Where its capacity to betray any alleged values is concerned, the Australian Labor Party rarely disappoints. Since coming to power in the federal election in May, the ALP has once again revealed itself as a party of capital—allegations from the commentariat that this is news notwithstanding. This time around, federal Labor is not introducing neoliberal…
In this latest Australian election cycle, history repeats itself with increasing intensity as policy debate is relegated to a relic of history in favour of strategies of dissembling, distraction and scapegoating. This is not a new phenomenon, but one that has been emerging over the last two to three decades as parties scramble to resolve…
As the radical historian Rudolf Rocker noted in the years prior to WWII, the promise of equality before the law under liberal democracy was shipwrecked on the rocks of class society. New piece by yours truly and Wildcat Ocular at Counterpunch.org
Homelessness? Housing unaffordability? Domestic violence epidemic? Growing income inequality? Climate change? Support for renewables? Nope. Apparently the main issue confronting the Victorian state election later in the year will be african youth gangs. Sat up to the very wee small hours of the morning writing up a piece on the federal government’s sleazy, vile and…
(The proposed lifetime ban on asylum seekers entering Australia has passed the lower house. You too can email cross-bench senators without even getting out of bed! * senator.hinch[at]aph.gov.au … (03) 9820 2222 * senator.lambie[at]aph.gov.au … (03) 6431 2233 * senator.xenophon[at]aph.gov.au … (08) 8232 1144 * senator.kakoschke-moore[at]aph.gov.au … (08) 8232 0220 * senator.leyonhjelm[at]aph.gov.au … (02) 9719…
The badly-misnamed Department of Environment has campaigned to have every reference to Australia removed from a UNESCO report entitled, “World Heritage and Tourism in a Changing Climate,” on the grounds that reporting on the bleaching of the Great Barrier Reef could ‘harm tourism.’ Unusually warm water indicative of warming globally has lead to bleaching on…
August 16, 2013
“Every election is a sort of advance auction sale of stolen goods,” wrote the famed American journalist and satirist H.L. Mencken. If the mark of genius is the ability to say something that only becomes truer with time, then it would definitely appear to be present in this instance, as this observation is as true as it has ever been. Need we actually ask which stolen goods Mencken was referring to? Let us think for a moment.
How about funding for higher education? Rather than being given more funding as it needs, the higher education is increasingly subject to cuts and austerity measures – not because the funds are unavailable, but because the will doesn’t exist to put them where they’re needed, much less to say the institutional capability. Now the implementation of the Gonski report into secondary education will be used as a pretext for further cuts. Where are the goods to ensure everyone can get an adequate education at the tertiary level who wants or needs one?
How about the adequate welfare provisions for indigenous people? The poverty gap for indigenous people is a national disgrace; indigenous people continue to rank at the bottom of most social and economic indicators, experience greatly reduced life expectancy and systematic discrimination, and suffer far greater levels of chronic health problems. Where are the goods to grapple with these very serious problems? Indigenous people moreover have never ceded sovereignty over their traditional lands, nor have they ever been granted land rights. What about those goods?…