Australia

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. In the Senate, the best prediction is a sort of draw: Labor will have 32 seats, the Greens will have 5, and Family First (an anti-abortion group which...

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 The election is by Alternative Vote for the House of Representatives and STV for the senate (the only house where the Greens are represented or likely to gain representation) Left Labor-affilated unions like the CFMEU are bolder, making donations to the Greens and the activist-left Socialist Alliance as well as to Labor. The ETU in Melbourne has a giant “vote Green” banner outside...

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". Which Australian flag? That's the problem for the ABCC. Like Ireland with its Starry Plough, Australia has an alternative "workers'" national flag, the Eureka Flag. The Eureka Flag was first...

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. Workers' Liberty sees the fight for union rights and against Work Choices as the decisive issue in this election. Howard and his gang of ruling class warriors have to be turfed out as dramatically as possible to drive home that workers will fight these attacks on our ability to organise. It is in workers interests for an ALP government to be elected. The unions still have substantial weight in the ALP and...

Melbourne, Friday 26 October 2007 Yesterday the government and the Hospitals Industrial Association backed down and have agreed to meet nurse pay demands. Importantly, the nurses not only managed to retain the nurses to patient ratio scheme but extend it in a number of areas such as emergency departments and maternity wards. The government had wanted to put the nurse/patient scheme at the discretion of management as a first step to gut and eventually wind up the popular and effective system. Nurses instigated bans on selected beds. A total of 1,255 hospital beds were closed during the nine...

Victorian nurses have begun taking industrial action is support of their wage claim. Last week, a mass meeting of nurses voted overwhelming to initiate the industrial action in support of their claim in the face of the state Labor government continuing to stall and dither in negotiations. As of last Thursday beds had been closed across the state, and patients listed for elective surgery turned away. Victorian nurses are the worst paid in the country, and until recently, an exodus was Victorian nurses to interstate services had continued unabated for some time. A Division 2 nurse currently...

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. Sharan Burrow, president of the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU), commented: “This election is the first chance for the Australian public to tell John Howard and Peter Costello what they think about their unfair WorkChoices IR laws. “WorkChoices has already hurt hundreds of thousands of working families, including: * Workers in small and medium sized businesses that have lost protection from...

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. The SIEV X sinking with over 300 lives, The Tampa and the ‘children overboard’ debacles of previous election periods come readily to mind. On 2 October Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews chose to reiterate the government’s August policy of decreasing the refugee intake from Africa and increasing the numbers from Iraq and Burma. At the time Andrews maintained the policy change as a logical change given Australia’s...

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. But it does not follow that we should not criticise, challenge - indeed, denounce - Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard. Sharan Burrow and Jeff Lawrence said that they were "disappointed" by Kevin Rudd's and Julia Gillard's latest industrial relations policy statement, at the end of August. A few trade union leaders have been more outspoken. Kevin Reynolds, secretary of the CFMEU construction division in...

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