Iran: the enemy of my enemy is not necessarily my friend

 Written by: Lindy Nolan on 2 March 2026

 

(Photo supplied)

The day after Israel and the US began bombing Iran, a small protest in Sydney united under these slogans, 'No to War, Yes to Freedom and Self Determination – The liberation of the Iranian people will come through their own independent and conscious struggle.’ 
The rage of Iranians at the horrors unfolding and the ignorance of a larger group celebrating nearby with US and even Israeli flags and calling for a new Shah, was expressed by a woman, “The enemy of my enemy is not necessarily my friend.” 
The US and Israel, and Iranian regime are most bitter enemies. But neither are friends of the Iranian people. The speaker told of food and water being cut off to political prisoners. 
Lindy Nolan spoke on behalf of the CPA(ML). Her speech is below.

 

Today we honour the heroic Iranian masses facing the armed might of Israel and of US imperialism. They will never accept another US puppet shah with their mass murders torture and mass jailings.

The masses make history. And all peoples have the right to resist, to overthrow oppression by their ruling class, to organise for women’s freedom and build their own future. We cannot deny Iranians that right. We cannot put limits on it, especially with US imperialism on their doorstep.

War is the continuation of politics by other means. US imperialism’s economic war with China is now a military war with China’s allies. And Australia is involved.
In the 1970s Henry Kissinger called Australia a western “outpost on the edge of Asia”. It’s now a spear projecting US power, into Asia and the Middle East. The US Pine Gap spy base on Arrernte, land near Mparntwe Alice Springs, guided missiles and now drones, to Iraq Gaza, Lebanon and Iran. It chooses the human targets – children, schools, hospitals. US imperialism demands billions, trillions of dollars needed for life, for our schools, hospitals, the homeless, our culture, environment. All for death and war.

US imperialism is at war with its own people and at war with the people of the world.

We oppose it with all our might.

We’ve been in every US war

We honour First Peoples. Since British invasion they fought for their lands, their waters, their cultures. Their right to live. We honour their 140 years of armed struggle.  On this street in the 1790s, Pemulwuy led an armed attack. British colonialism became imperialism. First Peoples never surrendered. 

Australian governments took us to every British war. In World War One, Labor’s opposition leader pledged us to England to the last man and last shilling. In World War 2, PM Menzies said, “It is my melancholy duty” to announce Britain is at war and therefore “Australia is at war.” Before the war Menzies met Hitler, praised him as a as “good for Germany and the German people”, that Australians should be “more like Germans”. He starved workers and broke a strike to send pig iron to Japan. It came back as bombs.

When he declared war for England, Australian troops were in North Africa. None here defending Australia. Menzies went to England. This is our history.

US imperialism long ago replaced British imperialist control of Australia.  In World War Two, Labour PM John Curtin turned from Britain, which betrayed us, to the US. US general Macarthur called him a traitor in relation to operational differences. Said the US would never trust Australia again.

We’ve been in every US war since. Pine Gap now ensures it’s automatic. Beyond our control.

There is no shortcut to victory

The core of imperialism is not military. It’s economic. It’s monopoly capitalism. US imperialism controls the commanding heights of our economy. That’s what all the wars are about. Protecting obscene wealth and privilege.

When anyone tells you the US will support us, tell them this history. When they say, “Don’t bring foreign wars here”, tell them that we are already at war against Iran and that there’s more to come. That subservience to US imperialism makes Australia a target in any war with China. That the US will assert its interests and demand we obey.

We fight US imperialism here. The March for Humanity shows how broad anti-imperialist feeling is. But resistance is not deep enough. The masses and the masses alone make history. We need to go deep among the people, to alert them about what we face, to educate them, to organise, to mobilise them.

We must meet them where they are. In their workplaces, neighbourhoods, community groups, cultural and sporting groups. In every area of life. We must be present and active and organised. There is no shortcut.

The working class, from teachers to delivery riders, nurses to construction workers, has been systematically disorganised, disempowered. Empty slogans and one-size-fits-all tactics cannot replace deep listening to the people, learning from them, taking their ideas and concentrating them into theory, into strategy and tactics, to take back to struggle. 

We must unite all the small struggles into a huge alliance against US imperialism, an end to economic political and military subservience: No to war. Close Pine Gap. Close all US military bases. Independence for Australia.

Today, above all, we salute and stand for the heroic people of Iran. There will be setbacks. But nothing can stop their struggle.

Victory to the people of Iran!

KPMG corporate off-shoring: more than meets the eye

 Written by: (Contributed) on 28 February, 2026

 

(Source: www.bacancytechnology.com)

 

The decision by a major Australian-based corporate financial organisation to place a major part of its business operations offshore, cannot be viewed as a simple cost-cutting measure; the savings are relatively minimal. Another Australian telecommunications organisation, likewise, has also decided to place some of its sensitive operations offshore. The decisions are best viewed along lines more in keeping with plausible denial and assessed as part of the US-led regional Cold War. It shows how influential Washington and Wall Street and the Pentagon are within the Australian corporate sector.

In early February, the Australian-based part of the global KPMG corporate financial organisation announced they were planning to place about 75 per cent of their operations offshore in the Philippines; only about 65 personnel will remain in Australia. (1) The stated reason for the decision included reference to 'from a hunt for cheaper labour to a scramble to find any talent at all … their predominant reason for off-shoring was access to a much larger talent pool'. (2) It was couched in condescending terminology.

As KPMG Australia recorded the total revenue for the two past financial years on their official websites as: FY24 – A$2.386 billion, FY 25 – A$2.315 billion; the stated reason for the organisation off-shoring nearly two hundred executive assistants, to save about A$15 million, would appear ridiculous and more in line with a convenient cover for other non-stated reasons. (3) KPMG, moreover, emerged from US-led moves for globalisation; the corporate sector has a long history as a cover for US extra-curricula activities.

References to KPMG developing a business model which will include Australian-based managerial staff 'directly managing their off-shore employees', for example, can be interpreted in a number of different ways. (4) The KPMG organisation has been troubled with a number of scandals in recent years and would appear keen to distance itself from further unfavourable publicity. (5) Off-shoring operations, may or may not, solve issues.

While it was openly accepted that Australian KPMG executive assistant personnel averaged about A$87,000 pa, whereas their Philippine counterparts will receive only A$10,000 pa, there would appear other factors in play. The Philippines, in recent times, for example, has become an important financial hub; over 24 per cent of the country's GDP originates from the financial sector. (6) The financial platforms are a conduit into ASEAN and elsewhere.

A closer study of the role of the Philippines, however, has revealed its continued importance and significance for US foreign policy from the previous Cold War to the present one with China. In recent years the US has pushed the country into a front-line diplomatic position against China, with regular confrontations taking place in the South China Seas. The US has access to nine military facilities in the Philippines, and an unspecified number of intelligence-gathering facilities which operate at all levels.

The Philippines, with its central and strategic position in the region, was used in the previous Cold War by the US used for regional operations. The patronage was lavish: during the 1946-1975 period the US trained 15,245 Philippine military personnel and provided presidential administrations in Manila with US$805,800,000 of military aid for defence and security provision for 'US interests'. (7)

Washington and the Pentagon turned a blind eye to the ensuing and rampant corruption they patronised; the Marcos family, for example, are generally accredited with appropriating an estimated US$10 billion from institutionalised corruption. (8) Agents were cheap to buy.  

Little changed with the removal of the first Marcos presidential administration in 1986, and its successor four decades later. Recent studies of the Philippines reveal the country being ranked at 114th from a total of 180 countries for corrupt working practices. (9)

While used as a financial hub for the ASEAN countries, the Philippines is also ranked lower than most member and associate countries for corruption problems; only Cambodia and Myanmar have worse placements. (10) It does not, however, cause the US undue problems; in fact, they appear quite happy with the present Marcos presidential administration which continues to serve 'US interests' at their every beck and call. Corruption, furthermore, serves as an effective means of control by the US, over its subject countries and political puppets.

The KPMG decisions have also been accompanied by similar ones with Telstra, which handles vast troves of personal data from its telecommunications business. Their decision to off-shore sensitive positions to India and reduce its Australian workforce by 650 positions, as a supposed cost-cutting measure, has also raised similar questions. (11)

The main question includes accountability: Australia has a well-regulated economy with relatively efficient cyber-security provision and the monitoring of indiscriminate AI usage to safeguard vast troves of personal data from unwanted profiling; other countries, notably the Philippines and India, have highly de-regulated economies marked by little cyber-security provision. Australians, not by coincidence, are also continually targeted by state and non-state cyber-security scams and actors from elsewhere in Asia. The problem has reached epidemic proportions; intelligence-gathering is the name of the game. Regulations, for shadowy cyber figures, however, remain an obstacle. And one they seek to circumvent.  

And, the KPMG proposed business model, interestingly, will include Philippine-based 'cyber-security, security operations centre engineering, and specialists who could navigate enterprise platforms', working under those based in Australia. (12) A coincidence? The Telstra decision, likewise, has also included reference to the telco gaining access to opportunities with India-based AI specialist bodies so, 'we can tap into their AI capabilities to simply enable our tools and services to help us mover faster and operate more efficiently'. (13)

The motives used by Australian-based businesses to off-shore part operations should be subject to greater scrutiny by Canberra; would it be unreasonable to suggest they have merely placed their intelligence-gathering facilities outside the reach of law enforcement agencies to where there is no real accountability? When considering the uses and abuses of power, it is not what they do, which is the fundamental question, but how they do it!  
  
And, interestingly, declassified documentation from the previous Cold War defines plausible denial as being used to protect clandestine operations, 'planned and executed under the sponsorship of Government departments or agencies in such a way as to assure secrecy or concealment of the operation and its sponsor'. (14) From one Cold War to the next?

1.     Why your next colleague will be in Manila, Australian, 10 February 2026.
2.     Ibid.
3.     KPMG Australia planning to off-shore 200 roles to the Philippines, Sky News, 4 February 2026.
4.     Australian, op.cit., 10 February 2026.
5.     See: Wikipedia – KPMG.
6.     Why is Manila considered a financial hub for traders? Admin., 25 July 2025.
7.     The Sun and its Planets,  The Washington Connection and Third World Fascism, Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman, (Boston, 1979), Diagram, Inside Cover.
8.     'The $10 bn question', The Guardian, 21 January 2024.
9.     The Philippines – 2024 Corruption Perceptions Index.
10.   Philippines ranks, GMA., 10 February 2026.
11.   Telstra to cut 650 jobs in overhaul, Australian, 12 February 2026.
12.   Australian, op.cit., 10 February 2026.
13.   Australian, op.cit., 12 February 2026.
14.   Instructions for the co-ordination and control of the Navy's clandestine intelligence collection program, Secretary of the Navy, Washington, 7 December 1965, Declassified: 13 July 1990.

Union elections - an opportunity for workers to have their say

 Written by: Ned K. on 27 February, 2026

 

(Above: Workers join unions for unity in struggle, not for division caused by factional rivalry.  Source: UWU)

On Friday 26 February the Australian Financial Review (AFR) ran a prominent page 4 article headed "Union split puts focus on ALP spend". The article was about the forthcoming United Workers Union (UWU) election for its governing body, the Delegates Convention. According to the AFR there are Convention delegate positions up for election for a four-year term.

The UWU is a 2019 amalgamation of the NUW which predominantly covered warehouse workers, food processing workers and pharmaceutical processing and United Voice which covered aged care, child care, disabilities sector, hospital workers (non-nursing), hospitality, animal care such as RSPCA , cleaners, security guards, prison officers and an assortment of manufacturing and even funeral directors. 

So, the amalgamated union UWU covers workers "from the cradle to the grave" as well as covering workers that enable Australians to have chicken on the table or a packet of chips with a beer at the local hotel!

The AFR reports that there is great rivalry playing out in the coming election essentially between the former NUW leadership and the former United Voice leadership.
As is usually the case, both sides strive to hold the high moral ground to win over enough members' votes to control the direction of the UWU for the next four years.

Both sides say they want to increase resources that benefit existing members and bring more workers in as union members with extensive social media campaigning.

Both accuse the other of poor use of members' money and about how much and under what conditions members' money should be given to the ALP.

The dark cloud hanging over Tim Kennedy and his alleged misuse of members’ money and sweetheart industrial deals with some big employers and the old NUW's smaller membership base within the UWU must be a worry for his ticket.

On the other hand, the United Voice ticket led by Jo Schofield may receive a backlash from members about the amount of members' money ($8 million according to the AFR) that the ALP received in 2024-25.

The good thing about a Union election is that members who vote have the final say.

Unlike parliamentary elections, voting in Union elections is voluntary. 

Indonesian women in struggle

 

Written by: Priscilla on 27 February, 2026

 

(Source: https://carnegieendowment.org/ )

Women from many countries are currently sending in reports for the ICOR United Front webinar on March 8, 2026.  As our close neighbour, Indonesia has recently been convulsed in struggles with women playing a major role.  We publish this report from Priscilla, an Indonesian woman, with a pledge to support our close neighbours in their struggles – eds.

Every day in this country, the oppressed are in a state of mourning over deaths. Of democracy, of integrity, and of the people.

The flood in Sumatra that had taken more than a thousand lives from November 2025 to December 2025 was not declared a national emergency. Women and children were starved of basic necessities because the fascist government denied international access to aid, personal arrogance clouding reason, thinking that our sovereignty will be “under attack” if we allow help when it already is under attack—by the hands of a war criminal, the bourgeoisie and elites elected as President.

Institutions became more and more mistrustful. Even more so for survivors of sexual violence. Despite existing protection laws, the survivors are still vilified, left and right. The government didn’t care that the laws weren’t working properly in society. They didn’t even care to perform; they didn’t even hide their lack of empathy anymore. They danced in the legislative house over salary raises, 10 times higher than the minimum wage applied in Indonesia’s capital city, Jakarta. And only scratched away the raise once the death toll over people’s protests rose significantly, killing an online driver passing by the street, Affan. 

Elected representatives were not for the people. And certainly not when the President’s singlehanded decision to join the “Board of Peace” was supported by the elites. The Board, consisting of actors of genocide in Palestine, the imperialist warmonger, the United States of America. The people rejected—but are we surprised that we are still not heard? A fascist establishment was never for the people.

It is a disgrace to Indonesian history, in which Palestine was one of the first countries to recognize Indonesian sovereignty, back in 1945, when we had only just declared our independence from the Dutch East Indies government.

I come here in grief to say that every day, there is new thing to mourn. But at the same time, every day, our spirit does not falter. The women in the rural areas of Sumatra are fearlessly fighting the military posts and landlords, the women in the urban areas are speaking out against sexual predators occupying safe spaces, the brave Indonesian queers are fighting for visibility and recognition, in every way we are capable.

We are in a desperate time, but we are not giving up. And with this, I ask for the solidarity from my comrades overseas. Please include Indonesia in your spirit, action, and voice. We see what’s been happening in Europe, and we are with you in this fight for the liberation of the oppressed. The women, the queers, the working class, the farmers, and the small folks.

Long live Indonesian Women’s Liberation!

Down to imperialism, feudalism, and colonialism of the American government!

 

Balanced assessments and military bravado: Ratner at the Lowy Institute

 Written by: (Contributed) on 27 February, 2026

 

(Source: Screenshot, Lowy Institute)

Opinions from inside the corridors of power in Washington and elsewhere often provide useful insights to accompany other more reliable assessments.

The changing balance of forces across the Indo-Pacific region is now generally accepted; comments from a well-placed source, therefore, have revealed the extent of the development and its implications for the US and traditional allies, including Australia.

In mid-February, Ely Ratner, former assistant defence secretary for the Indo-Pacific region, addressed the Lowy Institute about the changing balance of forces taking place across the vast region, and US foreign policy. (1) Ratner was formerly a 'key architect of the US Indo-Pacific Strategy' (IPS), and used the address to draw attention to the level of increased competition from China. (2)

Traditionally regarded as a region closely under US-led tutelage, the rise of China has seriously affected traditional assessments. In fact, a US Congressional committee nearly a decade ago assessed that the US was no longer the dominant power in the Pacific region, and becoming more dependent upon allies, including Japan and Australia, to maintain traditional hegemonic positions. (3) The Pacific, as a sub-sector of the wider region, has many sensitive shipping-lanes.

The findings of the congressional committee, furthermore, were subsequently used to redefine US regional foreign policy toward an updated IPS, which included the elevation of Japan to that of a global alliance with the US. (4)

The upgraded IPS was based in the framework of the 'Quad', which included the US, Japan, India and Australia, being used to encircle and contain China's regional influence. (5) Other countries across the region were relegated to the status of lower-level partners, linked into the Quad. (6)  

The US diplomatic position, moreover, was consolidated into the 2026 National Defence Strategy, which included reference to a greater reliance upon allies. (7)

Ratner also drew attention to the traditional US-led diplomacy of 'accomodationist' positions toward China. It had been challenged during the first Trump presidential administration 'by identifying China as a strategic competitor seeking to displace the US as the pre-eminent Indo-Pacific power'. (8) Ratner used his address to draw attention to problems emerging during the second Trump administration, which, he maintained, 'lacked the policy focus or coherence to manage Beijing's hegemonic ambitions'. (9) He has not been alone in his criticisms of recent White House behaviour; a recent high-level diplomatic statement from a German Army General, Major-General Wolf-Jurgen Stahl, noted that Donald Trump was 'an egomaniac, narcissistic, erratic deal-maker with authoritarian leanings'. (10) Serious questions have arisen about his limited diplomatic ability and that of his advisors.    

The problem, identified by Ratner, included Washington's and the Pentagon's diplomatic positions as having alienated various strategic countries across the wider region. They were responsible for having 'created genuine uncertainty in the region, and uncertainty in the alliance context'. (11) Good diplomacy is based in creating positions of trust and reliability.

The implications for the US include a recent statement from Singapore prime minister Lawrence Wong, that there was a need to prepare from a 'post-America world', as a drift toward a multi-polar era marked by changing trade patterns and economic uncertainty was taking place. (12) For Singapore, traditionally part of the US-led sphere of influence and a strategic factor in sensitive regional defence and security provision, Wong identified the vulnerability of the small city-country, and the fact that, 'the stakes are high … and … not temporary'. (13)

Wong also used the interview to highlight the rising prominence of ASEAN as a 'more credible block, both politically and economically'. (14) It, therefore, should be no surprise to find that Wong also drew attention to strategic ASEAN members and associates who were increasingly shifting their diplomatic attention toward China: Indonesia, Thailand, Cambodia and Malaysia were becoming more closely linked into China's orbit of influence, and South Korea was also normalising its diplomatic ties with Beijing. (15)

The US, during the recent period, has, therefore, become more reliant upon the Philippines and the puppet Marcos administration in Manila, to push Washington and Pentagon positions inside ASEAN. Manila, for example, has been developed by the US as an important regional financial hub for 'US interests'; over 24 per cent of the GDP of the Philippines originates from its financial sector. (16)

The moves have also been accompanied by Washington and the Pentagon upgrading military planning for greater access into the Philippines with advanced missile systems and other weapons for use potentially against China. (17)

The opinions expressed by Ratner in the Lowy Institute forum have provided a useful insight into the changing balance of forces taking place across the Indo-Pacific and the US response to its traditional hegemonic position; the threat of war is increasing.

Ratner did not, however, question the dangerous nature of the US-Australia alliance:

                                         We need an independent foreign policy!    

*****
1.     Resist the urge 'to stick it with America', Australian, 18 February 2026.
2.     Ibid.
3.     Study: US no longer dominant power in the Pacific, Information Clearing House, 22 August 2019.
4.     See: The reasons behind Washington's push for GSOMIA., Hankyoreh, 12 November 2019.
5.     Ibid.
6.     Ibid.
7.     See: Official US website – 2026 National Defence Strategy – Washington, pp. 18-19.
8.     Australian, op.cit., 18 February 2026.
9.     Ibid.
10.   NATO ally's view of US President: 'egomaniac, narcissistic, erratic', Australian, 20 February 2026.
11.   Australian, op.cit., 18 February 2026.
12.   Ibid., and, PM Wong: As the US steps back, Vulcanpost, 24 October 2025.
13.   Vulcanpost, ibid., 24 October 2025.
14.   Ibid.
15.   Australian, op.cit., 18 February 2026.
16.   Why is Manila considered a financial hub for traders,  Admin., 25 July 2025.
17.   US pokes Chinese bear with missiles in the Philippines, Australian, 19 February 2026.

Have I improved enough yet? Teaching and the labour process.

Written by: Louisa L. on 25 February 2026

 

Just before the 2025 school holidays a Public Education Workers Alliance (PEWA) meeting in western Sydney, heard a jaw dropping appraisal, Have I improved enough yet? Teaching and the labour process, about what students, teachers and NSW state schools face day to day, and why.

The teacher, researcher, activist began, ‘Today I want to make a simple argument: Public education is collapsing … not … because teachers have failed. It is collapsing because the work of teaching has been reorganised into a labour process under capitalism.

 

‘Over the past forty years, teaching has been rebuilt around measurement, data cycles, standards, audits, and now, AI. None of this is accidental. These reforms form a pattern, not a series of isolated initiatives. And that pattern only makes sense if we understand teaching as work – work that is increasingly managed, monitored, intensified and standardised in the same way other forms of labour have been reorganised during periods of capitalist crisis.

 

‘My aim today is to give us a way of seeing that pattern clearly.’

 

From the 1980s

 

When I began teaching in the NSW state system in the early 1980s, a huge wave of collective struggles led by the NSW Teachers Federation had transformed education and the lives of teachers. Higher wages, much smaller class sizes and, in high schools at least, free periods gave much more time for planning, marking and more democratic decision-making. 

 

Rigidly enforced top-down syllabuses were replaced by more progressive models designed by committees of teachers. The Junior High English syllabus was four foolscap pages, double-spaced. We were to teach reading, writing, speaking, listening, critical and creative thinking.

 

More importantly, we were told, ‘Start with the child’ (or in high school ‘the young person’). 

 

State governments, Liberal or Labor, began nibbling at the edges of collective unity with funding cuts and attacks on school staffing formulas. In 1988, Liberal Minister Terry Metherell laid out the whole neo-liberal agenda of cuts, closures and rewritings to every corner of public education. 80,000 teachers and supporters filled the Sydney Domain, impaling Metherell’s political career. His agenda remained. Rather than one fell swoop, it was implemented in a thousand smaller attacks.

 

The author traces the beginning particularly to a 1994 book, ‘Total Quality Management in the Public Sector’. That same year starting with the child was ditched in favour of ‘outcomes’ that students ‘should achieve’. ‘Should’ pretends morality, that someone or something is ‘failing’ if whatever the word is attached to isn’t done. It’s a nasty term, especially when dumped on teachers, or worse, on young people and children. 

 

A fully managed labour process

 

The PEWA presenter used Marx’s analysis of the labour process to explain ‘why crises push workplaces toward standardisation, surveillance and automation’; how the 1970s’ profitability crisis led to the rise of managerial reform based on Frederick Taylor’s stopwatches and managerial control, Henry Ford’s assembly line methods, plus W. Edwards Deming’s Statistical Process Control (developed in the US military) and the Toyota Production Systems from post-war Japan via the Chicago School, ‘to transform teaching from a high-trust profession to a fully managed labour process’.

 

All this leads ‘to the role of AI in schools, and to the contradiction between what teachers are required to do for the system and what teachers actually do to keep classrooms functioning.’ 

 

‘My thesis is this: teaching has been progressively transformed into a managed labour process as part of a decades-long attempt to stabilise a capitalist system in crisis. The pressures we feel every day … are not educational reforms. They are tools of labour control.’ 

 

The presenter also pinpointed cracks from which collective resistance can grow, as pressure builds in classrooms and schools.

 

Stripping knowledge from workers

 

Some readers will be familiar with how capital extracts more absolute or relative surplus value through extending the working day or by making production more efficient through simpler repetitive tasks and/or replacing human labour by machinery.

 

Teachers are subject now to both methods of extraction. Their workloads demand endless hours beyond the classroom.  

 

But more decisively, ‘If education is framed as the main driver of economic growth, two policy consequences follow immediately: 

 

1. Teachers must be measurable. If you are an investment, you require metrics.

2. Teaching must be standardised. If outcomes matter, variation must be reduced.’

 

It means, the presenter continued, ‘The teacher’s work is not judged through human relationships or pedagogical judgement, but through the data they produce.’

 

‘Knowledge is stripped from workers and embedded in systems,’ he says, as all teaching resources are appropriated by online reporting systems. Creative work is stolen by Google classroom and numerous other online platforms.

 

The author continues, ‘Because of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall as constant capital rises, capitalism reorganises labour, bringing in more control, more measurement, more machinery, less autonomy.’

 

Taylor, who in 1900 wrote, ‘All possible brain work should be removed from the shop floor and placed in the planning department’, would be cheering from the sidelines.

 

Death by a thousand acronyms

The zoo of ever more educational acronyms has long been a stock staffroom joke. Here’s just a few: Total Quality Management (TQM), Human Capital Theory (though it’s not usually an acronym, because this high-minded poison reduces young people to bundles of capital to be exploited and ‘value-added to’), School Excellence Framework (SEF), New Public Management described by the author as ‘the administrative arm of neoliberalism, of which TQM is just one example’), Department of Education (DoE), Director, Educational Leadership (DEL) plural (DELs) the enforcers of the latest mandatory acronym on principals, School Excellence Plan (SEP), Employee  Performance Management Improvement (EPMI) teams within Professional and Ethical Standards (PES) who sack teachers who ‘fail’ arbitrary three month TIPs (Teacher Improvement Plans) in just three months. 

 

TIPs are the cruellest of jokes. Not about education. Not about improvement. About scaring everyone into submission. Union reps have been just the latest targets.  

 

While every other aspect of education is cut to the bone, CESE – the Centre for Educational Statistics and Evaluation – staffed by non-teachers, has grown exponentially. 

 

Meanwhile, the school is reduced to ‘an input-output machine’.

 

All of this groundwork means, he continues, ‘You plug AI into a process that’s been made machine-readable.’

 

‘Following Marx’s logic, this is management’s endgame: the mind of the worker extracted, recomposed, and returned externally as dead labour.’

 

Students need our living labour

 

Our students are the heart of what we do. Our working conditions are their learning conditions. 

 

They need our living labour. This is the key, placing students’ needs at the centre of any fightback.

 

Australia under US imperialist control no longer needs the working class or the underclass to be educated. It cares nothing for our young people. But the children of the rich and powerful, or those brilliant ‘underlings’ they try to coopt through their scholarships, are not subjected to this criminal crushing of our youth.

 

Massive government funding and private fees ensure the richest and most nourishing programs of art, music, science, sport are provided to the upcoming managers. But tainted by ruling class ideology to justify their privilege.

 

This monstrous injustice is a contradiction waiting to be tapped for change. It can be one clarion call for wider action. Despite brainwashing and lies, even some from the elitist system will reject injustice because that richer education makes them open their eyes.

 

Every education worker, every progressive will gain strength from this short, groundbreaking article. 

 

It concentrates and explains the personal experience of all teachers as they and their students are mortally wounded. 

 

If we understand our opponent, if we understand its strategy and tactics, we can step by step fight back, putting young people front and centre.

 

Read: Have I improved enough yet? Teaching and the labour process. 

 

First published 4 February 2026 by Spirit of Eureka)  

 

 

Global Days of Action to #CloseBases - Adelaide Action

 Written by: Max O. on 23 February 2026

 

(Supplied)

(Supplied)

(Supplied)

February 21 to 23 is designated as the Global Days of Action to #CloseBases. On February 23, 1903, the United States took over Guantánamo from Cuba. It has never been returned. People across Latin America have used this date to organize events opposing bases, militarism, and the Monroe Doctrine. World Beyond War expanded it into a global day of action.

On 21 February, protestors from Adelaide/Kaurna Yerta converged on the Royal Australian Air Force base at Edinburgh, north of Adelaide. Like the rest of the Australian Defence Force (ADF), this base has become interoperable and interchangeable with the U.S. military. The groups involved in this protest action were Disrupt Arms Traders and IPAN-SA.

Global arms dealers have established themselves inside this base, under the protection of the Australian Defence Force. Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin, BAE Systems, Raytheon, Airbus, and others operate weapons programs there.

One example is the Northrop Grumman MQ-4C Triton UAV, a massive, high-altitude spy drone. Australia has a fleet of these drones based at Tindal Air Base in the Northern Territory, and has spent over $166 million to build the facility there.

The drones are remotely controlled from Edinburgh base and fly 24-hour-long spy missions over a vast area of East Asia. It is highly likely that this surveillance data is distributed via Pine Gap. Last year, in 2025, RAAF Edinburgh and Boeing Defence Australia were announced as the winners of a $160 million contract to maintain, repair, and overhaul the United States and Australian Tritons.

Roughly the size of a Boeing 737, the high-altitude (up to 50,000 feet), long-endurance (up to 15,000 kilometres), high-speed (up to 600 kilometres per hour) Tritons can deploy the most advanced maritime intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance, and targeting capability available. The Triton’s endurance means it can stay airborne for longer than a traditional aircraft with a pilot on board.

The Assistant Minister for Defence, Peter Khalil, has stated about the Triton UAV: “The project also deepens Australia’s Cooperative Program with the US Navy, by ensuring our forces can operate seamlessly together in support of regional stability.” In truth, this means Australia is the United States’ lapdog; it will go anywhere and commit any aggression that the U.S. Empire commands.

Since 2022, the Albanese Government has invested over $2.8 billion in militarising Northern Australia, with 43 projects either completed or underway. This is for the sole benefit of U.S. war machine assets in the NT. These include housing 2,500 rotating marines at the Robertson Barracks in Darwin; hosting B-52 bombers—which have the potential to carry nuclear weapons—in special facilities at Tindal RAAF Base; and setting up storage depots for fuel, spare parts, bombs, and other munitions in the NT, such as the huge U.S. fuel storage facilities at East Arm, Darwin, to power the B-52 bombers.

Since Federation, the Australian Defence Force has been no more than an extra battalion for the British Empire and now for U.S. imperialism. It would be more honest to call the ADF the “American Deputy Force.”

The protest congregated at the main gate of the base, displaying anti-U.S. war banners, and included speeches and chants against U.S. imperialism and Australia’s military war crimes. From beginning to end, the South Australian Police tailed the car convoy to the air force base and kept the protestors under close surveillance.

There is growing opposition to military bases in Australia and their interlocking relationship with major weapons manufacturers, which are primarily U.S.-based.

More actions against U.S. and Australian military bases throughout Australia will no doubt intensify in the future.