The National Union of Students organised nationwide anti-war rallies on 9 August, demanding that the Albanese government break the AUKUS alliance and fund housing and welfare instead.
A recent survey by campaign group Everybody’s Home found that 80 percent of renters are in housing stress. Meanwhile, Commonwealth Bank recently posted a record $10.2 billion profit. Yet the Labor government has rejected calls to freeze rents, raise welfare payments above the poverty line or build adequate public housing. Instead, it’s spending $368 billion on nuclear-powered submarines. Our own universities are developing nuclear programs and weapons partnerships with major arms manufacturers.
In response, students marched on their campuses to take a stand against this warmongering. In Perth, 80 protested a recruitment centre for the Australian Defence Force. Western Australia will host nuclear submarines under the AUKUS deal, and UWA is hosting an “AUKUS masterclass” this month.
At the University of Adelaide, 50 rallied outside the defence building to protest the university’s extensive ties to the war industry. AUKUS submarines will be constructed in South Australia, and its universities are set to play a key role in developing the technology to facilitate them, including nuclear.
At the Melbourne rally, Dave Sweeney from the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons spoke about the ongoing danger posed by the weapons-grade uranium Australia will acquire under this deal. The protest coincided with the anniversary of the bombing of Nagasaki, in which tens of thousands of civilians were massacred by a nuclear bomb.
Sanne de Swart from Friends of the Earth said the submarines put a target on whichever Australian port hosts them, with disastrous consequences if they explode. She also criticised the Albanese government’s decision to accept a nuclear waste dump as part of the AUKUS deal, pointing out that this will likely be on Aboriginal land. The protests came as the Barngarla people of Kimba defeated an attempt to dump nuclear waste on their land.
Students also protested in Brisbane, Canberra, Hobart, Sydney and Wollongong.
As Israel’s latest brutal war against the people of Gaza drags on, the need to challenge the Zionist state and all those who facilitate its genocidal campaign couldn’t be clearer.
In the latest outburst of national security hysteria, ASIO spy chief Mike Burgess declared, in a speech on 28 February, that an unnamed former Australian politician had betrayed our beloved country by clandestinely working for an evil foreign spy network—which he called “the A-team”—to provide secret information to a rival power.
Measured by the sheer volume of stuff produced, capitalism is a very successful system. According to World Bank data, in 1960 global gross domestic product (GDP)—which measures the monetary value of goods and services sold—was just under US$1.4 trillion. By 2022 it had risen to $101 trillion. The world’s population has increased a lot in that time, but the volume of stuff produced has increased by far more.
Banyule City Council has become the eighth metro council in the Melbourne area to formally call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.
In a monumental betrayal, Melbourne University’s Students’ Council last month voted to rescind a motion supporting the Palestinian struggle for self-determination and the global Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement.
The year is 2070. A global catastrophe—climate change, nuclear winter, civil war: pick your poison—recently ended civilisation and opened a new chapter in your life. So far you’ve ridden it out smoothly in your luxury bunker, but one day you’re swimming laps in the pool, living out your Bond-villain dream, when an alert blinks on your home security console.