This is an extract from Towards a socialist Australia, produced by the Socialist Alliance and its affiliate, Resistance. Read the first installment in last week's issue of Green Left, and the full text online on the Socialist Alliance website. ***
Analysis
The federal Coalition has used the alleged sexual assault of a young woman on Macquarie University to call for increased monitoring of asylum seekers.
Police have charged a Tamil asylum seeker with the attack, which allegedly took place when the man broke into the woman’s room and put a hand down her pyjama pants while she was asleep. He fled when she woke up and screamed.
It has been a colossal past year for women’s rights, with global and local attention flaring across a range of horrific individual tragedies and broader issues, including sexual assault and violence against women, the ongoing gendered disparity in income, and the debate on misogyny. In Melbourne, Jill Meagher’s abduction and murder lead to about 30,000 people rallying in Brunswick, while the Reclaim the Night march drew a crowd of 5000 people to Sydney Road in a huge public declaration that “Enough is enough”.
Dear Darren,
I’ve never understood rugby league, but have seen enough State of Origin matches to know there is something special about the way you play the game. They say you are a captain’s captain, a leader’s leader: the fast-as-lighting country boy who would be king.
So I am distancing myself from my Queensland brothers and sisters in writing this letter. But I wouldn’t be writing it if you hadn’t already distanced yourself from your followers.
“It’s move over Olympic Dam with a massive shale oil find confirmed for Linc Energy in South Australia, which sent its share price into orbit,” the ABC’s The Business said on January 29, exulting at a big discovery of unconventional oil and gas near the remote town of Coober Pedy, 800 kilometres north-west of Adelaide.
For those who believed in the “sanctity of sport” or see it as a way to escape from the harsh realities of the “real world”, it hasn't been a good month.
On February 4, Europol revealed that 380 soccer matches across Europe had been fixed, with 425 officials and players suspected of being involved.
In a new format for 2013, the Green Left Report hosts a roundtable discussion and debate on the millions strong protests prior to the war on Iraq in February 2003. This weeks roundtable includes some key activists at the time who reflect on the strengths and weaknesses of the protests and lessons for progressive struggles today
In year 10 at age 15, everyone was talking about the imminent Iraq war at school. I remember arguments in the playground about it. I got into [student anti-war group] Books Not Bombs when some year 12 students started advertising it around the school.
About 120 people attended a public meeting on February 20 to discuss concerns about shale oil and gas exploration in the Northern Territory.
The meeting was organised by the Environment Centre NT and brought together a broad panel of speakers — representing the breadth of concern in the community about new and controversial methods of extracting unconventional gas.
This is an extract from Towards a socialist Australia, produced by the Socialist Alliance and its affiliate, Resistance. Read the full text online at the Socialist Alliance website.
Why socialism?
The rise of resistance to dictatorships, corporate rule, military occupation and corrupt politics, which has occurred in the 21st century, brings new hope for humanity.
The hottest show in Sydney has an unusual setting, a hearing room on the seventh floor of 133 Castlereagh Street. This is where the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption (ICAC) is investigating affairs involving former Labor state minister Eddie Obeid and his family, and former Labor minister for resources Ian Macdonald.
Obeid is accused of benefiting from buying farmland over which MacDonald allegedly approved a coal mine, in return for receiving millions of dollars in kickbacks.
The article below is an extract from Resistance’s Education zine, which was released on campuses this week.
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In every state and territory, at many tertiary educational institutions, students are resisting a tide of cuts, commodification and privatisation.
Universities face staff, subject and department cuts, rising fees and costs, casualisation of staff, bigger classes, less class time and less face-to-face contact.
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