Socialist Equality Party
sep.org.au
sep.org.au
17 October 2011
The demonstrations worldwide on October 15, called in sympathy with the Occupy Wall Street protest in New York City, have given voice to deep undercurrents of popular anger against the entire economic system.
By the WSWS editorial board, 15 October 2011
The initial global protests this weekend reflect the elementary awareness that the working class everywhere confronts common problems and a common enemy—globally organised finance and corporations and the elite that owns them.
5 October 2011
The struggle against social inequality and the capitalist system in which it is rooted is above all a political struggle. How could it be otherwise when the issues at stake are the distribution of wealth and power in society?
6 October 2011
The record of the past three years makes indisputably clear that the crisis is not merely a temporary or conjunctural phase, but rather an expression of the historic failure and breakdown of the capitalist system itself.
The WSWS is reporting on protests across the United States and as they develop internationally. The coverage includes critical political commentary.
By Patrick O’Connor, 23 July 2011
Australia has the most concentrated media ownership of any economically advanced country, largely due to the watering down of media ownership laws by successive Labor and Liberal governments, at News Limited’s insistence.
By Robert Stevens and Chris Marsden, 20 July 2011
The appearance of Rupert Murdoch, the chairman and CEO of News Corporation, and his son James Murdoch, its deputy chief operating officer, before the British Parliament’s Culture, Media and Sports Select Committee was a piece of well-choreographed political theatre.
By Dave Hyland, 19 July 2011
The explosive divisions that have erupted within ruling circles surrounding the News of the World phone hacking scandal and the events leading to its exposure have from the start been fuelled by economic rivalries.
By Julie Hyland, 14 July 2011
The premises of News International should long ago have been declared a crime scene. Instead, the government, by refusing to take even the most basic steps to secure evidence of wrong-doing, is facilitating a cover-up.
By Mike Head, 20 July 2011
A near-record collapse in consumer confidence and the increasing risk of a European sovereign debt default have prompted Australia’s second-biggest bank to predict a deepening downturn in the local economy.
By Patrick O’Connor, 19 July 2011
a sharp shift is now underway, with both the Labor government and Liberal-National opposition under pressure to outline savage public spending cuts and other pro-business measures to prepare for the domestic impact of an international slump.
By Patrick O’Connor, 11 July 2011
While presenting the policy as a means of addressing widespread concerns about climate change, Gillard’s speech was primarily directed toward the business elite who will benefit from the market-based scheme.
By the Socialist Equality Party (Australia), 14 June 2011
Twelve months later, the crisis of the government has only deepened, as the geopolitical and economic contradictions that gave rise to Rudd’s ousting have intensified.
By the Socialist Equality Party (Australia), 14 June 2011
Large numbers of workers in the Australian state of New South Wales will take part in a demonstration on June 15 against the move by the new conservative government to directly dictate public sector wage rises.
By Nick Beams, 13 June 2011
Gould’s politics were grounded on the doctrines of Australian nationalism, fashioned and developed by the Australian Labor Party on the basis of its organic hostility to the “foreign” ideology of Marxism.
By Wiil Morrow, 13 June 2011
For the second time in three months, police have opened fire with bean-bag bullets and chemical weapons on refugees protesting inside Australia’s Christmas Island detention facilities.
By Patrick O’Connor, 4 June 2011
An extraordinary address delivered by Prime Minister Julia Gillard to mining moguls this week underscores her government’s subservience to the profit interests of BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto, and Xstrata.
By Terry Cook, 3 June 2011
With a clear majority in the lower house and backed in the upper house by two right-wing minor parties, the O’Farrell government is moving to slash public spending and privatise remaining state-owned assets to satisfy the demands of the financial markets.
By Margaret Rees, 1 June 2011
More than 120 paint workers have today resumed work at PPG Industries in Melbourne, after the United Voice (UV) union orchestrated an end to their nine week strike.
By Susan Allan, 30 May 2011
As the fourth anniversary of the Northern Territory (NT) intervention approaches, calls are being made for a new round of regressive measures against Aboriginal people, including a “second intervention”.
By Patrick O’Connor, 28 May 2011
The union’s abject capitulation in the face of a highly provocative campaign waged by Patrick against its workforce was no doubt closely coordinated with the Labor government.
By Terry Cook and James Cogan, 27 May 2011
Qantas is preparing what one commentator described as a “seismic shift” in its global strategy.
By James Cogan, 20 May 2011
Barely a week after the Labor government of Prime Minister Julia Gillard brought down its budget, the focus of the financial elite has shifted to the immense pressures bearing down on the economy as a result of the mining boom.
WSWS Perspective, 19 May 2011
Barely a week after the Labor government of Prime Minister Julia Gillard brought down its budget, the focus of the financial elite has shifted to the immense pressures bearing down on the economy as a result of the mining boom.
By Patrick O’Connor, 11 May 2011
This central premise of Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s first budget—that the mining boom will generate prosperity and enable millions of ordinary people to “share the benefits”—is an utter fraud.
By James Cogan, 10 May 2011
The SEP encourages teachers, parents and students to send letters to the World Socialist Web Site on your views and your experiences with NAPLAN testing and its consequences. The suppression of doubts, questions and outright opposition, for which the unions are primarily responsible, must be opposed. We urge all teachers to contact us and participate in a discussion on how to take forward the struggle to defend public education.
By Will Marshall, 10 May 2011
Behind the backs of the workforce, Prime Minister Julia Gillard and her senior ministers are collaborating with the car companies and trade unions to restructure the entire industry with the aim of boosting profits and “international competitiveness.”
WSWS Perspective, 9 May 2011
Unlimited violence, the repudiation of legality, and the suppression of democracy: this is the reactionary trajectory of contemporary American capitalism.
By Richard Phillips, 3 May 2011
The hearings raised crucial questions about the response of the state Labor government, in addition to those raised by last week’s hearings, which featured harrowing first-hand accounts about the lack of emergency warnings in the nearby Lockyer Valley and Toowoomba.
By Patrick O’Connor, 15 April 2011
The government’s claim that “millions” of ordinary people will be better off under the tax is a complete fraud.
WSWS Perspective, 24 March 2011
The problem is not nuclear power per se, but the social and economic order under which it is developed.
By Patrick O’Connor, 9 March 2011
Gillard has recklessly committed Australia to any US war against China, without any public discussion on the issue.
WSWS Perspective, 12 February 2011
The World Socialist Web Site hails the downfall of Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarak. There is justified jubilation in the streets of Cairo, Alexandria and other cities, as millions of Egyptian workers and youth celebrate their historic victory.
See the full WSWS coverage of the uprisings
in the Middle East »
Statement of the Socialist Equality Party (Australia),
29 January 2011
The tragic loss of dozens of lives and the destruction caused by the floods that have engulfed Queensland and other regions of Australia over the past two months have exposed the criminal indifference of every level of government for the lives and property of ordinary working people.
By Peter Symonds, 31 December 2010
Washington’s concern was that Rudd’s foreign policy was cutting across the US agenda.
By Patrick O’Connor, 15 December 2010
Leaked US diplomatic cables have detailed the extraordinary level of involvement of the American state in the day to day functioning of Australian politics, laying bare the real character of the diplomatic relationship between Washington and Canberra.
By James Cogan, 11 December 2010
Australian policy was in direct opposition to the stance of the Obama administration.
By Patrick O’Connor, 9 December 2010
Key coup plotters in the Labor Party and trade unions, including senators Mark Arbib and David Feeney, and Australian Workers Union chief Paul Howes, secretly provided the US embassy with regular updates on internal government discussions and divisions within the party leadership.
By Patrick O’Connor, 8 December 2010
The latest round of US diplomatic cables distributed by WikiLeaks have cast fresh light on the circumstances surrounding the anti-democratic Labor Party coup on June 23-24 that ousted Kevin Rudd as Australian prime minister.
Statement of the Socialist Equality Party, 24 August 2011
The fight against the mass sackings at BlueScope must be taken up not only by steelworkers but by every section of the working class now facing devastating attacks on jobs, wages and working conditions.
Patrick O’Connor, 25 August 2011
The Australian Workers Union (AWU) is stepping up its reactionary nationalist campaign to scapegoat China for the destruction of about 1,400 jobs at BlueScope steel.
By Peter Symonds, 31 December 2010
Washington’s concern was that Rudd’s foreign policy was cutting across the US agenda.
By Nick Beams, 23 December 2010
The following report was delivered by Nick Beams, SEP (Australia) national secretary to SEP public meetings in Melbourne and Sydney on December 20 and 21.
Across the state, the most populous in the country, Labor received only 25.5 percent of the vote—its lowest result since 1904.
Julia Gillard’s installation as prime minister last Thursday through an unprecedented coup initiated within the Labor apparatus by a tiny handful of unknown factional warlords and trade union bureaucrats is a clear warning to the working class.
The sudden ousting of Kevin Rudd has punctured the myth, promoted around the world and at home, of Australia as a land of social stability and political quiescence.
A speech by Tom Albanese, chief executive of the giant mining transnational Rio Tinto, underscores the key role played by the major mining companies in the June 24 coup.
The Historical and International Foundations of the SEP (Australia)Adopted in January by the founding congress of the Socialist Equality Party (Australia), The Historical and International Foundations of the Socialist Equality Party (Australia reviews and examines essential historical events and political experiences of the Australian working class throughout the twentieth century, within the context of global economic, political and social processes.
SEP (Australia) Statement of PrinciplesThe SEP Statement of Principles outlines the basic conceptions of the SEP and the foundation for membership in the party. The document was adopted unanimously at the party’s founding congress in Sydney on January 21–25.
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The June 2010 Political Coup: A warning to the working class
Mehring Books is proud to announce the publication of The June 2010 Political Coup: A warning to the working class, a powerful collection of articles, comments and political statements originally posted on the World Socialist Web Site.
Mehring Books is the foremost publisher of socialist books and pamphlets in the English language. Our titles encompass contemporary political analysis, history, culture and the arts, including works by Leon Trotsky and other leading representatives of classical Marxism.
The ISSE is the student organisation of the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI). For more information, please click on the link below.