On 18 May, Australians will cast their votes in an election that has workers’ rights at centre-stage. In what has been declared by the social-democratic opposition Labor Party as a “referendum on wages”, the proposed policies on workplace relations have not been more divergent in over a decade. Continue reading “Australian unions seek to “balance the power of the powerful” in historic election”
Faced with a construction boom in the 1970’s, front-line neighbourhoods and unionised construction workers in Sydney formed a radical coalition to protect their communities. Continue reading “Sydney’s Green Bans: the worker boycotts that saved the city”
The past twelve months or so in international politics has seen some dramatic events: the rise and crushing of Syriza in Greece, the emergence of a still-nascent North American left and the re-emergence of a British one, the ebbing of the South American ‘pink tide’, and the many crises facing the European Union. Continue reading “A Tale of Two Campaigns – Australian and Spanish 2016 Elections”
It was, I think, 2009 when I met Bob Ellis, a writer who was not content to sit idly by to ‘objectively’ observe his objects like the rest of the voyeuristic journalist class of Australia, but instead to fight for them and fight against them throughout his life that ended not long ago. Continue reading “Meeting Bob Ellis (1942-2016)”
If you want to know what the future of democracy looks like, look to Spain. If you want to know what the decline of the old left will look like, look also to Spain. Continue reading “Lessons from Spain: The Future of the Left”
Over the past week so much has been said of Gough Whitlam’s tumultuous life, and so many fine words have given voice to all the silent tears of those whose lives he radically changed. There is not much more to be said of the man himself, least of all from someone who was born nearly 20 years after his sacking, but there is, I think, a lot we can take from his brief time in office that is relevant to the situation we face today. Continue reading “Comrade Gough”
The first time I came across the name Arthur Calwell was in a high-school History and Civics class, where we were taught of Calwell’s time as Australia’s first Minister for Immigration during the Ben Chifley Labor government of 1945-1949 Continue reading “Getting to Know Calwell”
Lives and Times 