The Electrical Trades Union (ETU) Western Australia branch has tightened the screws on the Australian Labor Party over its betrayal on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP-11) agreement.
Australian Labor Party (ALP)
The Australian Labor Party’s parliamentary caucus' decision to vote up the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP-11) has created a backlash. The secretary of Hunter Workers (formerly the Newcastle Trades Hall Council) Daniel Wallace has resigned from the party, saying he 'finally realised that the shortcuts taken by the ALP usually lead to detours which lead to dead ends'.
The federal Coalition government remains unstable even though Scott Morrison has replaced Malcolm Turnbull as Prime Minister in the August 24 leadership spill.
What a month it's been for public expressions of racism. To cap it off, the day after Fraser Anning's hate speech, Labor and the Coalition combined to retrospectively excise Ashmore and Cartier Islands from Australia’s migration zone.
Here’s a novel idea: Instead of politicians voting themselves another pay rise, how about we give them a pay cut? A real pay cut. We ask them to do what a couple of million Australians are expected to do, week in and week out.
Populism Now! The Case for Progressive Populism
David McKnight
New South, 2018
177 pages, rrp $29.99
David McKnight’s Populism Now! catches a wave of discussion about the chances for a progressive “populism”, writes Jonathan Strauss.
Also in the spray, for example, is a June Quarterly Essay piece by the Australia Institute’s Richard Denniss “Dead Right: how neoliberalism ate itself and what comes next” and the previously post-whatever Chantal Mouffe’s musings on “left populism”.
Establishment media are rife with speculation that senior Labor MP Anthony Albanese may be preparing for another tilt at opposition leader.
Albanese has stated he is not.
But you never know what to believe in these days of revolving door leadership swaps, where pragmatism has replaced principle in both the major parties.
"The refugee crisis is a union issue, as well as a social justice issue," Australian Services Union (ASU) NSW and ACT deputy secretary Judith Wright told about 100 people on June 27 at the "Change the Rules for Refugees" forum organised by Unions for Refugees.
"The ASU has members in support services for refugees. They see first-hand the results of the oppression and violence suffered by asylum seekers," she said.
At the recent Victorian Labor state conference, the Construction, Forestry, Maritime, Mining and Energy Union (CFMMEU) delegation and the Australian Workers’ Union (AWU), Shop, Distributive and Allied Employees' Association (SDA) and Labor’s Right faction to close the conference early. That meant that a range of good motions, including for a Shorten government to close the offshore detention centres, were not debated. Union leader John Setka didn't think this was a problem but others, including rank-and-file CFMMEU members, do.
'Class consciousness is knowing which side of the fence you’re on. Class analysis is figuring out who is there with you.' — Slogan from a 1970s poster, author unknown.
The newly formed "Industrial Left" faction of the Australian Labor Party (ALP) in Victoria combined with the right at the party's state conference on May 28 to block discussion about imposing a 90 day time limit on offshore detention.
While the architect of Australia’s detention system Liberal Senator Jim Molan was rehearsing his lines to promote this cruel system on ABC’s Q&A, a woman was arrested for the crime of standing outside and peacefully holding a banner reading “Close the Camps, Bring Them Here”.
The Australian Council of Trade Unions' new Change the Rules campaign is well underway.
In conjunction with a professional advertising and social media strategy, the campaign was launched on April 7, building up to the 12 Days of Action in early May around the May Day rallies. Thousands of people attended these rallies across the country, culminating in 120,000 workers marching in Melbourne on May 9.
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