I have some pieces up responding to the Breivik verdict today (see below for links). I was also interviewed by New Scientist magazine, so watch out for that. Meanwhile, if you haven’t done so yet, you can still buy the e-book that Elizabeth Humphrys, Guy Rundle and I co-edited last year in response to the Norway Massacre, On Utøya: Anders Breivik, Right Terror, Racism and Europe — seller details here.
22 Aug
This week the Australian Greens MPs in Canberra told people to “Give a Gonski” on schools funding, joining the call by education unions to see UNSW chancellor’s report implemented in full. The promise of new money for public schools is a welcome part of the report, yet Gonski’s recommendations do nothing to seriously address the funding imbalances that have led to a growing disparity between state schools and the growing private sector. You can already see how quickly the Greens MPs are moving away from their party’s policy which calls for a shift away from public subsidy of private schools with Adam Bandt’s reply to questions about that policy during the recent Melbourne state by-election campaign.
17 Aug
Are Greens campaigns like this soon to be a thing of the past?
In the last week the Australian Greens have played an important role in denying the illusion of consensus over the asylum policy “compromise” reached between the major parties. However, in recent years they have also increasingly adapted their economic policies to neoliberal orthodoxy.
The Tasmanian Greens have led the charge, with leader Nick McKim becoming the state’s minister for school closures and enthusiastically supporting austerity. Now the party has also announced its support for power privatisation, relying — as is increasingly their modus operandi — on the authority of a technocratic “Energy Expert Panel”, and couched in the language of modernisation.
03 Aug
Tears in parliament, but no solution in sight
Left Flank has been away on holiday, but we’re back now. Below is a repost of my response to the sickening asylum seeker “debate” that happened in late June. Since then the issue has been shifted off to an elite “expert” committee which, as The Piping Shrike has pointed out, represents the exhaustion of the Gillard government’s agenda in political terms.
25 Aug
1 Comment