Solidarity 179, 19 August 2010

Unions' weakness opens door for Abbott

Australia's federal election on 21 August shows a strange picture. The Liberal leader, Tony Abbott , is a Catholic, a monarchist, anti-abortion, anti-gay, an old-fashioned male chauvinist, disdainful of the rights of indigenous Australians, someone who believes that climate change "is crap" and therefore it's fine to be reckless about trashing the environment. He makes an outcry about "reducing government debt" (code-word for cutting social provision) when Australia, almost alone of the world's richer countries, has absolutely no government debt "problem" . He was one of the architects of the...

Pat Longman, 1950-2010

Pat Longman, a revolutionary socialist for 44 years and an activist in the AWL tendency for most of 39 years, died on 2 August 2010, at the age of 59, from chronic liver disease. Revolutionary politics and organisation are, wrote Trotsky in the Transitional Programme, “carried it on the shoulders” of one “generation” of activists to another. With Pat’s death, we have lost one of the surviving few pairs of shoulders that have carried the programme and the organisation of the AWL tendency through from the 1960s generation to today. Pat was born on 21 December 1950 into a working-class family in...

This website uses cookies, you can find out more and set your preferences here.
By continuing to use this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy and Terms & Conditions.