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The fall in the number of new confirmed COVID-19 cases over the last few days has been received by most people with cautious relief. The official advice of federal and state governments remains to maintain the social distancing and to stay at home.
But the capitalist class is looking at things very differently. It is growing impatient for capitalist exploitation to return to “normal” and they are preparing us to accept the cost in lives.
The battle remains for working and unemployed people to push for a response that puts public health first, without making them pay for the crisis.
The COVID-19 crisis has revealed (once again) how the profits-first capitalist system fails to look after the needs of ordinary people. Here are five lessons of the crisis.
It is clear that the Australian government has badly mishandled the COVID-19 pandemic with doctors now warning that Australia is on track to be in a "worse position than Italy is currently in".
If there is one thing the recent unprecedented bushfire emergency has proved to us in Australia — and to millions in countries who watched on in horror — is that the climate emergency is not just something to worry about in the future: this is the climate emergency and it is already catastrophic.
Arndt and Hanson are femicide deniers. Like climate change deniers who refuse to acknowledge the science, these two deny that the intentional killing of women is a growing problem that governments need to address.
Disgruntled homophobes in the Coalition were determined to bring in protections for religious institutions that want the right to discriminate: Morrison is the guy to deliver.
Big corporations fund Australia’s two “parties of government”. They received more than $430 million from corporate Australia in the year leading up to the May 2019 federal election. This is a record amount: $150 million more than the previous highest total.
The context in which Plibersek is attempting her insulting dressing-up of Australian patriotism is the ugly, nakedly racist push by right-wing politicians to whip up nationalism and jingoism at a time when Australia (and the rest of the world) is divided by greater inequality, spawned by a sharper exploitation by the corporate rich.
Union leaderships are still falling in behind the Australian Council of Trade Unions’ “re-elect Labour at all costs” strategy, which effectively ignores the seismic shift in public opinion around needing to take action on climate change. The planet, and communities being affected by climate change now, cannot wait while Anthony Albanese and the Australian Labor Party get their act together.
Morrison has to go and, if the outrage at his callous ineptitude compels the cabinet to sack him, that would be a good thing.
The horror of the devastating and apocalyptic fires in NSW and Victoria has not only dampened the New Year party mood, it has fanned anger over the government's obvious failure to respond to the climate emergency.