December 12, 2018 - click here for index of articles.

This is the final issue for 2018. The first issue in 2019 will be on January 23.

New Year’s greetings from the CPA

On behalf of the Communist Party of Australia, we would like to wish you every success in your struggles in 2019. This year has witnessed attack after attack on the interests of working people, their incomes and job security, their access to public health and education, housing and other basic needs. The country is still at war, at the service of US imperialism, and the refugees from those conflicts and others are still abused through and during offshore detention. The Aboriginal people of the country still struggle for land rights and basic respect before the law and other institutions. The Australian government has moved to increase surveillance on the people and in every way shore up defences for a system in crisis. more ...

My Health Record – Still time to opt out

You have up until January 31, 2019 to opt out of My Health Record (MHR). If you don’t opt out, then the government will automatically “opt you in”. My Health Record is flawed in its design with no guarantee of privacy and lack of informed consumer choice. There is also the very real danger and likelihood of it being privatised at some point in the future. more ...

Editorial – A momentous year

The goodwill that accompanied the passing of the federal marriage equality laws in December 2017 didn’t last long. The contradictions underlying capitalism re-emerged with a vengeance this year. more ...

Eureka and Beyond

Eureka and Beyond was the topic for this month’s Politics in the Pub in Perth (PiP), the last session for 2018. more ...

Big Brother strikes again

In its dying hours of Parliament’s last sitting day for the year, the federal government successfully rammed through a bill to give intelligence agencies and state and federal police new powers to access private and confidential communications and data. more ...

Rally in support of Iranian workers!

Workers in Iran are currently engaged in a fight for their livelihoods, and for their basic human rights as workers. In doing this, the workers are forced to confront employers and a state apparatus that treats them and their organisations cruelly. more ...

CPSU/CSA Delegates wage claim in WA

On December 5, over 100 delegates of the CPSU/CSA representing public servants attended a mass meeting either in person in Perth or online through Zoom to discuss and consider endorsing their next wage claim. In the last wage agreement the members accepted $1,000 plus $1,000 for a two-year period, which was less than CPI. This was because the state was in financial difficulty. Western Australia (WA) is now not in such a precarious financial state, so they are seeking a wage agreement to recover from the previous austerity measures and ensure their wages and conditions are not eroded. more ...

The 20th International Meeting of the Communist and Workers Parties

In November, 90 Communist and Worker’s parties from 73 countries met to discuss developments at the international, regional and national levels and the tasks of the communist and workers’ parties to strengthen their struggle, and the developments in the working class and other popular strata for workers’ and people’s rights. more ...

Cyprus – a pregnant stalemate

The 1974 invasion and occupation by Turkey’s military of almost 40 percent of Cyprus followed the failed military coup organised by far right Cypriot nationalists supported by the (1967-1974) military junta of Greece. The idea of the super patriotic nationalist group – Eoka B – was to force a union of Cyprus with Greece by overthrowing the popular, non-aligned, President Makarios.. more ...

Voices from the student protests

Being a high school student, responding to the call and participating in such a large event felt like an obligation. As a student, someone young and deciding what I want my future to be, I feel as though the future of our planet is something we must strive to preserve. more ...

Quote of the Week

“Knowledge is the eternal endless approximation of thought to the object. The reflection of nature in man’s thought must not be understood in a dead manner, abstractly, without movement, without contradiction, but as an eternal process of movement – as the emergence of contradictions and their resolution.”

Lenin on Dialectics

This web page was last updated: Wednesday, December 12, 2018.