Unprecedented Times

By Mary O’Sullivan

“Improvements in education, training, legal aid services, welfare services and child-care, benefit the whole of society and not just women”– a truth not yet properly recognised by policy in today’s Australia” - Susan Ryan

When NSW Labor shut down Branch meetings because of social distancing rules seven months ago, there was a justification. We were promised a reopening once social distancing rules were relaxed.

However, since the shut down, online zoom meetings and events started to appear and have been embraced and used by many organisations as a way of people connecting and getting together. These include affiliated unions, the Administrative Committee of the Labor Party, the Labor Caucus, the ACTU, think tanks and even the Parliament of Australia.

Austin Mckell explains why we should be sceptical about the expertise mainstream economists

By Nick Daniel

Australia was shocked in June this year by tapes revealing that then-Victorian Minister for Small Business, Innovation and Trade, and ALP factional warlord, Adem Somyurek, was engaging in industrial scale branch stacking. These revelations were likely less shocking to members of the Party. While many were disappointed that this had occurred, we were not surprised. The practice of branch stacking is, after all, part of the everyday activity of the great Australian Labor Party.

By Katarina Butler

The Coalition's proposed cuts to tertiary education pose a major threat to Australia’s economic recovery from COVID-19 by decreasing public funding in a sector that employs thousands. In the face of increasing economic inequality, further polarisation between working people and those with wealth and power will invariably accompany these exclusionary  policies. Member of the Young Left School Student Network, Katarina Butler, on the future of tertiary education.