It is now two and a half months since budget night. Remember Treasurer Joe Hockey and Mathias Corman smoking cigars, satisfied and smug after doing a job on Australian workers, pensioners and the poor?
Social Justice
On the recommendation of Shamikh Badra from the Palestinian People's Party in Gaza, the Socialist Alliance in Australia is launching a special appeal for funds to help the Palestinian people recover from Israel's latest genocidal war.
The Socialist Alliance conveys its condolences to the families of all its victims of the suspected shooting down to Malaysian Airlines flight 17 over war-torn eastern Ukraine but it rejects the inflammatory Cold-War-style political posturing by both Liberal PM Tony Abbott and Labor opposition leader Bill Shorten.
Socialist Alliance city councillors Sam Wainwright (Fremantle City Council, WA) and Sue Bolton (Moreland City Council, Victoria) have called on the Australian government to expel Israel's ambassador to send a strong message of condemnation of the brutal Israeli military offensive against Gaza.
In the past week, Israeli military forces have escalated their offensive on the Gaza Strip. Israeli warplanes have increasingly targeted houses, civilian-populated areas and civilian facilities in the Gaza strip.
Australia has escaped recession for more than two decades, despite the impact of the Asian and global financial crises on the world's economies.
The 10th national conference of Socialist Alliance is taking place at a time extreme inequality, intensified conflict and ecological crisis on a global scale. The 85 richest individuals in the world now hold as much wealth between them as the 3.5 billion poorest people in the world.
Policy background
- There is a growing public frustration with the electoral system at the federal, state and local government level.
- The major parties that have long dominated parliamentary politics are increasingly seen to be in the pockets of powerful corporate interests, and the electoral laws to privilege the major parties.
- Traditional party loyalties are breaking down and more voters are looking to smaller parties for an alternative to the traditional parties they have become disenchanted with.
Indian feminist and socialist Kavita Krishnan was the keynote speaker at the People's Power in the “Asian Century” seminar in Sydney on June 7. The seminar was held as part of the Socialist Alliance’s 10th national conference over the weekend of June 7-9.
The federal Coalition government plans to ramp up Work for the Dole for job seekers under 30.
The demand of tens of thousands of people who marched through the streets in cities around Australia on May 18 was clear. They want the federal government’s killer budget blocked.
The turnout and energy at the March in May rallies on May 18 proved that people are not going to take this budget lying down.