Australia and South Pacific
Australian demonstrations show solidarity with Palestinian people
By our correspondents, January 5, 2009
Just hours after the first media reports of the launch of the Israeli ground assault on the Gaza Strip, protests in Australia’s major cities of Melbourne and Sydney drew thousands into the streets.
Australian university review proposes student vouchers
By Carolyn Robinson, January 2, 2009
For two decades, the higher education system has been systematically starved of funds. Now the dire state of over-stretched universities is being used to justify a radical pro-market restructuring.
Australia: Thousands rally against Israeli Gaza attacks
By our reporters, December 31, 2008
About 3,000 people demonstrated in central Melbourne yesterday against the Israeli military’s bombardment of the Palestinian people in Gaza.
East Timor: Political tensions mount over Greater Sunrise gas pipeline
By Patrick O’Connor, December 31, 2008
A long-standing dispute over the route of a proposed oil and gas pipeline and the location of a refinery has triggered further turmoil in the unstable coalition government in East Timor.
WSWS interviews charity workers and recipients
Demand for emergency welfare relief “dramatically spikes” in Sydney
By Keith Morgan and Mike Head, December 30, 2008
The WSWS interviews charity workers and recipients about the social impact of the global economic breakdown in Sydney, Australia’s financial capital.
Australia: Haneef “terrorism” inquiry produces a whitewash
By Mike Head, December 29, 2008
The Rudd government’s Clarke review of last year’s terrorist witch-hunt of Dr Mohamed Haneef is a whitewash of the former Howard government and a vehicle for bolstering the country’s draconian c...
Australian police shoot another vulnerable person
By Jake Skeers, December 29, 2008
New South Wales police shot an apparently mentally ill 48-year-old woman multiple times in Sydney on December 21 in what the victim and two witnesses have described as a totally unnecessary action.
Australia: Growing opposition to Labor’s Internet censorship
By our reporters, December 27, 2008
More than 2,000 opponents of the federal Labor government’s plans to censor the Internet rallied in cities across Australia on December 13—the second national protest in the past two months.
Australian Labor government’s 2020 carbon emissions target: a declaration of impotence on climate change
By Patrick O’Connor, December 23, 2008
The Labor government’s target of reducing greenhouse gas emissions to 5 percent below their level in the year 2000 by 2020 constitutes an admission that it has no effective solution to the climate c...
Australian job losses spread to mining sector
By Terry Cook, December 23, 2008
After thousands of job losses across the financial and banking sector, the impact of the global economic crisis is spreading to other sections of the Australian economy, with almost daily reports of l...
Australia: Hundreds of jobs to be axed as childcare centres close
By Alex Messenger, December 22, 2008
Hundreds of Australian childcare employees, some of the poorest paid workers in the country, will lose their jobs in the coming months with the $1.6 billion collapse of childcare provider ABC Learning...
Australia: Police gun down 15-year-old boy
By Katrina Morrison, December 17, 2008
Fifteen-year-old Tyler Cassidy was shot dead by police officers in Melbourne, Victoria last Thursday night in a callous and brutal act. Four officers surrounded the agitated youth at a skate park in t...
