Socialist Party Australia
 
Home Whats on Political theory Marxist theory FAQ Reviews Links


What message should be coming from ACTU re Howard's attacks?

Vote Labor in next election
Get Churches+politicians onside for media campaign
Organise a massive industrial response



Results
Polls

Votes 68



CWI website

Marxist.net, CWI marxist archive


Click here to download our paper in pdf format



SP fortnightly political report
Posted on Wednesday, November 19 @ 19:08:49 CST by spno

Australian politics A new SP feature - fortnightly analysis of international and local events - runs parallel with weekly SP newsletter

Iraq
In the face of continued armed resistance (with 400 dead US troops and 1500 US soldiers have been injured ) and falling polls at home, President Bush has made a major retreat last week.
The US will now transfer power to a transitional Iraqi administration by June next year, before a constitution is created. The new US-influenced government will then be expected to 'invite' the US to keep troops in Iraq. The Bush administration is desperate for an exit strategy before the Presidential election. The occupation is costing the US US$1 billion a week and, combined with tax cuts for the rich, this has lead to a US$550 billion budget deficit. Only a few months ago Bush has claiming victory in Iraq and hinting at new invasions of N.Korea, Syria or Iran. We predicted then that the balance of class forces and the impending morass for Bush would make this impossible.

South Korea
150,000 workers struck in a one-day general strike against anti-union laws imposed by President Roh Moo-hyun. Growth rates halved this year and unemployment has increased, so the administration wants to offload the blame onto the trade union movement via repressive legislation.

Australia: Hanson
The release of Hanson justified our principled opposition to state involvement in the affairs of political parties and the witchhunt against Hanson and Ettridge. The Appeals Judge made the point we made in our editorial that the membership of One Nation believed they were members, even if the leadership trio did everything possible to control all power in the party. It is likely Hanson could win a Senate seat in Queensland but One Nation itself is very unlikely to recover from the splits and collapse of the past few years.

Australia: Interest rates
The 0.25% rise in interest rates is the first of more such increases. The low interest rates, rising property prices, lure of negative gearing, aggressive bank lending techniques and long hours available to a layer of workers and middle class has boosted borrowing. Australians now have a 125% ratio between debt and income - the highest ever and 3rd highest in the advanced capitalist world. Now the Reserve Bank (openly) and the Federal Government (secretly) fear the overheating housing sector and glut of investment properties will lead to a sudden fall. This explains the interest rate rises and the possibility of action against negative gearing.

Australia: ALP tensions
The remanants of the ALP Left around Doug Cameron and Anthony Albanese have openly opposed the right wing economic programme of Shadow Treasurer Mark Latham. Latham wants to use the budget surplus to give tax cuts to the rich and cuts of about $10 a week to the mass of workers. Albanese and co make the not very extreme point that ordinary people would prefer to see this money spent on health and education. Latham's comments show how right wing a Crean Labor government would be.

Australia: Polls
The Coalition and Labor are now neck and neck in the polls, despite not because of the ALP. Medicare, university funding cuts and the general feeling that interest rates are to rise and services to worsen are eating into Howard's popularity. The government are desperately looking for a refugee or terrorist diversion to regain their lead.

Australia: Medicare
Howard has been forced by public opinion to slightly water down his cuts to Medicare. Now doctors will get $5 a visit extra on top of their schedule fee if they bulkbill - but only for under 16s and those on a concession card.
Therefore bulkbilling will rapidly collapse for ordinary working people and more slowly collapse for the very poor and very young. Notice that the ALP opposition will criticise Howard but not promise to u-turn the cuts.

 



Web site engine's code is Copyright © 2003 by PHP-Nuke. All Rights Reserved. PHP-Nuke is Free Software released under the GNU/GPL license.
Page Generation: 0.047 Seconds