En Passant

If Malcolm Turnbull’s outrage at the suggestion that he will benefit from his own tax cuts is justified, he can just release his tax returns so we can judge, writes former assistant tax commissioner, John Passant, in Independent Australia.

Penalty rate cuts encapsulate the Turnbull Government’s war against the fair go for workers and must be defeated, I write in Independent Australia. To read the whole article click here. Turnbull’s war against the fair go

The message from the Abbott government couldn’t be any clearer. The war in Iraq is going to accelerate the war on workers and the poor, the sick, the disabled, the young, the old and the unemployed in Australia.

The way to avoid total defeat is to go on the attack now. Sitting around the campfire chanting Kumbaya and holding hands with the bosses and Abbott won’t stop them knifing us in our sleep. Massive discord holds the key to the possibility of success and of beating back the bosses. Or as the BLF says in much plainer English: ‘If you don’t fight you lose.’

Priorities eh? Scrap the school kids bonus and increase the superannuation tax on those people earning less than $37000 while at the same time saving multi-millionaire superannuants about $20,000 in tax a year and multinational companies $600 million a year. Class war anyone?

Abbott’s instability, his thought bubble approach to policy, his climate denialist base within the extreme right of the Liberal Party and the looming economic crisis in Australia all make for a possible tumultuous period of rule for the current leader of the Opposition and his by and large unremarkable front bench if they win, as they will, the next election.

The key will be class struggle. How much longer can Australian workers not fight?

It’s well past time we gave Abbott and The Australian the class war they say is going on. It’s well past time we gave Gillard and the bosses she rules for real class war. Class struggle is the only way to win back some of the wealth the bosses have been stealing from us and putting a more equal and just Australia back on the agenda.