Anarchism in a pandemic and the struggle needed

This article was first published as ‘The Plague’ in The Anvil, Vol. 9 No. 2, April 2020. The coronavirus pandemic started in a market in Wuhan late last year. It grew into a crisis through bureaucratic suppression of bad news by local “Communist” Party authorities. It has now become a […]

Police use Stay at Home Directions to crack down on refugee protest

Sixty refugees are detained in cramped conditions in a hotel in Melbourne’s northern suburbs. The refugees, evacuated from Manus Island for medical treatment, have been under guard in Preston’s Mantra Hotel since mid-2019. Before that, they had been held on Manus Island for over seven years. Melbourne’s Refugee Action Collective […]

There is no parliamentary road to climate justice

The following are a set of notes prepared for a talk presented at Students of Sustainability on 13 Jan 2020, originally titled “Anarchism 201: There is no parliamentary road to climate justice”. So far this summer, 27 people have been killed, 10 million hectares of bush, forest and national park […]

Anarchism & Animals: Total Liberation or Total Confusion?

On 28 April this year, animal rights activists launched an impressive series of direct actions across eastern Australia as part of a campaign to promote the film ‘Dominion’. The resulting furor highlighted, once again, the confusion of ideas that exist at the intersections of anarchist and animal rights movements. The […]

Lucy Parsons’ speech to the founding convention of the IWW

“Never be deceived that the rich will allow you to vote away their wealth”. Commonly attributed to Lucy Parsons The closest thing to a likely source for the above quote is a speech that Lucy Parsons gave to the founding convention of the Industrial Workers of the World, Chicago 1905. […]

Nauru government holding sick refugees to ransom

The Nauruan government has moved to block the implementation of the so-called Medivac Bill. The Medivac legislation, passed earlier in February, would require Australia’s Minister for Home Affairs to transfer refugees held in camps on Nauru and Manus Island to Australia for medical treatment whenever a “panel of medical experts” […]

Former Nauruan president seeks asylum in Australia

The ABC is reporting that former President of Nauru, Sprent Dabwido, has sought asylum in Australia whilst here for medical treatment. Dabwido claims he was unable to get treatment for cancer on Nauru as the current government would rather see him dead. Dabwido was President of Nauru during negotiations with […]

Too Many Police

This article re-published with permission. Originally published 13 December 2017 at Kieran’s Review. The front page of Sunday’s Herald Sun bore a message from on high for Victoria’s political caste, the Police Association have issued their ‘pre-election wish list’. There is an election next year, and support or opposition from […]

In Defence of the Apex Gang

The government, police and media are pursuing a racist campaign of vilification and persecution against kids from Sudanese migrant backgrounds. The Herald Sun is today boasting that a Sudanese born “suspected member of the Apex gang” will be “forced to return to Africa next year”. The racists are crowing. Who […]