Category: NSW

05 Dec

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The Greens NSW, unions & political donations

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...except not all of them.

With the Unions NSW-led High Court challenge to Barry O’Farrell’s donations laws awaiting a decision, a flurry of articles and commentary emerged in the press and social media recently, with several Greens activists defending the laws, and unionists, including Greens member and Fire Brigade Employees’ Union Secretary, Jim Casey, attacking them. Also coming out against […]

11 Jul

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Where is the alternative? The Tasmanian Greens join the deficit hawks

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Nick McKim faces protests over school closures Political debate in Australia seems firmly hinged on a cognitive dissonance over questions about the economy. Setting aside the ever-present obsession of discussing economic questions as if they are somehow separate to political ones, we have a federal government simultaneously arguing the economy is strong and we are […]

Filed under: age of austerity, ALP, Greens, NSW

05 Jun

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#nswisconsin: How the age of austerity came to NSW & what can be done about it

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Lest you thought the warnings raised on this blog about the “Age of Austerity” currently ravaging Europe and North America coming to Australia (see here and here, for example) were exaggerated, Barry O’Farrell has exceeded even our worst fears about the scale of attacks being planned in elite circles. What is being sold by the media as a case of reining […]

31 May

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Barry O’Farrell: From modern managerialist to old-fashioned class warrior

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> A funny thing happened on the way to Macquarie St. Before the March NSW election, Barry O’Farrell was a seemingly banal, workmanlike and mild-mannered Liberal leader who spent years rebuilding his party’s broken morale, even at the cost of reining in powerful far Right factional elements. Rather than projecting the leader he would be […]

09 May

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The balance of forces

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> by Dr_Tad and liz_beths Since the NSW election discussion among many readers of Left Flank has been dominated by the battle over Marrickville Council’s BDS policy. The Left inside the party has just had to face down the combined forces of the Murdoch media, Barry O’Farrell, Kevin Rudd, various sections of the pro-Israel lobby, and the party’s own national […]

Filed under: Bob Brown, Greens, NSW, Palestine

03 May

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Green Fear: staying out of the ‘no-go zone’ of Australia-US-Israel relations

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art_marrickville-council-420x0

Marrickville Council may have backed off supporting the Israel BDS campaign but by highlighting the plight of the Palestinians, the Council’s initiative in this area, and the pro-BDS stance of the NSW Greens, has ensured that this will only be the beginning of the debate, not least of all within the Greens themselves. The Australian […]

11 Apr

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Last rites for the Labor Party? Part Two: An impasse for post-materialist Greens politics

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What's the real problem here?

If you need any proof that the Greens did reasonably well in last month’s NSW election it would have to be the tide of opinion telling us just how badly they did. Such commentary was almost inevitably accompanied by “advice” for the party to moderate its “hard Left” policies/stick to the environment/disappear altogether. If the Greens […]

27 Mar

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Rock-bottom redux: Last drinks rites for the Labor Party? Part One

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Keneally

As a party able to offer itself as a viable government, Labor is not just under existential threat. It is finished. Unless, of course, it can engineer an extraordinary resurgence. Labor’s looming death as a stand-alone political entity is the biggest story in contemporary Australian politics. —Peter Hartcher, Sydney Morning Herald, 19 March 2011 How […]