The New South Wales Labor (ALP) Annual Conference on 3 May made it clear that Labor Premier Morris Iemma’s plan to sell off publicly owned electricity utilities goes against the clear wishes of the vast majority of labour movement. But the defeat on the Conference floor holds both promise and threat for those who support rank and file control by the labour movement of “their” party.

Anthony Main is the secretary of Unite Australia, a union for young fast-food and retail workers drawing inspiration from Unite New Zealand but operating in different conditions.

Kathy Black spoke for US Labor Against War (USLAW) at a meeting at Melbourne Trade on 12 March. Riki Lane summarises her speech.

Kevin Rudd, the Blair-model new Labor prime minister of Australia, has made the long-awaited official apology from Australia’s government to the country’s Aboriginal peoples for mistreatment over the centuries.

Ten years ago the union movement defeated the Carr Labor government’s privatisation of electricity generation.

Australia's conservative coalition, in office since 1996, has been swept from power with a 6.3% electoral swing to Labor. Under's Australia's system (Alternative Vote for the House of Representatives, STV for the Senate), it takes a few days to get complete results, but the best estimates are that Labor will come out of the 24 November poll with an 86-64 majority in the House of Reps. Outgoing prime minister John Howard has lost his own seat.

For Australia’s federal election on 24 November, the ACTU (Australian TUC) is for the first time ever producing its own “how-to-vote” cards, suggesting a Green vote for the Senate.
Click here for Riki Lane's article

On 23 November, the day before Australia's federal election, trade unionists in Melbourne will demonstrate against the latest excess of the Australian Building and Construction Commission, the special police force for the construction industry set up by John Howard's conservative government. The ABCC has banned the display of Australian flags on building sites, claiming that it amounts to "intimidation".

Elect a Labor government! Campaign for unions to fight in the ALP against Rudd's policies and to use their industrial strength to defend workers' rights! Vote 1 Socialist 2 Greens 3 ALP.

Melbourne, Friday 26 October 2007
Yesterday the government and the Hospitals Industrial Association backed down and have agreed to meet nurse pay demands.

Victorian nurses have begun taking industrial action is support of their wage claim.

Australia's conservative coalition government, in power since 1996, has called a federal election for 24 November. The latest opinion poll in Fairfax newspapers shows Labor with an 18-point lead.

With a Federal election looming and opinion polls consistently running against the Coalition it is no wonder that this conservative government has once again played the race card.

Yes, of course, we want Howard out at the federal election. Yes, of course we'll vote Labor where there is no working-class socialist candidate, and give Labor our transfers even when there is.

This is raw footage on NineMSN – a phenomenon of the new technologies. Much more immediate than living room TV.

Minutes.

According to ABC news, 28 August, Blair-clone Kevin Rudd's ALP leadership now says it will keep the Howard government's ban on union organisers entering workplaces, and continue AWAs under another name for workers above a certain wage level.

A new film exposes the special police force for the construction industry set up in October 2005 by the conservative Australian government as part of its recent slew of anti-union laws.

A draft report by Bob Carnegie and Martin Thomas for the Workers' Liberty conference, Sydney, 26 August 2007

WOMEN'S RIGHTS IN IRAQ

Sydney
Workers Liberty is convening a public forum

"WOMEN'S RIGHTS IN IRAQ: occupation, militias and the left"

3pm on Saturday August 25 at the Gaelic Club 64 Devonshire Street Surry Hills, Sydney

Jeff Sparrow’s biography of Australian communist Guido Baracchi - "Communism, a love story", published by Melbourne University Press - is an allegory for twentieth century radicals and anti authoritarians.

Workers' Liberty Australia no.39. Contents include:
It's time for unions to stand firm: Dean Mighell, Joe McDonald, and the ALP
Labor, the unions, and AWAs
Workers' Rights Coalition formed in Melbourne

"If we are to take meaningful political action, if we are to act morally... then we need to be able to determine what is right and what is wrong, what is true and what is false".

Dean Mighell, leader of the ETU (Electrical Trades Union) in Victoria, is right: ""What we've seen [from the ALP leadership] is an incremental backing away of some fundamental union rights, and now we're going into something resembling 'WorkChoices lite'..." Kevin Rudd is becoming a "pale imitation" of John Howard.

In the lead up to this year’s Federal election it is clear that pressure on the Australian Labor Party leadership to cave in further on industrial relations policy will be unrelenting. Two of the top bosses’ organisations the Business Council of Australia and the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry are riding to the rescue of a faltering conservative coalition government.

The general heading "IR policy" covers two distinct areas. One, protection for workers' conditions which they can claim or enforce by resort to public enforcement agencies or tribunals. Two, rights (embodied in law) for workers to organise, to be represented, and to take industrial action so that they can themselves claim or enforce better conditions at work.

Bryan Sketchley
A consortium of investors (APA) wanted 100% Qantas so they could take it private. If they manage to acquire 90% of shares, they can compulsorily acquire the rest of the shares. If the buy out is successful then the assets directly secure the lenders money and they can do their asset stripping away from public scrutiny.

Without reference to the upcoming Labor Party Conference Opposition Leader, Kevin Rudd, publicly announced the industrial relations policy he will bring to the federal elections at the National Press Club on 17 April. This new policy if implemented will continue the direction of John Howards’ year old WorkChoices legislation.