The Turnbull government recently decided to cut bulk-billing incentives to pathology services. This will result in pathology labs charging for basic tests including pap smears, MRIs, urine tests, blood tests, x-rays and ultrasounds. The cuts will force patients to pay at least $30 for a pap smear, urine or blood test and up to $173 for an MRI scan.
These cuts are unfair to all, but will especially hurt women. Free and accessible pathology tests are key to ensuring early detection of cervical cancer, STIs (sexually transmitted diseases), UTIs (urinary tract infections) and pregnancy.
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One of Tony Abbott鈥檚 first acts as Prime Minister was to announce a Royal Commission to 鈥渟hine a spotlight鈥 onto the so-called 鈥渄ark corners鈥 of the trade union movement. The commission would expose the criminality and impropriety that allegedly blights Australia鈥檚 trade unions.
Led by former High Court Judge John Dyson Heydon, the Royal Commission into Trade Union Governance and Corruption officially began in February 2014.
Five crew members aboard Alcoa ship the MV Portland were woken at 1am on January 13 by up to 30 security guards, handed their passports and forcibly removed from the vessel. The guards then escorted aboard a replacement crew, believed to be foreign seafarers, who immediately began sailing the ship towards Singapore.
A new study by world-renowned climate scientists says the Earth entered a new epoch around 1950, following a population boom and widespread environmental change due to increased use of concrete, aluminium, plastic, burning coal and gas and nuclear fallout.
They argue that the planet has now left the Holocene epoch that existed for the past 11,700 years 鈥 the period in which human civilisation has developed and flourished 鈥 and entered a much less stable geological epoch called the Anthropocene.
The Malcolm Turnbull Coalition government has launched a new assault on the public health system. It comes in the wake of the failure of the previous Tony Abbott government to impose a $7 Medicare co-payment and a $5 surcharge on prescription medicines.
Melbourne's Oromo community rallied on January 3 as part of a world-wide action in solidarity with the Oromo student protesters currently leading the 鈥#鈥嶰romoProtests鈥 movement in Oromia, Ethiopia.
Forest firefighters employed by the Victorian Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning (DELWP) have been battling the Andrews government for recognition as emergency services workers.
Hundreds of the firefighters, who work in state forests and national parks, are paid $12 an hour less than a first year forest firefighter employed by other fire agencies for doing the same work and are denied equal levels of death and disability insurance.
Protesters gathered outside the Queensland State Executive on December 30, angry at yet another incident of violence against an Aboriginal child in the custody of the state.
Denzel, an 11 year old boy, had been severely bashed in juvenile detention. His family is demanding an urgent inquiry into the state brutality, and that Denzel be released back to them and to safety.
What was the central message of the December 20 Spanish general elections, which was 鈥渨on鈥 by the governing conservative People's Party (PP) of Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy with only 28.72% of the vote, 3.6 million votes less than the last national poll in 2011?
Why did the opposition Spanish Socialist Workers Party (PSOE) greet its worst ever result 鈥22.01%, 1.4 million votes less than 2011 鈥 with a sigh of relief?
The United Nations has a strict definition of the term "refugee," whereby you are only a refugee if you are fleeing war or persecution of some kind.
The circus is over. The suits have left Paris after the November 30-December 12 UN climate talks (COP21). There have been millions of words written about the text. But one fact stands out. All the governments of the world have every year between now and 2030.
Why? Because all the countries have agreed to accept the promises of all the other countries.
Below is the speech given by member Dave Holmes to a Melbourne meeting and concert to mark the founding of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). About 400-500 people attended the November 28 event organised by the Kurdish Association of Victoria at the Kurdish House centre in Melbourne鈥檚 Pascoe Vale.
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