Australia
Australia: Indian university students protest racist attacks
By Patrick O’Connor, June 2, 2009
About 4,000 Indian university students protested in central Melbourne on Sunday night in opposition to a series of violent and racist attacks in recent months. The rally has focussed international att...
Rising levels of financial stress in Australia
By Terry Cook, June 1, 2009
Two reports released last month reveal rising levels of financial stress in Australian households, particularly among those cut off welfare or denied any relief in the Rudd government’s May 12 budge...
Workers Struggles: Asia, Australia and the Pacific
May 30, 2009
Workers Struggles: Asia, Australia and the Pacific
Australia: James Hardie court ruling another affront to asbestosis victims
By Noel Holt, May 26, 2009
Just as a court ruled that former directors of James Hardie Industries had issued a false statement in 2001 about the company’s asbestosis compensation fund, the company revealed that its current fu...
Australia: Evidence points to Labor cover-up over refugee boat deaths
By Mike Head and Linda Levin, May 25, 2009
More than a month after five asylum seekers drowned on April 16, when their small wooden boat exploded and sank off Australia’s north-west coast, the Rudd Labor government continues to block the rel...
Workers Struggles: Asia, Australia and the Pacific
May 23, 2009
Workers Struggles: Asia, Australia and the Pacific
Australia: Royal Commission inquiry forced to investigate “stay or go” bushfire policy
By Margaret Rees, May 16, 2009
Criticism of the government’s “stay or go” policy has followed the devastating firestorm, now known as Black Saturday, that hit the Australian state of Victoria on February 7.
Workers Struggles: Asia, Australia and the Pacific
May 16, 2009
Workers Struggles: Asia, Australia and the Pacific
Australia: Labor’s budget reveals unprecedented revenue collapse
By Alex Messenger and Mike Head, May 14, 2009
Confronted by a $200 billion collapse in tax revenues over the next four years—the largest fall since the Great Depression—in Tuesday night’s budget, the Rudd Labor government has begun cutting ...
Australia: Labor to take a knife to welfare in 2009 budget
By Alex Messenger, May 11, 2009
On the eve of the May 12 federal budget, Australian big business has stepped up its demand that the Rudd government use the “opportunity” presented by the global financial crisis to slash welfare,...
Workers Struggles: Asia, Australia and the Pacific
May 9, 2009
Workers Struggles: Asia, Australia and the Pacific
Australia: Victorian bushfire royal commission—another whitewash in the making
By Peter Byrne and Richard Phillips, May 8, 2009
The central purpose of the Victorian government’s royal commission into devastating bushfires that swept through the state on February 7 is to deflect attention from government culpability for the h...
