Communists gear up for federal election

It’s been a few years since Communists stood as candidates at a federal election. Running in an election is a big commitment of time and money but those aren’t the only obstacles to be overcome. The bureaucratic requirements of the electoral authorities have made the task that much harder. The major parties of capital – the Liberals, Nationals and Labor – have combined in federal and state jurisdictions to make it harder for smaller parties to take their place on the ballot paper.  more ...

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Whyalla – Manufacturing traded away

The fate of Arrium’s 3,000 workers and their families in its Whyalla steel works and mining operations hangs in the balance. Arrium went into voluntary administration on Thursday last week (April 7) and appointed the company Grant Thornton as its administrators. Grant Thornton has indicated it will be “business as usual” while it goes through the company’s books and assesses the situation.  more ...

Editorial – Adani: Greed trumps science

The warnings based on the science are clear: the Great Barrier Reef is threatened – in the long term and in the immediate in the form of the approval by the Queensland government of the monstrous $22 billion Adani coal mine, with its Abbot Point rail, port facilities, power, water, road works and airstrip.  more ...

The Green Revolution

On April 2, members of the Communist Women’s Collective, organised a discussion at the Sydney Party headquarters on Cuba, A Model for Agriculture Sustainability, with guest speaker Yexenia Calzado, a young Communist Cuban Woman. Yexenia informed our 30-plus guests about how Cuba’s cultural sustainability came about after the collapse of the USSR which they heavily relied on for aid and resources.  more ...

Call for overhaul

Adele Cox, senior project consultant with the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Suicide Prevention Project (ATSISPP), is calling for an overhaul of the way the health system responds to suicide, mental illness and self-harm in Indigenous communities.  more ...

Anger builds at CSIRO debacle

It takes a lot to get the public spotlight to turn onto the country’s unassuming, long-established research and development organisation. The value of the quietly achieving Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation is widely recognised and questions are now being asked about where we would be as a community without the CSIRO and its research for the public good. Staff, including senior staff, and the public are worried. Since current Chief Executive and former Silicon Valley entrepreneur Larry Marshall took over in January 2015, the axe has been taken to staffing and budgets, and almost the entire emphasis of research directed at market-ready, profit-turning products.  more ...

Taking issue – Western civilisation – the war on drugs

The leading imperialist countries – USA, Britain, France – like to present themselves as the embodiment of “Western civilisation”. Even Germany, whose record in this area surely leaves much to be desired, has no qualms about joining with its rivals in their collective posturing as the arbiters of culture and civilised living.  more ...

On freedom and revolution

Many people around the world will have followed the visit by US President Obama and his wife Michelle to Cuba with some interest. They are not alone in this as I have also been following the visit with keen interest – not only what was said but what was not said and done.  more ...

Trump and Clinton: Censoring the unpalatable

A virulent if familiar censorship is about to descend on the US election campaign. As the cartoon brute, Donald Trump, seems almost certain to win the Republican Party’s nomination, Hillary Clinton is being ordained both as the “women’s candidate” and the champion of American liberalism in its heroic struggle with the Evil One.  more ...

Culture & Life – Fonseca lifts the lid

The massive leak of documents from Panama-based law firm Mossack Fonseca has focused attention on an aspect of capitalism that is regularly played down whenever it comes to light: the tax avoidance industry. Mossack Fonseca describes itself as a law firm, but its core business it seems is advising its clients on ways to (legally) avoid paying tax. The very rich – the top one percent who paradoxically own most of everything – are very reluctant to share any of their wealth with the State, so that it can be used for the benefit of the majority. In fact, they regard taxation of their profits as nothing short of theft.  more ...