Issue 22 – 10 December to 16 December 2020
Australia must reflect on how the Christchurch terrorist developed much of his hatred here
Jeff Sparrow | The Guardian
In the area where the perpetrator grew up, an historian estimates that “perhaps a fifth of the [Indigenous] population … were killed by guns and poison between 1838 and 1870.” The refusal to acknowledge or address the ongoing legacy of that colonial violence continues to corrupt the body politic, an unhealed wound infecting the nation.
Juukan Gorge Destruction: Extractivism and the Australian Settler-colonial Imagination
Dan Tout | Arena Quarterly
In the days leading up to National Sorry Day and the opening of National Reconciliation Week in May 2020, the mining giant Rio Tinto destroyed two Juukan Gorge sites belonging to the Puutu Kunti Kurrama and Pinikura (PKKP) peoples. Extractive settler-capitalist economies founded in ongoing processes of Indigenous displacement, dispossession and erasure stand as one of Australia’s most enduring national features.
Coastal erosion: Byron Bay beaches disappearing as wild weather hits
Kishor Napier-Raman | Crikey
At Byron Bay, Main Beach has collapsed into the sea. Across the north coast of New South Wales, surging tides and violent storms have led to the worst coastal erosion in years. But is this a one-off freak summer of flood or the new normal? The answer is… well, kind of both.
The Mantra 60 should be freed from torture. Here’s why the Coalition won’t do it
Guy Rundle | Crikey
With the stroke of a pen this suffering could be abolished. But the regime has two remnant purposes, dark and squalid by turn.
Australia Has Engineered New Levels of Border Cruelty — and Exported Them to Europe
Zoe Holman | Jacobin
Australia’s notoriously cruel border regime once made it a human rights pariah among rich nations. Now, its policies of “pushbacks” and long-term detainment have been adopted in Europe.
Old Greece, New Europe, Tomorrow’s Greece
Jorge Sotiros | Arena
If Greece is a portal to the soul of Europe, then the entire continent is ageing, insecure and anxious. If Greece continues to be locked into Old World tropes, then the new will continue to terrify it. It will be a challenge for Greek and European youth to reinvent its raison d’être, or else the Far Right will enhance its credentials.
The Morrison government wanted tax cuts for the wealthy, and that is what they have delivered
Greg Jericho | The Guardian
Whether it be industrial relations policy that will suppress wage growth being pitched as good for workers, or a cashless debit card that clearly targets Indigenous people pitched as desired and justified on the basis of anecdotes, what they sell is not what is delivered. And no more so is this the case with the government’s tax cuts.
Tax dodging News Corp continues to rip Australia off
Bernard Keane | Crikey
Next time you see a News Corp employee or contributor, or a News Corp editorial, opining about fiscal policy in Australia, or how tax revenue should be spent, or how the economy should be run, there’s a simple question to bear in mind. How much tax has the foreign-owned Coalition propaganda arm paid in tax in Australia in the five years to 2018-19?
The change that’s really needed to employment laws: stop making working lives a misery
Ross Gittins | Nine Newspapers
We’ve gone from often inflexible and unreasonable unions to “workplace flexibility” that’s all about making life easier – and more hugely remunerated – for bosses, while making work unpleasant and unrewarding – emotionally and monetarily – for far too many of our workers.
Coles workers take to the streets to save their jobs
Jim McIlroy | Green Left Weekly
Several hundred Coles workers and supporters marched from Hyde Park through the city streets to the Broadway Shopping Centre on December 12 in protest at the lock-out of 350 workers from the Smeaton Grange warehouse. They sat down on the road outside the shopping centre to make their case. Chants of “Who stole Christmas? Coles stole Christmas!” echoed up and down Parramatta Road as passers-by took flyers and expressed solidarity.
Compulsory superannuation a problem for complacent, vulnerable Labor
Guy Rundle | Crikey
There’s a particular trap in Australian progressive politics which involves dismissing a political issue simply because Tim Wilson has become involved. It’s fair to say the Liberal MP represents the antithesis of what anyone with a skerrick of blood in their veins feels life is all about: the rent-a-blazer with a nine-dollar smile, last seen in the 2019 election hanging around old folks homes like a has-been crooner doing morning melodies, or a fake relative with a newly drafted will.
New Caledonia’s triple opportunity
Nic Maclellan | Inside Story
The young people gathered early in Noumea, preparing for action. Soon they had blocked the main road along the waterfront in New Caledonia’s capital with barricades, burning tires and rocks.
The liberal media is normalising war crimes
Simone White | Red Flag
Footage emerges of NT police officer threatening to ‘knock the f**k out’ young Aboriginal boy
Rachael Knowles | National Indigenous Times
Push to end ‘legalised exploitation’ in farming industry
Cait Kelly | New Daily
Ecuador: Government tries to ban left from election
Harvey Goldberg | Green Left Weekly
Venezuela: Socialist election win masks deeper problems
Federico Fuentes | Green Left Weekly
Enemies of the people: Germany’s AfD tries to turn COVID into anti-govt opportunity
Klaus Neumann | Inside Story
What was Trumpism?
Ben Hillier | Red Flag
It’s time to fight for alternatives to the ‘gas-led recovery’ fraud
Peter Boyle | Green Left Weekly
New Research Confirms It: Exploitation Makes People Miserable Mentally
Seth J Prins | Jacobin
Australia must build 150,000 public rental homes and end all forms of homelessness
Gerry Georgatos | Independent Australia
Why I supported the Newcastle Harbour blockade
Steve O’Brien | Green Left Weekly
The ‘cancer on democracy’ is more than just Murdoch
Tom Gilchrist | Red Flag
More Australians receive unemployment payments than you think
Peter Whiteford, Ashton De Silva, Dina Bowman, Marcus Banks and Zsuzsanna Csereklyei | New Daily