Do you remember the last time you saw the iridescent wings of a Christmas beetle bring in the summer? As much as I try to conjure the image or even the thought of the last time, I fall flat. In the younger years of my life, I remember them flying into my house in abundance. There were so many it was a normalised but appreciated event. 

Much has been made in the Australian capitalist media of the “swing to the right” in the French elections to the European Parliament.  They concentrate on the votes won by RN, the right wing National Rally, but not on the staggering rejection of the parliamentary charade as witnessed by the number of abstentions from voting. We reprint this translation from the website of La Cause Du Peuple in the interest ...

Draft legislation about fraudulent use of the internet and social media due to be introduced into the legislative process in Canberra over the next few weeks is long overdue. Australians have been targeted by on-line criminal elements and their associates for decades.

Other, related fraudulent use of on-line provision, such as Israeli firm STOIC’s work in spreading disinformation through fake social media accounts, has raised serious concerns about security-related matters ...

While the eyes of the world are focussed on the devastating tragedy of the Enga Province landslide in Papua New Guinea (PNG), it is timely to reflect on the environmental and development issues that foreign investment has brought to the country.

Our near neighbours, the heroic and long-suffering peoples of West Papua, are continuing their fight for liberation from the Indonesian colonising regime. Their struggle has our ongoing support. We are posting a statement from May by their leader Benny Wenda – eds.

Marking our party’s 60th anniversary, Vanguard invited Marxist historian Humphrey McQueen to Sydney to lead a discussion of his new pamphlet, on Karl Marx’s ‘Capital’. 
The pamphlet’s cover ‘invites job reps and community activists to share insights from Capital into how we are exploited, how nature is plundered and how to put an end to both.’
Veteran comrade Lindy Nolan introduced the discussion.

US company Kellogg Brown Root (KBR) has been selected to provide concept design services for the new nuclear powered submarine construction yard at Osborne in South Australia. 
Profits from the deal will further enrich the pockets of wealthy US shareholders.

Today, May 30, 2024, is a day of protest in India against the fascist Modi government’s war on tribal communities and fighters of the Communist Party of India (Maoist)’s Peoples Liberation Guerilla Army.
Since 1st January 2024, the Indian state has rapidly mobilised more and more paramilitary personnel into the 6 military camps established in the Abujmarh region of Chhattisgarh, a land-locked state in Central India, under a new Operation ...

Brig. Gen. Anthony Mastalir, head of US Space Forces, Indo-Pacific, told a conference in Sydney yesterday, that the US is “working very closely with Australia” to develop the ability to crack a Chinese space-based defensive line designed to keep US forces at bay.

We have had requests for the text of Shirley Winton’s speech at the Melbourne May Day event on May 5.  Shirley was speaking on behalf of No AUKUS Victoria – eds.

It has become a truism in contemporary politics that you cannot believe anything until you’ve heard it denied by a US spokesperson.
A case in point was last week’s denial by US General Stephen Sklenka at the National Press Club that Australia would automatically be dragged into any US war with China over Taiwan.

Gina Rinehart should stop obsessing about destroying an unflattering portrait of herself byacclaimed Western Aranda artist Vincent Namatjira, and concentrate on how to stop destroying the Martuwarra Fitzroy River and the critically endangered freshwater sawfish!

At the request of our French comrades, the CPA (M-L) has signed an appeal for the release of imprisoned Lebanese communist Georges Ibrahim Abdallah (born 2 April 1951), the longest held prisoner in Europe. 

One evening in 1970, a tall, sandy-haired young man came down the stairs to the basement of the Adelaide Revolutionary Socialists building in Dequetteville Terrace, Kent Town.  It was surprising to see him there as he was not a revolutionary but a well-known member of the Labor Party and of the pacifist-aligned Campaign for Peace in Vietnam.

Last week ALP Senator Fatima Payman broke ranks with the official Party line when she spoke up in the Senate against Israel's acts of genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza. She also defended the supporters of Palestinian people's struggle using the chant, "From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free."

AMWU and CEPU members employed by the federal government's Australian Submarine Corporation (ASC) have been taking industrial action against ASC to win better pay and conditions.

Russian military advances in the Ukraine have been viewed with alarm in Kiev and the western backers of the Zelensky presidential administration. Ukraine is faced with a long, drawn out military struggle it is unlikely to win in a straightforward manner. The development has also been accompanied by a classic Cold War spy scandal as Zelensky seeks to consolidate a reliable power-base of support with declining popularity amongst many Ukrainians ...

The events in New Caledonia, to which France has just sent some two thousand police, are both a legacy of French colonialism, and an extension of France’s alignment with the US imperialists against the growing influence of China in the region.
The US wants to strengthen France’s capacity to deny independence to the Kanaks, fearing that an independent Kanaky might seek closer ties with China. 

Our Party has good relations with several groups of comrades in Russia. We won’t identify the source of the following description of conditions in Russia because of the danger its authors are in under the rule of the Russian imperialist bourgeosie and Putin’s government. Unfortunately, there are some on the Left in Australia who praise Putin for his rivalry with US imperialism and the NATO bloc. There are no grounds ...

Price inflation increased from October to March by 1.6% . That was after a drop in the previous 6 months which had government ministers and economists cheering and carrying on about a series of interest rate cuts coming right up. 
On 7 May, the Reserve Bank swept those hopes aside and locked in the current rate, way higher interest rates than any in the last decade. Now talk is of ...