In secret, the Governent is planning to surround Parliament with a razor-wire fence (like they use in their offshore refugee prison camps). To protect Parliament from terrorists, police will be armed with machine guns. There would be no terrorists in Australia if the Goverment didn’t join America’s Muslim Bombing Sprees to bomb Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan back to the Stone Age. – Graham Macafee, CLA member, Latham ACT
It concerns me that disempowered people are starting to put their faith in the extreme right in Australia also, which will only make their lives worse. I don’t think that the fault lies with globalisation or trade. Trade can bring enormous economic benefits. However, at the moment, those benefits are coming at the expense of people and communities who are displaced – it’s the callous disregard for those people and their lives and aspirations that is creating the backlash. It should not be beyond the wit and creativity of our leaders to find alternative real jobs for people displaced by globalisation. WhatContinue reading
The High Court’s consideration of the tale of two Senators – Culleton and Day – calls for a bench of judges to make a ruling for all time, says CLA’s V-P Timothy Vines. 8 Nov 2016
Dear Sir/Ms: There are flaws in the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement (“TPP ratification is far from certain”, Canberra Times, October 30, p19). The biggest flaw reverses centuries of self-rule in which sovereign nations make laws and corporations comply. Under the TPP, corporations make laws and a secret corporate court enforces them. The corporate court exists to punish nations that interfere with corporate profits. Fair Work Australia must go (as it interferes with profits) or face the wrath of the corporate court. Gone will be laws that deter corporations from dumping toxic waste or oil that pollutes rivers and seas. There are other national laws that theContinue reading
There are fears the Turnbull govt is planning to bypass an ongoing parliamentary committee review of the TPP agreement by gagging debate and ‘tick-flicking’ a formal vote on the treaty. 31 Oct 2016
Ross Fitzgerald’s proposition that the destabilisation of Malcolm Turnbull is starting (PM’s left-right dilemma”, Canberra Times Comment, 3 October, p16) is probably very close to the mark. Australian politics is a poisonous concoction of the prosaic and the febrile, a recipe for extreme ennui, and internal party politics is not exactly marked by common sense. Turnbull cannot be what presumably he would wish, a Liberal wet, in a party room where the god-bothering and back-to-the-workhouse factions have the numbers. Not if he wants to remain party leader at least, which presumably he does, though one might ask why he wantsContinue reading