is so fine that it is 100 times smaller than a grain of sand. But with each breath, you risk death. A Curtin...
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Issue #2050
For-profit health in the trolley
In the language of privatisation, Sydney’s public trains call the millions who use the system daily, not commuters, but “customers.” Now, with Woolworths, the giant...
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Issue #2053
People’s need not corporate greed
The main focus of recent federal budgets was on economic recovery for the corporate sector, focusing on wiping out the budget deficit created by the...
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