The number of people on the waiting list for public housing in NSW has increased by 3.5% in the past year to almost 60,000. This is forecast to increase to 80,000 in 2016.
According to a report last year by the NSW auditor-general, the present figure represents only about half of the people in NSW who actually need housing. The one thing that all policy analysts agree on is that demand will increase.
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Aboriginal activists rallied on the steps of parliament house in Perth on November 12 to protest against the Western Australian government鈥檚 plan to close 150 remote Aboriginal communities.
Five hundred people rallied in Melbourne on November 15 to protest against the Coalition government's proposed East West toll road. The rally had three main demands: scrap the East West Link, rip up the contracts and invest in public transport.
Socialist Alliance candidate for the seat of Pascoe Vale in the Victorian election, Sean Brocklehurst, gave this speech to the rally.
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My name is Sean Brocklehurst. I am a candidate for the seat of Pascoe Vale. I am also an activist with Moreland Community Against the Tunnel.
We are against this tunnel.
Sean Brocklehurst is the Socialist Alliance candidate for Pascoe Vale and Sarah Hathway is the Socialist Alliance candidate for Geelong in the Victorian elections on November 29. They released this statement on November 16.
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Climate change is already killing hundreds of people in extreme heatwaves each year in Australia.
Australia鈥檚 dependence on fossil fuels and road transport are big contributors. More than 1000 Australians die each year from air pollution, mainly from fossil fuels. We need a rapid shift to renewable energy.
Victoria: Big coal state
An emergency protest was called on November 20 to save Melbourne's Palace Theatre.
Dozens of protesters rallied outside the building the same evening to stop it being demolished. The rally was met with resistance by a group of unidentified young men who intimidated and physically attacked protesters.
We can count on Prime Minister Tony Abbott to add insult to injury.
In front of the world at the G20 Summit in Brisbane, he arrogantly regurgitated the racist colonial fiction 鈥 repudiated in law by the High Court in the famous Mabo case in 1992 鈥 that Australia was an empty land before the European colonial invasion.
Earlier this year, US and European banks 鈥 the ones that were too big to fail 鈥 settled US$18 billion worth of fines with regulators.
These fines were for money laundering activities, breaching sanctions violations, and manipulating the Libor (London interbank offered rate). The Libor is used to set interest rates on about US$800 trillion of borrowings and derivative contracts.
As the G20 wrapped up in Brisbane last week, national leaders issued a statement to announce the key issues they would focus on until the next meeting.
This included the creation of jobs through growth, with the ambitious target of growing the GDP of G20 countries by 2% over the next four years.
It was couched in language that promised a better life for everyone. 鈥淩aising global growth to deliver better living standards and quality jobs for people across the world is our highest priority,鈥 the statement said.
Climate change is the biggest and most urgent threat facing humanity today.
We are seeing global temperatures rise at an unprecedented rate, with 13 of the 14 warmest years on record having occurred in the past 14 years.
In fact, if you are under 37 years of age, you have never seen a year of below average temperature.
Last year in Australia, over 150 weather records were broken, including experiencing our hottest day, week, month and year on record. It is likely that these records will not be long-standing, with all signs indicating they will be broken again this coming summer.
The word 鈥渟ocialist鈥 first appeared in print in Italy in 1803. In the early 19th century there appeared to be two alternative roads to socialism: violent revolution or establishing cooperative communities separate from the state and capitalist social relations.
Towards the latter part of the century, a third possibility opened up: the working class could take control of the state through the ballot-box and reconstruct it on a socialist basis.
The statement below was released by the Party of the European Left (EL) on November 17. The EL is a Europe-wide political party that formed in 2004. It is composed of 26 member parties and seven observer parties. Visit www.european-left.org for more information. *** A delegation of the Party of the European Left (EL), headed by two of its vice presidents, Margarita Mileva and Maite Mola, returned on November 16 after a four-day visit to Kiev.
United States President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping of China have signed a bilateral climate agreement.
Much of the US and British media, and many US Democrats, have hailed the deal as a key step forward. Many US Republicans have attacked it as going much too far.
Anything the Republicans attack has to be good. Right? No. In fact it is an appalling deal.
Let's look at the numbers.
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