En Passant

So it appears MasterCard gets a lot of revenue from Australia and yet pays little tax here. It screws us with high credit card interest rates and screws us again by not paying much tax here. Shame on MasterCard and shame on our politicians for not addressing the high credit card interest rates or the tax avoidance.

Australia’s mainstream media is a bit like Australia’s politics. It gives the impression of difference but in reality the two major newspaper outlets – News and Fairfax – disagree only on the detail. They agree on the overriding message and practice of neoliberalism and austerity. They agree too on creating a distraction from austerity. For Fairfax disguised and now not so disguised Islamophobia and liberal racism are good ways to do that.

The question for me now becomes how to link the wonderful words of support from union leaders to actions in defence of asylum seekers and refugees; how to ‘keep up the momentum and deepen the support.’ As Amy says, I think we need to be highlighting the industrial action Lady Cilento staff took as one example of the way forward. At the ANU the NTEU called a photo-shoot protest to let them stay and some staff joined the union as a result so the issue has resonance with workers. We should also I think begin discussing civil disobedience as another part of the way forward. Close down Melbourne to close down Manus.

To read Amy’s excellent article click here. Lady Cilento Hospital workers show the way to win

There is a growing recognition that Australia’s immigration detention centres are concentration camps, and no amount of denial by various apologists for the brutalisation of asylum seekers and refugees will change that reality. Hitler’s first concentration camps were set up soon after his election in 1933 to lock up and destroy the left in Germany. He imprisoned […]

Abolishing the Senate would be the first step in democratising the bourgeois institution of Parliament.

The desire for a better world is engraved on the hearts of workers and that longing gives hope to Labor. They will dissipate that desire for a change away from business as usual politics if they don’t make their arguments in class terms. Bill Shorten is no Bernie Sanders, but he is also not Malcolm Turnbull ether.

Turnbull can smile and pontificate all he wants. Ordinary workers want to see government action that improves their lives and that of their kids. The dilemma for Turnbull is that if he does that he has no room for cutting taxes on business. His shine is wearing off as the class nature of his government becomes clearer to us all.

The Refugee Action Coalition welcomes the agreement to place baby Asha in community detention as a victory for people power and the “Let Them Stay” campaign on behalf of the 267 asylum seekers from Nauru and Manus Island presently in Australia. However, there is still a question mark over the fate of all of the 267 men, women, and children who need to know that they will not be returned to Nauru or Manus Island. Until there is a positive decision about the 267, the campaign to Let Them Stay will continue.

This is the link to my 30 minute interview on 16 February with Sharon Firebrace on Razor Sharp on recent political and economic issues. To hear the interview click here.

Let them stay rally University of Wollongong 12 pm Wednesday February 24 at the Duckpond