By Nguyen Tran, Socialist Party Melbourne
I am an international student from Vietnam and I have been interested in politics since I was in high school. Initially I was influenced by my family who lived through two wars in Vietnam and were quite patriotic.
After doing some reading I knew that I would have to [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

By Stephen Jolly
On Saturday June 26 I travelled with two comrades from South Africa’s Democratic Socialist Movement (DSM) to a mass meeting they had called in Rustenburg, about two hours north west of Johannesburg. The DSM is the Socialist Party’s sister party in South Africa.
The city of Rustenburg contains 400,000 people and is best known [...]

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 [...]

SP Newsletter No.315
Five refugees died early last month as the Government ignored a distress signal from a boat inside Australia’s maritime search and rescue zone. The tragedy comes amid further fighting between the ALP and the Coalition over which party is harsher on refugees.
The five men set themselves adrift from the boat in inflatable tires [...]

SP Newsletter No.314
On June 15 South Australian construction worker Ark Tribe will face court charged with refusing to attend an interrogation with the Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC). This trial highlights yet another broken election promise from Kevin Rudd – in this case scrapping John Howard’s anti-worker laws.
Ark Tribe faces a potential 6 month [...]

SP Newsletter No.313
Israeli commandos used lethal force when they intercepted an aid convoy in international waters heading for the Gaza strip, where over one million Palestinians are trapped behind an Israeli government blockade.
The killing of nine aid volunteers by the commandos has provoked angry demonstrations in Turkey, where the flotilla of ships set out from, [...]

SP Newsletter No.312
Big business leaders and all the major newspapers praised Wayne Swan’s third federal budget when it was released in mid May. For ordinary people however there is very little in the budget to be happy about.
For the capitalist class this budget - coupled with the recently released Henry tax review – not only [...]

SP Newsletter No.311
New figures show that in the last year housing prices have shot up by 30% in some Australian cities. While ordinary people are struggling to buy a house or pay the rent, developers and landlords are laughing all the way to the bank.
The median house price in Melbourne is currently $524,200. An average [...]