Super Members Council warns that allowing first homeowners to withdraw their super for a house deposit could see property prices rise by nearly $75,000 across Australia’s five largest capital cities, new modelling from the Super Members Council shows. Pouring retirement savings into housing would inflame an already-inflated property market – pushing up the major capital city median price by an estimated 9%.
I’m writing to you as an anti-war activist, seeking your support for Petition E
As votes are counted, the last remaining Liberal state government in Australia has won 13 out of the 35 seats in the Tasmanian government. The main opposition Labor Party has won 10 seats, the Greens have won 2 seats and 10 seats have yet to be decided.
House of Representatives (Australia) Monday, 18 March 2024. Chamber. Unfortunately this motion, of which you can read the detail and debate below, failed with 6 for and 63 against.
On SyrianaAnalysis, marking the 13th anniversary of the CIA-engineered dirty war in Syria, two Syrian journalists - Kervork Almassian and Hekmat Aboukhater discuss the appalling machinations of the anti-Syria lobby in Washington DC and the ignorance of the US public.
Some welcome relief for two million people in Gaza as Australian Government restores lifesaving aid. Massive public pressure has greatly contributed to the Government’s decision following Open Letters and history making 22 consecutive weeks of tens of thousands marching in capital cities for the people of Gaza. Australia must pressure for immediate and permanent ceasefire to stop the genocide and end occupation.
Angus Deaton is the Dwight D. Eisenhower Professor of Economics and International Affairs, Emeritus, at the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs and the Economics Department at Princeton University. He is the 2015 recipient of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences.
Questioning one’s views as circumstances evolve can be a good thing
WEDNESDAY 27 MARCH 2024: This important webinar co-sponsored by over 18 organisations will feature Pine Gap expert, Professor Richard Tanter, whose forthcoming paper, "Pine Gap, Gaza and Genocide", will be summarised to spark discussion among the panelists on the role of Pine Gap in colonial violence and surveillance in Australia and Palestine.
The webinar is moderated by Dr Amy McQuire, Darumbal and South Sea Islander journalist
In the recent 29 February by-election for the UK seat of Rochdale, George Galloway campaigned against Israel's mass-murder of Palestinians in Gaza and for Julian Assange's freedom. He defeated the two major pro-war parties, Labor and the Conservatives, to become the new MP for Rochdale in the House of Commons. In the attached 18 minute YouTube video, he is interviewed by Syrian-born British journalist Richard Medhurst.
George Galloway has been declared winner of the Rochedale by-election in the United Kingdom. Previously, Galloway had been an elected member of the House of Commons in 1987 for 8 years, in 2005 for 5 years and in 2012 for for 3 years. In all those years George Galloway has been an outspoken supporter of struggles against imperialism, against apartheid in both Israel and South Africa and for the rights of the working classes and underpriveleged at home.
On 29 February 2024, Israeli soldiers machine-gunned crowds of Palestinians in north Gaza while they stood waiting for food to arrive. Something between 80 and 200 Gazans were killed and hundreds are wounded. "How can this still be possible?" a friend wrote in an email sent to me at 02:19 hrs.
Proposed motion: "The need for the Government to cease using one of the most secretive military export systems in the world to hide from the public the export of Australian military equipment to the State of Israel, particularly as the Chief Economist of DFAT has acknowledged that DFAT data showing millions of dollars in 'arms and ammunition' being exported to Israel is credible." (Senator McKim - Australian Green, Tasmania.) Extract from "Matters of Urgency, Israel" [Australian]
At the end of this document you can see a list of who voted for Mr Wilkie's motion for, among other things, [underlining] the importance of the UK and USA bringing the matter to a close so that Mr Assange can return home to his family in Australia. The motion was carried by a majority, which included the Australian Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese. References: Nos 11 and 12 in THE PARLIAMENT OF THE COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES VOTES AND PROCEEDINGS No. 104
WEDNESDAY, 14 FEBRUARY 2024
In this 14 minute video, British journalist Richard Medhurst (@richimedhurst) gives all of the critical facts about the Australian journalist Julian Assange who faces the threat of extradition to the United States.
"The Victorian Government has failed to fund 500 housing places for young people living with mental illness almost three years after making the commitment – a key royal commission recommendation." (Council to Homeless Persons, Melbourne City Mission and Orygen) The homelessness press-release says nothing about how massive overseas immigration and investment has driven the excessive demand that has resulted in high prices and housing shortage, but this is the elephant in the room, and t
As a citizen of Australia, a purportedly democratic country, I understand that the only way to properly fix serious domestic and international problems - threats to the environment and to our standards of living, ending the population growth Ponzi scheme, ending the illegal imprisonment of Julian Assange, stopping Israel's genocide in Gaza and stopping US wars against countries like Iraq, Libya and Syria - is to put into office a Government that chooses to serves our best interests.
The following has been adapted from a leaflet PDF file. (See Appendix for how to print the PDF file, from which this article was adapted.) In the face of overwhelming votes for a ceasefire by both the United Nations General Assembly on 22 December and by several meetings of the UN Security Council, the Israeli ‘Defence’ Forces (IDF) have continued their latest war against the men women, children and babies of the Gaza Strip. This war began on 7 October, 134 days ago. Since then, with aerial bombardment, tank and artillery shells, rocket fire, banned phophorous, bullets - and who knows what else – the IDF have killed as many unarmed Palestinians in Gaza as they were able to. At the outset of this war, Israel also cut off power and stopped supplies of food, water, medicine and other essentials from going into Gaza, thereby causing many to die of starvation, thirst and illness.
Stop the Great Wall of Frankston and others call for people to come and join us at 11 am this Saturday on Kananook Boulevard at the Rear of Harbour site (next to rear of McDonalds).
Starting on Tuesday 20 February, 9 days from today, a two day hearing, to decide whether or not Julian Assange is to be extradited to the United States, will commence. It seems highly likely that the judge will rule that Assange be extradited to the United States. There he will face a kangaroo court hearing, thence imprisonment for 175 years, in conditions even worse than the solitary confinement he is now being made to endure in London's Belmarsh Prison (find PDF adaptation of this article here).
One of many interesting parts of Tucker Carlson's interview with Vladimir Putin was Putin's explanation of what he means by needing to stop the Nasification of Ukraine.
Going to prison is probably one of the worst things that can happen to a person, even if the prison is well-run with kindly staff. Jail can happen to anyone but mostly it happens to males lacking personal and financial resources. In Australia most cases never go to trial by jury, and many jail-terms are the result of plea-bargaining, rather than based adequately on justice or evidence. Wealthy, influential people can usually stay out of prison.
Update, 7:20AM Qld time, Friday 9 Feb : Tucker Carlson will be interviewing Vladimir Putin at 11:00PM GMT or, in Queensland, 9:00AM - (apologies, 9:00AM and not 9:00PM) tomorrow on Friday and at 10:00AM in NSW and Victoria.
Tucker Carlson will be soon interviewing Russian President Vladimir Putin. He will be putting to Putin many of the claims made against him by the Corporate/Legacy media in the west and will allow him to give his side in response. Whilst large numbers of Western journalists have conducted fawning, uncritical interviews with his adversary Ukrainian President Volodomir Zelenskyy, Tucker will be first Western journalist to have interviewed Putin since the commencement of Russia's "Special Military Operation" against the Zelenskyy government's military forces in February 2022, nearly two years ago. To be notified by email when the live interview will commence, go to https://tuckercarlson.com. The interview will subsequently posted to Tuckewr's Twitter Channel, where there will be no paywalls or any other obstacles to prevent anyone from watching it, in full, for free on his Twitter account.
Sustainable Population Australia is mourning the loss of its former trustee, Dr Lowitja O’Donoghue, who died in Adelaide yesterday.
Dr O’Donohue was the inaugural chairperson of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC) patron of the Lowitja Institute, a research institute for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health and wellbeing.
Both houses of the Australian parliament, the House of Representatives and the Senate, are meeting tomorrow, Tuesday 6 February 2024 (Update, Wednesday 9:56am: nothing said about Gaza on Tuesday). Based on past experience, if the Gaza conflict, in which, so far, nearly 27,000 Palestinian civilians are known to have been killed, is to be discussed, there has to be a Suspension of Standing orders. Should any debate occur, most of the Labor government members will just state, as fact, many of the lies from the Israeli and Corporate/Legacy newsmedia, whilst feigning concern for the plight of Palestinian civilians. The Liberal/National Opposition, for its part, will wholeheartedly support Israel's action and show almost no concern for the Palestinian civilians.
Donald Horne, who wrote ironically about Australia as 'The Lucky Country,' thought that Australia was run mainly by second-rate people who share its luck but now, 60 years later, we don't even know who runs the country.
This article was inspired by Israeli and western press characterisation of Hamas-tunnels in Gaza, as if they were novel and somehow shameful and outrageous defensive constructions, when Israel itself has plenty.
Recent reading of Christine Steenkamp's article about tunnels and conflicts in the Middle East[1] made me think again about open-source, independent media, hacking, viruses, free speech and freedom of information, in a different way. And to connect what is happening with Julian Assange with what is happening in Gaza. Not just in so far as Julian Assange’s Wikileaks, if it were operating with him still in command, would tell us a lot about these wars and might have prevente
Most Canadians hate state-engineered rapid population growth through mass migration, but Canada's public broadcaster, like Australia's, along with the corporate newsmedia, has for decades pretended that there was little opposition. The following article, from Canadians for a Sustainable Society, gives a history of the propaganda and the disaster, which many Australians may relate to, and reviews some signs of change.
Recent comments