En Passant

I reckon Justin Trudeau is even more unelectable than that UK Labour bloke, Jeremy Corbyn. Thank heaven we in Australia have the very very electable alternative Prime Minister and Labor Party leader Bill Shorten and his party’s neoliberal, warmongering and racist policies.

This is the link to my 30 minute Razor Sharp interview with Sharon Firebrace on 20 October. We discuss among other things the polls and Turnbull’s popularity, the likelihood of a March election, the lack of fight in Labor, problems in the economy, privatisation, neoliberalism, tax and much much more.

An annual net wealth tax on the top 10 percent of the wealth holders, abolition of the superannuation tax haven, removal of the capital gains tax concession, taxing trusts like companies, imposing a super profits tax on all industries (such as banks, not just mining companies,) making the current income tax system more progressive, with for example a 100% rate on all income greater than $250,000, are just a few suggestions that come to my mind. Of course, Labor as a party of neoliberalism won’t do anything radical. It will fiddle while the revenue Rome burns

Just another case of a male authority figure not believing a raped woman. Unusual eh?

The one tactic the refugee movement hasn’t tried to date, apart from activists undertaking essentially stand alone actions, is arguing for and then trying to mobilise the thousands who turn out to rallies around a specific call for civil disobedience. My suggestion is that the left begin agitating to occupy the centre of the capital cities until Abyan is bought back to Australia for medical treatment and try to build just such a movement in the next week.

On Friday evening the Turnbull government chartered a plane and sent Abyan* – a raped, pregnant 23 year old refugee – back to Nauru, without receiving medical care.1

This is a link to my article in The Canberra Times on Saturday 17 October 2015 about the Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and his Cayman Islands’ investments.

The PM is no ordinary taxpayer, which is why clarification is needed.

With news coming through that Immigration Minister Peter Dutton today said that ‘the federal government would not be “blackmailed” into allowing pregnant asylum seekers at Nauru’s detention centre into Australia for medical treatment’, I revisited Ian Rintoul’s article on the war on refugee women on Nauru. Writing a week ago in the magazine of the revolutionary socialist organisation Solidarity, Ian says, among other things:

‘The shocking ABC 7.30 story highlighted just two rapes of Somali women. There are many more. Women freed to live in the community are now the victims of a reign of terror supported by the policies of the Australian and Nauruan governments. There were serious illusions that new Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull would at least modify offshore processing—but the gloss is quickly wearing off… Nauru is not even a gilded cage—it is a house of horrors. Both Manus and Nauru must be closed.’

To read the whole article click here.

Amy Thomas in Solidarity discusses where the Greens are heading under Richard Di Natale.

This is the link to my 30 minute interview with Sharon Firebrace on Razor Sharp on 13 October. We discuss the Abbott-Turnbull government, increasing authoritarianism (metadata, arrest without charge,) the economy and the ongoing need to resist the attacks on the poor and working class. The interview will be replayed on radio 3KND on Wednesday […]