SP Newsletter No.320
The Socialist Party has been hosting a large number of public meetings throughout the municipality of Yarra in Melbourne over the past few months. The aim is to mobilise people to win reforms on concrete issues of concern to them and in the process win greater support for socialist ideas and methods.
Yarra has [...]

SP Newsletter No.319
The Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) has revived their anti-WorkChoices campaign in the lead up to the next federal election. The ACTU is asserting Opposition Leader Tony Abbott has “shamelessly vowed to resurrect the core elements of WorkChoices, the policy that was so resoundingly rejected by Australian voters less than three years [...]

Time to put the public back into public transport!
Its well over a decade now since Melbourne’s public transport system was privatised. According to the state government at the time, the move was supposed to bring a more efficient and reliable service. Since then Melbourne’s trams, trains and buses have become synonymous with lengthy delays, poor [...]

SP Newsletter No.318
Thousands of workers Australia-wide face the reality, or threat, of job losses or cuts to working hours. Bosses are trying everything they can to make workers pay for the global crisis of their system.
The crisis has already led to the axing of 16 million jobs worldwide and destabilised a number of governments around [...]

July fast news
20,000 workers around Australia marched on June 10 to demand equal pay for women.
The Australian Services Union (ASU) organised marches in 17 locations around the country in the biggest national rally for womens’ wages since the 1970s.
3000 marched in Sydney and in Melbourne approximately 5000 workers marched through the CBD. Rallies [...]

SP Newsletter No.317
There has been much made in the media about the Resource Super Profits Tax (RSPT). The mining companies have conducted a scare campaign threatening strikes of capital and the loss of thousands of jobs. This has been treated as if it were the most natural threat in the world – a far cry [...]

In 2007 the Labor Party was swept to power on a wave of enthusiasm. This enthusiasm was in part based on their promise to take radical action on global warming – a promise that has gone unfulfilled.
The Rudd/Gillard government announced the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS) with grand statements of leading the world. Rudd [...]

SP Newsletter No.316
Kevin Rudd was dramatically ousted as Prime Minister this week. After a period of sinking popularity and public discontent, Rudd became the first Labor prime minister ousted before completing a first term.
Initially Rudd had said that he would stare down any threat to his leadership. But with right-wing Labor Party power brokers [...]

Regular column of Socialist Party Councillor in Yarra, Stephen Jolly
Originally published in the June edition of ‘The Socialist’
Last month the draft Yarra Council budget was released. It was supported by the ALP, Greens and two right-wing Independents on Council. The Socialist Party will oppose this budget as we have done against all the Green/ALP-supported [...]

Located in the heart of the Latrobe Valley, Hazelwood power station supplies Victoria with up to 25% of its base load electricity. The plant remains the highest polluting power station in Australia, releasing 17 million tons of greenhouse gases every year. This is the equivalent of 1.4 million households!
Hazelwood first began operations in 1965 as [...]