Perth Indymedia

Lizzie O'Shea is a human rights lawyer, author, board member of Digital Rights Watch, and newly appointed spokesperson for the Alliance for a Safe and Secure Internet. The Alliance has been formed in response to proposed anti-encryption legislation being put before the federal parliament. If its passage through the parliament isn’t thwarted by campaigning efforts, the Assistance and Access Bill 20...

Richard Seymour is a founding editor of Salvage magazine, creator of the popular blog Lenin's Tomb, and the author of many books, including Corbyn: The Strange Rebirth of Radical Politics. He joined Alex Whisson to discuss the remarkable phenomenon that is Jeremy Corbyn's continuing leadership of the British Labour Party.

Director, writer and author Benjamin Gilmour speaks to Indymedia's Raymond Grenfell about his most recent film Jirga. A film that challenges the notion of our supremacy in the middle east and asks: what would restorative justice look like for the people of Afghanistan who have suffered so much under occupation?

Described by the New York Times Magazine as "America's most prominent Marxist economist", Richard Wolff is the author of many books, including Capitalism Hits the Fan: The Global Economic Meltdown and What to Do About It, and is currently a Visiting Professor in the Graduate Program in International Affairs of the New School University, New York City. He joined Alex Whisson to discuss the causes a...

It's been ten years since the US investment bank Lehman Brothers collapsed. History records Lehman's fall as the event which catalysed the Great Recession of 2008-9. Various theories have been postulated as to the cause of that recession, but the overextension of the American property market, in the form of sub-prime mortgages, and the uncontrolled growth of so-called financial instruments invente...

We speak to longtime commentator, author and activist Helen Razer on the #SerenaWilliams cartoon, racism in Australia, the #metoo campaign and the changing nature of political discourse. Helen is a regular contributor to publications such as New Matilda and The Age and is the author of four books. Her latest is titled Total Propaganda: Basic Marxist Brainwashing for the Angry and the Young.

Ian Rintoul of the Refugee Action Coalition on the weekend protests at the Yongah Hill detention centre, which followed the attempted suicide by a 22-year-old Iraqi refugee. Ian began by discussing the man's welfare.

"Alcoa's got a lease for the bauxite for the next 40 years and they want to give us a one year contract each, which to me seems a bit unfair." Alcoa workers at the Kwinana alumina refinery shared their thoughts on day 25 of their strike.

Co-coordinator of 350 Perth Franca Gilissen talks to Alex Whisson about the Rise for Climate Action. She began by addressing the question of widespread indifference to the climate crisis.

Ride share drivers took strike action on Monday the 6th of August calling for better pay and conditions from Uber. Indymedia's Raymond Grenfell spoke to Ride Share Drivers United spokesperson Max Marino about why they had decided to take industrial action.

As the Israeli Air Force bombed Gaza last week, killing several Palestinians and wounding many others, a tweet from the United Nations envoy for the Middle East peace process, Nickolay Mladenov, neatly summarised the gross distortions of the way Israel’s criminal occupation is so often presented to the world. “Everyone in Gaza needs to step back from the brink”, wrote Mladenov, thus repeating, yet...

Have you heard of the Defence Amendment (Call Out of the Australian Defence Force) Bill 2018? Chances are you haven’t. It was recently introduced into the federal parliament with scant attention from the media, and scarcely a whimper from the public at large. One of the few people paying attention was freelance journalist Paul Gregoire. Alex Whisson spoke to him late last week.

Earlier this month human rights lawyer Lizzie O'Shea wrote an article for Eureka Street that ought to trouble anyone concerned about the expanding power of the surveillance state in this country, as well as the grotesque hypocrisies that lie at the heart of the Australian political class. A former intelligence officer, known only as Witness K, and his lawyer, potentially face up to two years in ja...

Recent months have seen a wave of protests against Daniel Ortega’s government in Nicaragua. Picking up where a similar set of student and pensioner-led protests in 2013 left off, the growing movement has been met with brutal repression, with hundreds killed and injured. Famous for leading the Sandinista National Liberation Front, first in overthrowing the Somoza dictatorship in 1979, and then resi...

As grassroots protests against Trump’s detention of migrant children spread across America, one of the striking things about the outrage from the liberal press and Democratic Party politicians is its shameless hypocrisy. These are pundits and politicians who, in many cases, supported President Obama's deportation policies, as well as the detention of unaccompanied children who had family members i...

In the grand chessboard of geopolitics, Turkey plays an important role. Its fate could have a significant impact on the wider region. The path it’s heading down at present is one of authoritarian nationalism and war. In the 24th June elections, incumbent President Tayyip Erdogan secured 52.5% of the vote, and his AK Party 42.5% of the parliamentary vote. Alex Whisson caught up with Turkish writer,...

Which country has suffered the worst ever outbreak of cholera, with more than a million cases and over 2000 deaths recorded in the past year? You’d be forgiven for not knowing the answer is Yemen. Described by Amnesty International as the “forgotten war”, Yemen is in the fourth year of a conflict which has left over 10 000 people dead, and more than 8 million at risk of starvation. The war has ent...

Last year the McGowan state Labor government announced a ban on fracking in Perth, Peel and the southwest, and a three year moratorium in every other part of the state. Yet the fight against fracking is far from over, with several corporations, including Boro and Mitsubishi, waiting in the wings and continuing to curry favour with the government. Alex Whisson spoke to Frack Free WA campaigner Jane...

Wages paid illegally below award rates, dodgy individual contracts, unpaid penalty rates, summary dismissal. Such exploitative practices are suffered by many a worker in many an industry. But what if you’re a young worker, new to the world of work, with no understanding of your rights and entitlements in the workplace, and no knowledge or experience of what collective struggle can achieve? That’s...

Refugee advocates and activists were shocked and dismayed when the CFMEU and AWU joined forces to pass a gag motion at the recent Victorian Labor Party conference, shutting down debate on refugee policy. It was a devastating blow for those inside the Labor Party fighting for a refugee policy consistent with international humanitarian law and the basic standards of common human decency. Alex Whisso...

Felicity Ruby has, to say the least, an impressive resume. The former director of the United Nations’ Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, a former senior communications adviser to Greens Senator Scott Ludlam, a founder of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, an organisation which received last year's Nobel Peace Prize, Ruby is currently working on a PhD at Sydney...

Nationally-celebrated college football star, prize-winning orator, world-famous singer, Hollywood actor, political activist of great renown, master of a dozen languages or more with a law degree under his belt, Paul Robeson was unarguably one of the greatest figures of the 20th century. Yet today, to many people, his name is unknown, his achievements unrecognised. Alex Whisson spoke to Jeff Sparro...

Russiagate, Trump, Trump and Trump. It's all we ever hear about the United States. Meanwhile, there are some amazing political developments taking place in what is still the world's only superpower. One such development, which has received virtually no media coverage at all here in Australia, is the extraordinary wave of teachers' strikes that has swept the nation, starting in West Virginia in Feb...

22-year-old Ahmed Alnaouq is a graduate of Al-Azhar University in Gaza City, a freelance journalist, and a project manager with We Are Not Numbers, which aims to disseminate Palestinian stories to an international audience. He was an active participant in the Great March of Return protest movement and present on the day of the May 14th massacre.

Nicolas Maduro's government in Venezuela has come under increasing attack from both Western governments and the international capitalist press. With prices doubling every month and poverty reportedly on the rise after years of social improvement for the mass of the people, the Maduro administration also faces fierce criticism from at least some elements of the left. Journalist, political commentat...