Australia

The government of Australia has one of the worst records in the world for its treatment of asylum seekers and refugees. They are held indefinitely in off-shore detention centres, prisoners in a limbo land, an example to other asylum seekers that life in Australian detention centres is worse than any hell they have fled.

Kevin Cook, the first Indigenous head of Tranby Aboriginal College in Sydney, died on 25 July 2015, Kevin, or Cookie, as he was known to everyone, never gave up fighting for what he believed in, the rights of Aboriginal people, the working class, and the oppressed of the world.

To many people in the northern hemisphere the names Christmas Island, Nauru, and Manus Island, in Papua New Guinea, sound exotic, tropical, a place to go, if you had the money, to soak up the sun and relax.

Many years ago as an unskilled migrant worker to Australia, I, and hundreds of others, sailed into the magnificent Sydney Harbour, past rocky, wooded headlands and beautiful waterside homes just like we’d seen in the Australia government promotional movies in the UK.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard has decisively beaten a leadership challenge from Kevin Rudd, the man she had removed as prime minister in June 2010.

A remarkable thing happened at the end of last year. Federal members of parliament almost unanimously gave their endorsement to a pay rise. There was no quibbling, no strings attached. It was not for a few per cent spread over years. No trade-off of conditions were demanded. There were no staff cuts or redundancies. 

Australia’s politicians fell over themselves to get into the line that would give them a chance to personally grovel before US President Obama when he arrived for a 26-hour visit on November 16.

Even by the standards of the Australian Labor Party this minority government’s treatment of asylum seekers is, to say the least, bizarre, brutal and racist. The government under Prime Minister Julia Gillard, is pursuing a policy which would have asylum seekers, including children and adolescents, “processed” in Malaysia, despite the fact that the High Court has […]

Pat Eatock is a name few Australians had heard of until a week or so ago. But many are familiar with the name Andrew Bolt. Bolt is a right wing columnist for a number of Rupert Murdoch’s News Ltd publications, a broadcaster, and according to him, the man who runs “… Australia’s most-read political blog.”

Rupert Murdoch’s Australian media interests include the national broadsheet, are rabidly pro big business, anti working class and racist. The Telegraph particularly is notorious for its lurid page one headlines and biased stories. One of the most infamous was during the so-called SIEV4, (Suspected Illegal Entry Vessel Number 4). or “children overboard,” incident in October […]