November 28, 2018 - click here for index of articles.

Encrypt your rights

The Morrison government is frantically attempting to ram surveillance legislation through Parliament before the current sitting ends. The aim is to give police and security organisations such as ASIO new powers to assist in their covert surveillance of individuals and organisations. more ...

Editorial – Coal must go

The ALP’s new energy policy is infinitely better than the coalition government’s policy, which is geared towards preserving the coal industry’s domination of energy production and supporting the generation of energy from coal, gas or hydro plants rather than clean renewable energy sources. more ...

End violence against women!

Declared on November 25, 1981 by the United Nations it was a step forward in the elimination of a tragedy of international proportions. more ...

Flood-prone dirty work

Under capitalism, land is not so much a resource to be used by society to provide sites for housing or essential infrastructure such as schools, hospitals, factories and shopping centres, but a resource to be exploited by that money-grubbing band of modern-day robber barons known as “property developers”. more ...

Blessed are the peacemakers – Peacemaking Conference

In the shadow of the commemoration of 100 years since the Armistice marking the end of World War I, on November 11, the Ecumenical Social Justice Roundtable made up of the socially progressive wings of the Uniting, Anglican, Catholic Churches and the Quakers held the Perth Peacemaking Conference at Lower Burt Hall of St Georges Anglican Cathedral. There have been far too many wars and armed conflicts since the “War to End all Wars” and wars continue to rage around the world today causing damage and disruption to families, communities, other life forms on this planet and the planet itself – our only home. more ...

What’s wrong with privatisation?

For the last ten years of their long lives, my parents Dot and Bill Watts relied heavily on the City of Greater Geelong for home and community care. My parents had retired in their late sixties to Ocean Grove on the surf coast. My mother died at 84 and my father at 92, both in 2008. They lived well and in their own home until my mother died at home and then my father died a month later in hospital. more ...

In the grip of far-right madness

Israel’s next general election isn’t due until November 2019, but an early poll is virtually certain given the outbreak of now traditional mutually antagonistic willy-waving engaged in by would-be prime ministers in Benjamin Netanyahu’s rancid right-wing coalition. more ...

Doxxed by neo-Nazis

The morning before Thanksgiving, I woke up to an urgent message from someone back home in Arkansas. My name, employer information, and a link to my photo was just published on a neo-Nazi website. (!) Feeling more than a bit alarmed, I of course quickly checked it out. more ...

Australia’s casualisation crisis

The Australian Unemployed Workers’ Union (AUWU) works towards a future where everyone has the right to dignified social security and employment. We are all volunteer run, free to join, open to anybody, and we are non-partisan. more ...

Culture & Life – Lucky no more

I started school in 1945, halfway through the year, when I turned five. Woollahra Central School was an odd mix of kids from posh homes and others from the working-class parts of the suburb. The Great Depression had finally ended with the outbreak of WW2, but there was still plenty of poverty to be found. When I started there, there was no school uniform. Half the kids – especially the boys – came to school in bare feet. more ...

Quote of the Week

The American Dream will then die – on battlefields all over the world – and a nation conceived in liberty will destroy liberty for Americans and impose tyranny on subject nations.

George Boutwell – 1818-1905, Secretary of Treasury under Ulysses S Grant

This web page was last updated: Tuesday, November 27, 2018.