Australia: Labor Party attempts to liquidate militant union – fight back with a general strike! Following weeks of speculation, based on as-yet-unproven allegations of corruption and criminality in the bourgeois media, on Friday 23 August the ruling Australian Labor Party (ALP) launched an unprecedented attack on the Construction, Forestry and Maritime Employees Union (CFMEU). Via draconian legislation passed by the Federal Government, with the help of the right-wing opposition, the ALP has sacked the leadership of one of Australia’s most militant unions and, in the words of one CFMEU regional secretary, “opened the gates of hell for tens of thousands of workers.”
Australia: capitalism can’t solve epidemic of violence against women Across Australia, tens of thousands have demonstrated over the last week against a significant rise in violence against women, with one woman being killed by an intimate partner every four days so far this year. These sickening crimes have evoked a righteous anger against the daily oppression and violence suffered by women across the country, yet the ruling class and the system they represent have offered nothing but hypocrisy, hollow consolation and barefaced arrogance in return.
Australia’s ‘Indigenous Voice’: racism, reformism… or revolution? On 14 October, Australians will vote on establishing a government advisory body for matters relating to the country’s Indigenous population, which would be enshrined in the constitution. At the time of writing, support for this ‘Indigenous Voice’ to parliament is languishing in the polls, much to the distress of the liberals. In reality, however, neither the government’s feeble, reformist Voice, nor the unvarnished racism of the opposition, offers anything to Australian workers, Indigenous or otherwise.
