Geography Archives: Australasia

Here’s a look back at August’s political news and the best new music that related to it. You can also listen to a podcast of this column, including an 11-year-old schoolkid giving his verdict on all the albums.

Speaking on the impact of the climate crisis on First People, Gavin Singleton from the Yirrganydji traditional owners explained that ‘From changing weather patterns to shifts in natural ecosystems, climate change is a clear and present threat to our people and our culture’.

In this segment of ‘The Watchdog’ video podcast, Lowkey is joined by comedian Aamer Rahman to explain how Australia maintains close political ties to the United Kingdom, with British Home Secretary Pritti Patel seeing the country’s offshore migrant detention centers, referred to by some as “concentration camps” as a model for the U.K. to follow.

Climate change is already leading to rising sea levels, threatening island and coastal communities and devastating food security and access to fresh water. Long-term drought and changes in weather patterns are causing hunger and destroying farming land.

Here’s a look back at June’s political news and the best new music that related to it.

The idea that there was anything remotely worthy about Britain’s imperial past has been steadily losing credibility, despite the Johnson government’s disgraceful and offensive insistence to the contrary.

The Japanese news agency Kyodo reported from Washington Sunday quoting “a source” that the Biden Administration had proposed to New Delhi, Tokyo and Canberra the idea of holding an online summit meeting of the leaders of the “Quad”. 

If a United Nations report wouldn’t suffice, an international commission wants to prove there is a practical way justice will be assured and perpetrators of human rights violations in the Philippines be held accountable. The Independent International Commission of Investigation into Human Rights Violations in the Philippines or INVESTIGATE PH had a global launch Thursday, […]

The destruction over the past five years of Australia’s mutually beneficial diplomatic and trade relationship with China was probably a successful “Five Eyes” information warfare operation, writes Tony Kevin.

Security think tanks are the leeches of industry. Attached to their appropriate field, they compile analysis that is supposedly masterful, insightful and even useful.

Climate scientists now believe their predictions about the rate of the global temperature increase have been too conservative, and stronger and more decisive action is needed to reduce dangerous greenhouse gas emissions.

Sam Wallman is a talented political comic artist with a strong worker and union focus in his work. Based in Melbourne, he has produced pieces for SBS, The Nib, Overland, the Workers Art Collective, and a growing number of trade unions.

Jack Mundey, the leader of the NSW Builders Labourers’ Federation between 1968 and 1974 has passed away at the age of 90. An initiator of the “green bans”, Jack was a Marxist who rediscovered the ecological essence of Marxism.

The government, university bosses and national officials of the National Tertiary Education Union are combining to attack uni workers’ pay and conditions.

Having our own media allows us to tell the stories that the millionaire press barons don’t want to engage with and it gives us a space to debate and explore issues without the toxic influence of climate deniers.

In the face of an ecological catastrophe as enormous and terrifying as this season’s bushfires, you might think that policy might begin to shift, as those in power face up to the reality of human-induced climate change. But you’d be wrong.

Now even right wing politicians are talking about using traditional Aboriginal land management techniques to mitigate fire risk. But pre-Invasion land management wasn’t about logging and clearing land for profit: it combined knowledge of land with collective, egalitarian planning.

Australia has always been a dry continent where fire has played an important ecological role. But the latest massive conflagrations there are evidence that a hotter climate has thrust Australia into a new normal where fires will keep burning on an unprecedented scale.

The donation would be equivalent to someone who earned $500 per week announcing on social media that they had just donated five cents to help tackle the blazes.

Some firefighters report flames 150 metres high. Read that again, slowly. Flames 150 metres high. Higher than a 40 storey building.