Australia
An international political strategy for Ford Australia workers
By the Socialist Equality Party (Australia), 25 May 2013
Ford’s plan to close its Australian plants by 2016 is part of a vast restructuring of the international auto industry that is devastating the jobs, wages and conditions of car workers around the world.
Ford Australia announces shut down of car production
By Patrick O’Connor, 24 May 2013
The closures will mean sacking about 1,200 workers at Ford’s two plants, at Broadmeadows and Geelong in Victoria.
Australian budget reports pave way for deeper austerity offensive
By Patrick O’Connor, 23 May 2013
Corporate interests are using the “structural deficit” concept to agitate for massive budget cuts.
Australian Education Union pushes sell out through delegates’ meetings
By our reporters, 22 May 2013
The substantial “no” vote gave some indication of the growing hostility among teachers to the union’s betrayals.
Reports on Australian “terrorism” laws call for streamlined police powers
By Mike Head, 22 May 2013
The timing of the release was designed to avoid public scrutiny of plans to strengthen the legislation.
Why the SEP does not endorse the WikiLeaks Party
By Patrick O’Connor—SEP Senate candidate for Victoria, 20 May 2013
WikiLeaks’ founder Julian Assange has launched a new party ahead of Australia’s federal election in September.
Australian opposition leader adopts Labor’s social spending cuts
By Mike Head, 17 May 2013
Tony Abbott declared that a “budget emergency” required the imposition of Labor’s $43 billion cutbacks.
Australian Labor budget sets up permanent cuts to social spending
By Nick Beams, 15 May 2013
Labor’s budget has set in motion a series of spending cuts that will impact directly on working-class families and low-income earners
Australia: University students and staff demonstrate against Labor’s education cuts
By our reporters, 15 May 2013
In both Sydney and Melbourne, the actions of the rally organisers were aimed at preventing the SEP candidates from advancing an alternative socialist perspective.
Australian PM presses for closer military, police ties with Papua New Guinea
By Patrick O’Connor, 13 May 2013
The new arrangements are aimed at aligning PNG more closely with the US-led strategic confrontation with China.
The political issues in the fight to defend education
By Zac Hambides—SEP Senate candidate for NSW, 13 May 2013
Labor’s agenda in tertiary education is to strangle funding and complete the transformation of universities into thoroughly corporatised institutions.
Australian PM defends stripping refugees of welfare payments
By Mike Head, 11 May 2013
The Labor government is moving to impoverish hundreds of refugees seeking to exercise their basic legal right to appeal to a court.
SEP announces candidates for 2013 Australian election
11 May 2013
A total of 10 SEP candidates will stand for the Senate in five states.
SEP Election 2013 campaign meetings: A socialist program to fight the drive to war
11 May 2013
Behind the backs of the population, the Labor government has joined the preparations by US imperialism for war against China.
Australia’s Defence White Paper and the US “pivot” to Asia
By James Cogan, 10 May 2013
US imperialism is determined to prevent China’s economic expansion from enabling Beijing to supplant Washington as the dominant power in Asia.
Australian government rejects damning media report on refugee camps
By Mark Church, 10 May 2013
The government has vowed to continue its “Pacific Solution” and imprisonment of children despite the medically unsafe and inhuman conditions.
Pentagon accuses China of cyber attacks
By John Chan, 9 May 2013
The 2013 annual Pentagon report on the Chinese military depicts China as an aggressor threatening global cyber security and regional stability in Asia-Pacific.
Australian military stages “anti-terrorist” exercise in Sydney
By Mike Head, 8 May 2013
The SAS operation in Martin Place was a highly-visible use of troops.
Australian central bank cuts base interest rate to record low
By Nick Beams, 8 May 2013
Australia is becoming embroiled in the global currency wars being fuelled by the “quantative easing” programs of the world’s major central banks.
Australia: Opposition steps up pro-austerity campaign
By Patrick O’Connor, 7 May 2013
Shadow treasurer Joe Hockey has revived his campaign for an end to the “age of entitlement.”
Australian Defence White Paper commits to US “pivot”
By James Cogan, 6 May 2013
The document provides unconditional backing to Washington as it intensifies pressure on Beijing and prepares for a military confrontation.
Tensions rise in India-China border stand-off
By Deepal Jayasekera, 4 May 2013
The current border stand-off between India and China reflects the explosive political tensions unleashed by the Obama administration’s “pivot to Asia.”
Australia: Queensland government offensive against public sector
By Mike Head, 4 May 2013
The frontal assault on social services in Queensland is a warning of what is being prepared nationally, whoever wins the September federal election.
Australia: The fraud of Labor’s NDIS and Gonski “reforms”
By Patrick O’Connor, 3 May 2013
The government’s disability scheme and education funding model are pro-market measures aimed at privatising social services and slashing long-term public spending.
Australian warship to join US fleet off Korean peninsula
By Mark Church and James Cogan, 3 May 2013
The deployment of the HMAS Sydney is part of preparations by the Australian military for participation in larger US operations to contain China.
Australia’s Anzac Day and the glorification of militarism
By Patrick O’Connor, 2 May 2013
The Anzac Day events in 2013 have been part of the ideological preparation for the new wars being planned behind the backs of the Australian population.
US think tank report weighs up “grim future” of nuclear war
By Peter Symonds, 1 May 2013
The CSIS paper marks a shift from the rhetoric of nuclear disarmament to the planning and preparing for actual nuclear war—above all, against China.
Australian PM declares “grave” budget crisis as cuts prepared
By Patrick O’Connor, 30 April 2013
Gillard’s pre-budget speech underscores the fact that she heads a pro-business government committed to making working people bear the burden of the economic crisis.
Opposition grows to Australian Education Union sell-out in Victoria
By Frank Gaglioti and Patrick O’Connor, 27 April 2013
The teachers’ union is seeking to bureaucratically suppress all discussion and speedily ram through the agreement.
Socialist Equality Party to contest Australian federal election: A socialist program to fight the drive to war
By the Socialist Equality Party, 26 April 2013
The central objective of our campaign is to develop a broad, international anti-war movement among workers and young people on the basis of a socialist and internationalist program.
Australia: Socialist Alternative and the Victorian teachers’ betrayal
By Patrick O’Connor, 25 April 2013
The pseudo-left organisation Socialist Alternative functions as a prop for the trade unions and an accomplice of the federal Labor government.
Australian youth pushed into unpaid work
By Zac Hambides and Mark Church, 25 April 2013
A Fair Work Ombudsman’s report seeks to provide a legal and political framework to legitimise de facto forced labour.
After Boston bombing, Australian media escalates “war on terror”
By Peter Symonds, 24 April 2013
All the legislative machinery is in place to impose virtual martial law in an Australian city, as was done in Boston.
Car companies threaten 55,000 jobs in Australia
By James Cogan, 24 April 2013
The heads of Ford and Toyota in Australia have joined General Motors Holden (GMH) executives in threatening to shut down manufacturing operations in Australia if there is any reduction in the financial subsidies from federal and state governments.
Australian thinktank demands “tough” health and welfare cutbacks
By Mike Head, 23 April 2013
The Grattan Institute launched a broadside against the major parties for “raising expectations about what government can and should deliver.”
Australia: Victorian teachers union announces sell-out deal
By Frank Gaglioti, 22 April 2013
The Australian Education Union resorted to blatant lies about the wages component of the new agreement.
Australia: Young worker killed on Sydney construction site
By Terry Cook, 22 April 2013
The death could have been avoided had the employers and union acted on safety issues raised by workers two weeks earlier.
Union isolates Australian glass workers as plant closures loom
By Mike Head, 20 April 2013
CSR Viridian workers face a concerted operation by the AWU and the Labor government to block any resistance to the shutdowns and job losses.
Attend the SEP campaign launch on May 5
Public meetings in Sydney and Melbourne
20 April 2013
The SEP’s election campaign will expose the accelerating drive to war and give the widespread opposition to militarism a powerful voice and the means for its conscious political expression.
Australian big business launches campaign for austerity, market “reform”
By Patrick O’Connor, 19 April 2013
The Business Council of Australia has outlined pre-election demands aimed at boosting corporate profits and productivity at the expense of workers.
IYSSE challenges unions, Greens at Australian student protests
By our correspondents, 18 April 2013
IYSSE members spoke at rallies in Sydney and Melbourne against the Labor government’s huge cutbacks to university funding.
Australia: Victorian teachers’ union shuts down industrial campaign
By Will Marshall, 17 April 2013
Behind the backs of teachers, the union is engaged in closed door discussion with the state Liberal government to finalise a sell-out enterprise bargaining agreement.
Unemployment deepens in Australian working class areas
By Mike Head, 17 April 2013
Joblessness has risen to depression levels, and is worsening, in suburbs across Australia.
Australian think tank outlines US plans for war against China
By Peter Symonds, 16 April 2013
“The Pentagon has started to ‘think about the unthinkable’: a military strategy for fighting and winning a potential war against China.”
Australia: Former public servant condemns Iraq war lies
By James Cogan, 15 April 2013
The rhetoric over WMDs was the propaganda screen behind which the mercenary decision was made to participate in a war of aggression because of the US-Australia alliance.
Australian foreign minister outed as long-time US informant
By Patrick O’Connor, 15 April 2013
The news sheds fresh light on Carr’s sudden and unusual elevation from retired state premier to unelected federal senator and foreign minister in March last year.
Japan’s monetary boost to escalate currency wars
By Nick Beams, 13 April 2013
The Bank of Japan’s “quantitative easing” policy will both fuel the deepening global economic crisis and stimulate further attacks on the Japanese working class.
Australia’s “border protection” not just about refugees
By Peter Symonds, 13 April 2013
The unstated purpose of Australia’s Border Protection Command is to monitor key Asian shipping lanes as part of the US preparations for war against China.
Sri Lankan correspondent explains why refugees are fleeing to Australia
By Mike Head, 12 April 2013
Hundreds of refugees are leaving because of severe economic hardship and repression by the Sri Lankan government and the military.
Former Australian PM urges US-China rapprochement
By Patrick O’Connor, 10 April 2013
Rudd’s international tour reflects concerns in ruling circles about the growing danger of war between China and the US.
General Motors-Holden to eliminate 500 more jobs in Australia
By James Cogan, 9 April 2013
The sackings will take the number of job losses in the Australian car industry to close to 2,000 in the past 12 months alone.
Australian PM’s China trip prepared by top-level, secret committee
By Peter Symonds, 6 April 2013
The committee’s purpose is to refocus all aspects of the Australian state apparatus on China as an integral part of Washington’s confrontational policies toward Beijing.
Renewed US pressure for increased Australian military spending
By James Cogan, 6 April 2013
The military expansion will inevitably be at the expense of the living standards of the working class.
Australia: NSW teachers union paves way for assault on public education
By Erika Zimmer, 5 April 2013
A revealing letter underscores the regressive nature of the “Local Schools Local Decisions” staffing agreement that the union signed with the state government.
Australian government divisions re-emerge over tax concessions for ultra-wealthy
By Patrick O’Connor, 5 April 2013
Prominent supporters of ousted Labor leader Kevin Rudd have spent the past week condemning Prime Minister Gillard for waging “class warfare”.
Australia: Sydney University staff strike over jobs and conditions
By Oliver Campbell, 4 April 2013
Union officials covered up the role of the federal Labor government and its pro-market “revolution” in university education.
Australian court criticises Labor’s refugee deportations
By Mike Head, 3 April 2013
The ruling sheds light on the lawless methods to which the government is resorting amid a reactionary anti-refugee bidding war with the Liberal-National Party opposition.
Australian High Court approves “criminal organisation” laws
By Mike Head, 29 March 2013
Far from being confined to “bikie gangs,” these laws create a framework that could potentially be used to outlaw other organisations, including political parties.
Australia: CSR glass workers discuss issues posed by plant closures
By Mike Head, 27 March 2013
The CSR workers face a fight not just against the company but also the Labor government and the trade unions.
Australian PM announces new cabinet
By Patrick O’Connor, 26 March 2013
The new Labor appointments underscore the depth of the crisis confronting the deeply divided minority government.
Corporate elite presses Australian government to accelerate pro-business restructuring
By Patrick O’Connor, 25 March 2013
Following last week’s abortive challenge to Prime Minister Gillard, big business has backed calls by several of her prominent opponents to reclaim the “reform” legacy of the Hawke-Keating Labor governments.
Behind the failed political coup against Australian PM
By Peter Symonds, 23 March 2013
The current political crisis of the Labor Party is intimately bound up with the worsening global economic crisis and rising geo-political tensions.
Australian government crisis deepens after leadership turmoil
By Patrick O’Connor, 22 March 2013
None of the political issues underlying the government’s protracted crisis has been resolved.
Australian PM fends off leadership challenge
By Peter Symonds, 21 March 2013
Gillard remains in office with the backing of the same forces that installed her in 2010—powerful sections of the corporate elite and the Obama administration in Washington.
Australian Labor government embroiled in leadership crisis
By Peter Symonds, 20 March 2013
The immediate trigger has been the government’s attempt to push through media regulation bills that have provoked fierce opposition from Australia’s media barons.
Australian government triggers furore over media laws
By Mike Head, 19 March 2013
If the government thought its media legislation would appease the media moguls, it miscalculated badly.
Australian government’s cover-up of “Prisoner X’s” death in Israel
By Mike Head, 18 March 2013
The government is continuing to lie in the most bald-faced manner about the entire affair.
Australian opposition spokesman calls for refugees to be treated like criminals
By Mark Church, 16 March 2013
The Liberal opposition and Labor government are engaged in a vile competition to whip up anti-refugee and anti-foreigner xenophobia.
At union summit, Australian PM promotes phony jobs campaign
By Patrick O’Connor, 15 March 2013
Gillard and the trade unions have worked hand in hand with big business to spearhead a sweeping restructuring of the Australian economy.
Australia: Labor’s nationalist jobs campaign
By Terry Cook, 13 March 2013
Prime Minister Gillard is consciously seeking to incite xenophobia against “foreign workers”, as a means of diverting escalating social tensions.
Australian glass workers face devastating plant closures
By Mike Head, 13 March 2013
Workers at CSR’s Viridian factories in western Sydney denounced the closure of their plants and the destruction of their jobs.
Australian business, media step up campaign for austerity cuts
By Patrick O’Connor, 12 March 2013
The immediate aim is to pressure the Labor government ahead of the federal budget in May.
Labor Party routed in Western Australian election
By Patrick O’Connor, 11 March 2013
Entrenched hostility among ordinary people toward the federal Labor government was a significant factor in the vote.
Social crisis to intensify after Western Australian election
By Dragan Slavkov and Celeste Lopez, 9 March 2013
The escalating assault on jobs, living standards and basic services will widen the already glaring levels of inequality.
Australian High Court further erodes free speech
By Mike Head, 8 March 2013
The rulings eviscerate the supposed implied freedom of political communication in the Australian Constitution.
Australia: Victorian premier removed as state slides into recession
By Patrick O’Connor, 7 March 2013
Underlying Ballieu’s ouster is significant frustration within ruling circles over his government’s failure to implement harsher austerity measures.
David North to address public meetings in Australia
Fifteen Years of the World Socialist Web Site
6 March 2013
In the 15 years since the World Socialist Web Site began publication on February 14, 1998, it has established itself as the most widely read and authoritative socialist publication in the world, accessible in 19 different languages.
Australia: Telstra slashes hundreds of jobs at Sensis
By Terry Cook, 5 March 2013
The deepening global slump, particularly throughout Europe, is intensifying the increasingly cut-throat competition in the communications industry.
Australian PM promotes nationalism and “law-and-order” in western Sydney
By Mike Head, 4 March 2013
Gillard’s speech was peppered with anti-foreigner jibes, designed to divert the mounting disaffection over deteriorating living standards.
Australia: Union complicity in Rosella closure
By Gabriela Zabala, 2 March 2013
The AMWU has colluded with the company and its receivers to keep workers in the dark, police the closure and isolate the Rosella workers.
Union calls off Western Australian nurses’ strike
By Joe Lopez, 28 February 2013
Industrial action by nurses, drawing support from other workers, threatened to raise uncomfortable questions for the Liberal government, the Labor opposition and the union.
Australian corporate chief calls for major welfare cuts
By James Cogan, 26 February 2013
Don Argus, former chairman of BHP Billiton and the National Australia Bank, declared that public spending in Australia, especially on welfare, was “unsustainable.”
Australian court upholds patent for breast cancer gene
By Frank Gaglioti, 26 February 2013
The decision serves to entrench the rights of biotech companies as they scramble to obtain, enforce and profit from patents on genetic material.
Australia: Still no inquest into student deaths in Melbourne fire
By Margaret Rees, 25 February 2013
Five years after three Indian students died in a house fire, the Coroners Court is still considering whether to hold an inquest.
US auto union chief addresses Australian union conference
By Terry Cook, 25 February 2013
The UAW worked closely with the Obama administration in restructuring the US auto industry, destroying thousands of jobs, slashing wages and dismantling conditions.
Leadership speculation surrounds Australian prime minister
By James Cogan, 23 February 2013
Journalists are being fed leaks by “unnamed” Labor sources that Gillard will face a leadership challenge, possibly as soon as March 12, when parliament resumes.
Nearly 100 perish in latest Australian refugee disaster
By Mike Head, 22 February 2013
The deaths in the Indian Ocean highlight the terrible plight of people trying to flee persecution throughout Asia and globally.
Australia: Bipartisan fraud on “closing the gap” of Aboriginal poverty
By Richard Phillips, 21 February 2013
Behind the cynical claims of concern in parliament, the shocking social conditions are the direct responsibility of successive governments over the past two centuries.
Australian Greens “break” with Labor, but pledge “stability”
By James Cogan, 20 February 2013
Having propped up the minority Labor government for two years, the Australian Greens have decided to jump the sinking ship prior to this year’s election.
Western Australia election campaign paves way for spending cuts
By Joe Lopez and Patrick O’Connor, 20 February 2013
Both major parties—Labor and Liberal—are preparing ruthless austerity measures.
Australian prime minister announces bogus jobs plan
By Patrick O’Connor, 19 February 2013
The new measures are centrally aimed at protecting one job, her own, as it appears increasingly likely that former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd will challenge for the leadership.
Australia: Union sells out NSW public sector workers
By Peter Symonds, 16 February 2013
The betrayal has particular significance because it was carried out by the new “progressive” PSA leadership, which includes the pseudo-lefts organisations.
Australian government complicit in “Prisoner X’s” death in Israel
By Mike Head, 16 February 2013
The Labor government knowingly allowed one of its citizens to “disappear” into Israeli detention and die in solitary confinement.
Australian Education Union uses mass meeting to prepare sell-out agreement
By Susan Allan, 15 February 2013
Yesterday’s strike and mass meeting underscored the determination of the union bureaucracy to suppress any opposition to its plans for a deal that will further undermine wages, conditions and public education.
Australian PM’s phony job creation claim
By Terry Cook, 15 February 2013
The Labor government has not “created” jobs, but enforced a relentless wave of job destruction throughout the economy.
Australian Crime Commission’s police-state powers revealed in sports “doping” affair
By Mike Head, 14 February 2013
The ACC’s extraordinary powers, including to conduct forced interrogations, overturn fundamental legal and democratic rights established over centuries.
Australia: Join the International Youth and Students for Social Equality!
By the International Youth and Students for Social Equality, 13 February 2013
Students and working class youth are struggling to survive on the poverty-level dole, education allowances and in poorly paid casual jobs.
Australian mining tax debacle intensifies pressure for deep budget cuts
By Mike Head, 12 February 2013
After attempting to block the release of the tax data, the Labor government eventually revealed the miniscule amount raised by the Minerals Resource Rent Tax.
Australian media furore over sport “drug cheats”
By Mike Head, 11 February 2013
The source of the constant pressure on athletes to use performance-enhancing drugs is the multi-billion-dollar profits being made from the sports-media-entertainment industry.
Australia’s Socialist Alternative hails betrayal of Chicago teachers strike as a victory
By Will Morrow, 11 February 2013
The article is aimed at preventing teachers from drawing the real lessons from the Chicago teachers strike, so that Socialist Alternative can carry out the same disastrous policies in Australia.
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