-
Class Warfare and the Australian Elections
The November 24th Australian election has resulted in a sharp defeat of the neoliberal pro-US John Howard government, and a victory for the slightly less neoliberal and pro-US Kevin Rudd of the Australian Labor Party. But what has not been much noticed in global commentary on the result is the intense class struggle atmosphere in […]
-
The End of a Racist Union Basher: The 2007 Election in Australia
Not only did conservative Australian Prime Minister John Howard lose the election last Saturday in a landslide, he may have lost his seat as well. The Australian Labor Party now controls all nine Australian governments: State, Territory and federal. Industrial relations was the key issue in the election. Years of campaigning against the anti-Aboriginal and […]
-
Australian Troops Occupy the Outback
After practicing in Iraq, Afghanistan, the Solomon Islands, Nauru, and East Timor, the Australian Government is invading and occupying outback Aboriginal communities with soldiers and police. Conservative Prime Minister John Howard declared a “national emergency” on June 21 over sexual abuse of Aboriginal children in the Northern Territory. The trigger was said to be […]
-
The Music of Industrial Relations and the Reality of the Australian Labor Party
Labor Party leader Kevin Rudd and his deputy Julia Gillard are performing three different and sometimes discordant tunes as they ride high in the polls and promote their industrial relations policy. This is not just a matter of vote maximising; it tells us a lot about the nature and transformation of the Australian Labor […]
-
Australian Troops Are Back in Timor
Australian troops are back in Timor. But this time, their imperialist agenda is a lot more obvious. In 1999, the people of East Timor voted for independence from Indonesia. The Indonesian military and its puppet militias retaliated by wrecking the place and killing over 1,000 people. Australian Prime Minister John Howard then sent in […]
-
Perth, Australia, 18 March 2006
The demo in Perth on 18 March 2006 was attended by about a thousand people, down substantially from the size of demos before the beginnng of the Iraq War. The majority of people out in downtown Perth on Saturday were shopping. They weren’t hostile — rather, openly indifferent or mildly curious about the people who […]