Communist Party of Australia

December 11, 2019 - click here for index of articles.
This is the last issue for 2019. The first issue in 2020 will be January 20.

New year’s greeting

As we approach the end of 2019, it is time to reflect on some of the international and national events. more ...

What a year!

In its concluding remarks, the Political Resolution adopted by the Communist Party of Australia at its 13th Congress in 2017, stated: “The current global situation, with its dangers and threats of worse to come, does not spare Australia in any way. This is a time of potential for catastrophe but, at the same time, there are great possibilities for the organisation of resistance and a major breakthrough for left and progressive forces.” more ...

CPA Party Statement – West Papua

The people of West Papua have never been given the opportunity to express self-determination. Negotiations in the 1960s between the departing Dutch colonialists, the Indonesian government and the US imperialists resulted in a 1969 sham “referendum” among only 1,000 hand-picked delegates. more ...

Australia has failed refugees

Last Wednesday in the Senate the Coalition managed to repeal the “Medevac” law 37-35. Earlier this year, the medical evacuation (Medevac) law – or “the Medevac Bill” – manage to pass both houses delivering the Morrison government one of its first substantial defeats. The Medevac Bill was a set of amendments to the Home Affairs Legislation Amendment (Miscellaneous Measures) Bill 2018. These amendments imbued greater authority to medical opinions of doctors in granting asylum seekers medical evacuation to Australia. The bill was a step forward for Australia’s draconian immigration laws. more ...

Nae Pasaran and the power of unions

In order to further the struggle to protect and advance union rights – particularly against the onslaught of three successive Liberal governments – the organisation Union Solidarity WA has been founded. more ...

What makes a union?

In November (28-29) the Community and Public Sector Union/Civil Service Association, the union which covers administrative workers in the Western Australian Public Service, held their annual delegates convention. It coincided with the state public servants receiving their payment and back-pay of the first of the two annual $1,000 flat rate payments from the new General Agreement which they had negotiated with the government. more ...

Feminism in perspective

The Guardian’s article “Why I’m not a feminist” (#1895 November 20, 2019) received some criticisms that it was too reductive an analysis of the problems of feminism. In this article, I will take some of the points made in the aforementioned article and expand or correct some of the positions in it. Hopefully, this article will show that it is not feminism itself that is the incorrect ideology, but the strains of feminism we have seen in the West as influenced by dominant political ideologies. more ...

German marchers reflect

BERLIN: Looking out my window at the wide Karl Marx Allee boulevard below, I have seen many a big May Day parade march by in the old GDR (German Democratic Republic) days, and many a passing bicycle race or marathon. Recently, for the first time, I saw a slow, endless column of green or yellow tractors. I learned later that 5,600 of them, after blocking traffic while driving in from North, South, East and West Germany, had converged at the Brandenburg Gate, parked in orderly rows and then voiced their demands: “Fewer or better pesticides, OK! Less or better fertilisers, also OK! We too want to save our planet. But not without consulting with us, who are fighting a bitter battle against monopoly agriculture giants and monopoly retailing giants which are threatening the survival of us family farmers.” more ...

Restoration of Marx Memorial Library

A fundraising appeal to help renovate the Marx Memorial Library in London will be officially launched this week after the building sustained serious damage following a flood. The library’s collection of 60,000 books was put at risk on September 24 after heavy rainfall led to water gushing through the building. more ...

Debt, austerity, and the European Union

IRELAND: Towards the end of November the Irish media published reports of comments made by Professor Christian Kastrop, a former associate of the German minister of finance, Wolfgang Schäuble, one of the architects of the debt crisis. Kastrop now works for the Bertelsmann Foundation, a think tank sponsored by the Bertelsmann Group, one of the principal German transnational corporations. more ...

Taking down “The Boss”

Last week saw quite a whirlwind of testimony in the Trump impeachment hearings before the House Intelligence Committee. Former National Security Council staffer Fiona Hill and foreign service officer David Holmes closed out the final day of public hearings, confirming once again that there was an effort, “parallel to official channels,” to force Ukraine to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden, and that Donald Trump asked Ambassador to the EU Gordon Sondland: “So, he’s [Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky] gonna do the investigation?” more ...

Stand-up for super and women

Members of Australia’s three largest trade unions, representing more than half a million workers, converged on Parliament house in Canberra last week to push for an acceleration of the planned increase in the superannuation guarantee to 12 percent and urge politicians to address the barriers that result in woman retiring into poverty. more ...