Campaign for a gas export tax and Albo flinches

Written by: Max O. on 7 May 2026

 

The Australia Institute, Michael West Media, and the recent parliamentary inquiry into the taxation of Australia's gas resources have put gas corporations under the microscope regarding how much wealth they extract from the country's natural resources. Together with the ACTU, they are arguing for a 25 percent gas tax on exports.

However, no amount of evidence about gas corporations pillaging Australia's natural resources for virtually nothing has convinced Prime Minister Albanese of the need to tax them. He argued in the media recently, "They pay around about $22 billion … you need to acknowledge the tens of billions of dollars of investment that occurs in order to have that gas extracted. Without that investment that's come from North America, that's come from Japan … we wouldn't be having a debate because there wouldn't have been that extraction."

No hint here of "Buying back the farm" or taxing these rich corporations for looting the country's finite natural resources. Albanese's attitude once again demonstrates that our capitalist political system is administered for the benefit of overwhelmingly foreign corporations and not the Australian people.

The Australia Institute states that the Federal Government gets more revenue from beer excise and uni students repaying their HECS debts each year than it gets from its Petroleum Resource Rent Tax (PRRT).

Albanese's defence of the gas corporations belies the Australian Tax Office's depiction of the gas industry as "systemic non-payers of tax". "Many gas companies pay no company tax and no PRRT. Santos Limited, for example, has not paid any company tax on $47 billion in sales over ten years," reports the Australia Institute.

The recent wars in Ukraine and Iran have seen energy prices inflate and massive profits for the gas industry. As a result, gas companies have paid increased company tax. Nevertheless, teachers and nurses in Australia pay more in income tax than the gas industry pays in company tax and PRRT combined.

In April, two days of public hearings for a Greens-led parliamentary inquiry into the taxation of gas resources heard from advocates for a 25 per cent gas export tax and from energy corporations who argued such a tax would scare away investors. Senator for the ACT David Pocock asked Cecile Wake, CEO of Shell in Australia, how much profit and how much gas Shell exported from Australia. The inquiry meeting was left gobsmacked after Wake couldn't answer this question. However, she was certain an extra 25 per cent royalty on Australian gas would be "spectacularly ill advised".

One wonders what this Shell executive thought she might be asked at this inquiry. Or was it just a ploy to avoid answering embarrassing questions that might expose her corporation getting a free ride off Australian natural resources?

Shell's tax boss, Coralie Trotter, had to admit that it paid $109 million in PRRT in 2025 – but didn’t pay any in the decade prior. She informed the inquiry that Shell paid $2.9 billion in company tax in 2024 on $6.2 billion in after tax profits. She claimed the company had paid $12 billion in taxes in the last decade.

Then Wake pointed out that the profit would be much smaller than the revenue collected during that time, as Shell invested US$60 billion into developing gas projects, pleading: "It is not unreasonable for us to be able to recover that before you start paying a profit-based tax."

Senator Pocock quipped with a piercing reply: "Ms Wake, how come you can tell me how much you invested but not how much gas you sold? You tell us about all the investment but you're very quiet on how much gas you're actually selling."

Companies extracting and selling gas from Australia usually pay 40 per cent on the profit they make through the Petroleum Resource Rent Tax (PRRT), though those profits can be offset by losses for capital expenditure.

For an industry that is considered to be worth hundreds of billions, a mere $1.5 billion was collected by the Federal Government in revenue from the PRRT in 2025. This is almost half of what the $2.7 billion beer excise tax collected 

Michael West Media pointed out that "Ethical investor Future Group suggests Australia is capturing less than seven per cent of its resource rents through the PRRT, royalties and excise, much lower than comparable revenue raised in Norway, Qatar and the United Kingdom." Norway and Qatar collect far higher taxes from their gas energy industry.

In 2023, the Qatari Government collected around $56 billion in government revenue from liquified natural gas (LNG) exports. These figures show that Australia suffers a huge sovereign loss from its natural gas resources compared to other gas exporters. 

Eighty per cent of Australian gas production is currently exported from Australia. Indeed, more gas is used by the gas industry to process gas into liquefied natural gas (LNG) for export than all of the gas used by Australian manufacturers.

The Australia Institute says a 25% gas export tax would collect up to $17 billion per year. Presently, the PRRT collects less than $2 billion per year. If this isn't bad enough, there are other nefarious ways that foreign energy corporations swindle Australia, as explained by the Australia Institute: "No company better illustrates the great gas rip-off than Japanese gas company INPEX. Each year, INPEX exports more gas than is used in New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia combined. It sells no gas to Australians outside of emergencies. It pays no royalties, no Petroleum Resource Rent Tax (PRRT), and paid no corporate tax on $21 billion in gas exports between 2015 and 2025. I guess it's not hard to make money when Australia effectively gives you its gas for free."

In fact, you could argue that Japan is better at extracting value from Australia's gas exports than we are. Japan is on-selling the Australian gas it imports for domestic use, according to new analysis from the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis. It found that Japanese companies resold between $11-14 billion worth of Australian LNG in 2024, with its profits likely exceeding $1 billion – or roughly the same as Australia collects from the Petroleum Resource Rent Tax.

Just as serious as the loss of revenue from Australian exported gas are the environmental impacts of gas extraction and the willingness of governments to approve the exploitation of new gas fields. Climate Analytics, which argues the energy crisis presents a rare opportunity to take more ambitious action against global warming, also testified at the parliamentary inquiry. This advocacy group submitted that "It would be broadly beneficial from a climate perspective for changes in the taxation regime to support a managed decline in Australian fossil gas use." However, this group argued any changes should not just seek to capture wartime windfall profits but also drive structural changes in Australia's reliance on fossil fuels.

Capitalism in Australia, with its corporations, politicians, public service, media and think tanks, will do none of this. It will continue to exploit and condemn working people and the environment to milk every last drop of profit it can out of the country. It damns itself by its own barbarism.

ICOR declaration: Resolute Solidarity with the Cuban People Against the Sanctions and Threats of U.S. Imperialism

Written by: ICOR on 7 May 2026

 

On May 1, more than 500,000 people demonstrated in Cuba in front of the U.S. Embassy against the oil embargo imposed by U.S. imperialism since January and handed over six million signatures demanding an end to the embargo—that is roughly two-thirds of the Cuban population.

ICOR stands in wholehearted solidarity with the resistance of the Cuban people. We already published a resolution against the oil embargo in March. The embargo has triggered a humanitarian crisis in Cuba. Power outages and production stoppages are affecting every aspect of people’s lives and undermining healthcare.

 

In the days leading up to May Day, U.S. President Trump threatened “tougher action” and the “takeover” of Cuba, and on the very same day imposed harsher sanctions targeting officials in the economic, political, and administrative sectors, as well as all international banks and institutions that do business with them.

 

In light of this, we reaffirm our call to organize solidarity with the Cuban people worldwide!

 

Long live international solidarity!

Yankees out of Latin America and the Middle East!

No to fascism and imperialist war!

Against capitalist-imperialist barbarism—let us intensify the struggle for socialism!

 

Status of the signatories 06.05.2026. Further signatures possible. Current list of signatories at www.icor.info

 

1. PPDS   Parti Patriotique Démocratique Socialiste (Patriotic Democratic Socialist Party), Tunisia

2. NCP (Mashal)   Nepal Communist Party (Mashal)

3. CPA/ML   Communist Party of Australia (Marxist-Leninist)

4. БКП   Българска Комунистическа Партия (Bulgarian Communist Party)

5. PR-ByH   Partija Rada - ByH (Party of Labor - Bosnia and Herzegovina)

6. MLPD   Marxistisch-Leninistische Partei Deutschlands (Marxist-Leninist Party of Germany)

7. BP (NK-T)   Bolşevik Parti (Kuzey Kürdistan-Türkiye) (Bolshevik Party (North Kurdistan-Turkey))

8. KOL   Kommunistische Organisation Luxemburg (Communist Organization of Luxemburg)

9. RM   Rode Morgen (Red Dawn), Netherlands

10. UMLP   União Marxista-Leninista Portuguesa (Portuguese Marxist-Leninist Union)

11. MLGS   Marxistisch-Leninistische Gruppe Schweiz (Marxist-Leninist Group of Switzerland)

12. MLKP   Marksist Leninist Komünist Parti Türkiye / Kürdistan (Marxist Leninist Communist Party Turkey / Kurdistan)

13. PCP (independiente)   Partido Comunista Paraguayo (independiente) (Paraguayan  Communist Party (independent))

14. PC (ML)   Partido Comunista (Marxista Leninista) (Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist)), Dominican Republic

15. PCR-U   Partido Comunista Revolucionario del Uruguay (Revolutionary Communist Party of Uruguay)

A Tale of Two Imperialisms – Part 2

 Written by: Nick G. on 26 April 2026

 

In our previous article on this topic, we compared the different strategies of US imperialism and Chinese social-imperialism, one in decline and one on the rise, and in particular looked at Chinese investment in Peru’s port of Chancay. In Part 2, we will look at Chinese investments in other ports, including Darwin’s.

Hambantota

 

The Sri Lankan port of Hambantota is perhaps the most well-known example of China’s port acquisitions. The port was built with Chinese loans, and when the Sri Lankan government could not repay these, the Chinese took control of the port under a 99-year lease.

 

Hambantota is strategically located within the Indian Ocean region and is under Chinese operational control. The deal which led to this was widely touted by the rival US-led imperialist bloc as an example of Chinese debt-diplomacy, as a case where financial distress led to loss of control over infrastructure. However, Hambantota is unique in that respect; China’s other major port acquisitions have had more of a straight commercial character.

 

Gwadar Port

 

Also strategically located, the Pakistani port of Gwadar is in the Arabian Sea region of the northern Indian Ocean, and was built to facilitate China’s global logistics strategy and as part of a broader economic corridor between the two countries. It is designed to feed into the China–Pakistan Economic Corridor, a 3000 km land route between the two countries. It provides China with a shorter route for oil imports from the Middle East, bypassing the Straits of Malacca. The port has a heavy geo-political significance but has not lived up to commercial expectations. Like Chancay, Gwadar was built with Chinese capital investment and is under Chinese operational control.

 

Adjacent to the port is a Special Economic Zone. The land was handed to the China Overseas Port Holding Company in November 2015 as part of a 43-year lease. The site will include manufacturing zones, logistics hubs, warehouses, and display centres. Businesses located in the zone will be exempt from customs authorities as well as many provincial and federal taxes. Businesses established in the special economic zone will be exempt from Pakistani income, sales, and federal excise taxes for 23 years. Contractors and subcontractors associated with China Overseas Port Holding Company will be exempt from such taxes for 20 years.

 

Last December, the Indian online magazine Maritime Gateway criticised plans to establish a multinational maritime fusion centre linked to Gwadar. Such centres gather and analyse data on shipping movements, naval deployments, commercial traffic and behavioural patterns at sea.  The Indian analysts, similar to their US counterparts who worried about China’s navy being able to use Peru’s Chancay Port, believe that with Chinese personnel, software and analytical systems embedded on Pakistani soil, control over data becomes ambiguous, making Gwadar less a national commercial port and more a strategic platform for China. Whatever the truth of the Indian claims, it is certainly the case that the commercial and the military components of port acquisitions are closely linked.

 

Djibouti

 

Djibouti sits at the entrance to the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, linking the Indian Ocean to the Red Sea and the Suez Canal—one of the busiest shipping routes on Earth. Around 12–20% of global trade passes through this chokepoint.

 

China has both a commercial port (Doraleh) and a naval base in Djibouti – its first overseas military base. The latter was built in 2017, and justified as resupplying and maintaining Chinese naval ships operating in the Indian Ocean and conducting anti-piracy patrols in the Gulf of Aden.

 

The Djibouti naval base marked a change in the Chinese Navy’s role. Formerly, when China was socialist, it was for China’s coastal defence. But by 2015 and the publication of that year’s White Paper on China’s military strategy, its tasks now had to include:

 

-- To safeguard China's security and interests in new domains;

 -- To safeguard the security of China's overseas interests;

 

To carry out its mission and strategic tasks, the White Paper identified a change from a focus on land-based defence to a focus on blue-water protection of

overseas interests: 

 

“The traditional mentality that land outweighs sea must be abandoned, and great importance has to be attached to managing the seas and oceans and protecting maritime rights and interests. It is necessary for China to develop a modern maritime military force structure commensurate with its national security and development interests, safeguard its national sovereignty and maritime rights and interests, protect the security of strategic SLOCs and overseas interests, and participate in international maritime cooperation, so as to provide strategic support for building itself into a maritime power.”

 

The change to a blue water Navy capable of operating globally will require more than just one base for resupply, maintenance and shelter. 

 

Port of Piraeus

 

This Greek port is majority-owned by COSCO, which has turned it into one of the busiest ports in Europe. It is also home to one of the most militant sections of the Greek working class who have been at the forefront of refusing to service NATO ships and vessels bound for Israel.

 

Both major Greek Communist Parties opposed the sale of Piraeus to COSCO.  This is significant as the larger revisionist Greek Communist Party (KKE) was a founder of the pro-Chinese International Meeting of Communist and Workers’ Parties in 1998. The Communist Party of China is a member. 

 

The KKE opposed COSCO’s purchase of Piraeus in a privatisation fire-sale demanded by the IMF. The KKE has come to reject the idea that China remains socialist. It argues that Chinese overseas investments, including Piraeus, are driven by monopoly capital and geopolitical competition. KKE-affiliated unions have protested working conditions under COSCO management, highlighting precarious contracts, safety concerns, and anti-union practices. In 2021, thousands protested the death of a fellow worker, carrying a large banner reading “No more dead workers for the profits of COSCO”.

 

The Communist Party of Greece (Marxist-Leninist) also opposed COSCO’s takeover of Piraeus. On 27 May, 2017 it published “The Silk Road and the struggles for the looting of the country's wealth”, saying:

 

“In our country, Cosco's investment in Piraeus is already a fact and is of enormous and strategic importance since the common goal of the Greek bourgeoisie and the Chinese bourgeoisie, as Tsipras said in Beijing and agreed by Xi Jinping, is for Piraeus to become the largest commercial center in the Mediterranean. At the same time, China's gateway to Europe, with all that this implies for a number of other investments that are attracted. The recent validation of the purchase of 24% of IPTO by the Chinese State Grid is also a fact. Also during Tsipras' visit to Beijing, a 500 million agreement was signed between Forthnet and ZTE in fiber optics, while the Copelouzos group signed a memorandum of understanding for investments in energy with the state-owned company Shenhua Group estimated at 3 billion.”

 

Darwin

 

In 2015, the Northern Territory government signed a 99-year lease for the operation of the Port of Darwin with the Chinese company Landbridge, a large private company based in Rizhao city in Shandong Province in China. 

 

Although Darwin’s port is not on the scale of the others mentioned in this article, it is Australia’s nearest port to Asia and the nation’s ‘northern gateway’ for Australasian trade including livestock. It is also a key support hub for the expanding offshore oil and gas fields in the Arafura Sea, Timor Sea and waters off the coast of Western Australia.

 

The lease was immediately controversial because of the port’s proximity to the US Marine Rotational Force–Darwin (MRF-D), announced by the Gillard Labor government in 2011. It began as a rotational deployment of 200 marines, expanded to 1500 in 2014, the year before the lease arrangement for the port was signed.

 

Although Landbridge is a commercial operator and there is no Chinese military presence at Darwin, the port’s proximity to a continuously expanding US imperialist military presence highlights the rivalry of these two powers, not just in our region, but on our country.

 

Since the leasing arrangement, the MRF-D has grown to 2500 US marines, and despite still being referred to as a rotational deployment, it is effectively continuous: a new rotation arrives each year.

 

U.S. forces now operate from or access:

 

• Robertson Barracks (Darwin) 

• RAAF Base Darwin 

• RAAF Base Tindal (near Katherine) 

 

Australia and the U.S. have expanded northern air bases to support U.S. aircraft, including long-range bombers that can carry nuclear weapons. There has also been development of facilities for fuel storage, equipment storage and location, and maintenance. These enable rapid U.S. force projection into Southeast Asia.  In addition, the NT regularly hosts foreign armed forces in so-called training exercises.

 

So, should the port of Darwin continue to be operated by the Chinese?

 

We say no, at the same time as we say that there must be no US bases in Australia.

 

In fact, most ports in Australia are operated by foreign capital and foreign investors. This is untenable. All Australian ports should be owned and operated by a national ports authority.

 

And the expansion of the US military presence in Australia must be ended.

 

Our position is that US imperialism is currently the more dangerous of the two imperialisms and the major source of the danger of a war with China.

 

 

Exercise Balikaton, Philippines, 2026: the relevance of the so-called 'Squad'

 Written by: (Contributed) on 26 April 2026

 

(Protest against the visit of US imperialism's Hegseth, 2025. Source PRWC | Philippine Revolution Web Central)

As the Philippines-based and US-led Exercise Balikaton military exercises take place, other related military planning behind the scenes has also become an important consideration.

While using the Philippines as the centre for the Balikaton exercises, the US-led theatre of operations has remained seemingly focused upon Island Chain Theory (ICT) with new and well publicised plans to upgrade the defence and security provision across the entire Indian Ocean. Other related considerations, however, remain subject to diplomatic silence.

The annual nineteen-day Balikaton military exercises this year have taken place against a backdrop of rising diplomatic tensions in the South China Seas. At least, that has been the openly stated reason. The Philippines is regarded by US-led diplomacy to be a major player in the close vicinity. More than 17,000 military personnel have been mobilised, together with about 10,000 US counterparts and a large contingent from Japan, with other contingents from Australia, New Zealand, France and Canada. (1) The Five Eyes would appear well represented. France, likewise, is also a substantial player in the Pacific.

The Japanese contingent has been mobilised by the US in line with their Indo-Pacific Strategy (IPS), marked by the alliance between the two countries being upgraded to that of a 'global alliance'. (2) Japan, previously constrained by Clause 9 of a pacifist constitution, is now allowed to act when 'the US or countries US forces are defending are threatened … with new rules that eliminate any geographical restriction'. (3)

The rising diplomatic tensions between the Philippines and China have also included direct reference to Taiwan. In fact, part of the Balikaton exercises have been planned for the Batanes island chain which is less than 200 kms from Taiwan's southern coast. (3) Balikaton has also provision for live-fire exercises in the northern part of the Philippines, facing the Taiwan Straits. (4)

The Luzon, northerly part of the Philippines, is also used by the Pentagon to house numerous sensitive military facilities, ostensibly referred to as joint facilities although controlled by the US. There is little doubt their main focus is the Taiwan Straits.

The Philippines has also been historically regarded by the US as the most reliable vantage point in the Asia-Pacific region to monitor developments and dominated by a deep penetration of US capital, ensuring a long list of compliant presidential administrations to serve 'US interests'. The present Marcos presidential administration is an example of a totally compliant government; one Cold War has merged into another, with father and son. With the changing balance of forces evident across most of the Asia-Pacific region, the US have strengthened their hold on the Philippines: geo-strategic considerations for intelligence-gathering remain of central importance, together with the country being used as a springboard for US-led incursions elsewhere. (5)

The Philippines, furthermore, has long been regarded by the US as the centre of an arc, with the northerly wing consisting of the industrial countries including Japan and the Korean peninsula, and the southerly wing swinging over less developed but resource-rich countries including south-east Asia. (6) Other US military facilities are based in the southerly Mindanao area which provide intelligence-gathering from predominantly Islamic areas which also produce oil. (7)

The role of the Philippines, in recent times, has also been upgraded by the Pentagon, largely to replace India inside the so-called 'Quad'; it is no longer a lower-level IPS partner. (8) References, moreover, have recently been given to the 'Squad' (the US, Japan, Philippines and Australia) as a replacement for an important part of the IPS. (9)

There is, however, a further reason why the Philippines has been upgraded as part of the US regional defence and security provision: the Philippines has an important role within the US Island Chain Theory, used by the Pentagon to restrict China's access and egress into the wider region.

Studies of sea maps from the previous Cold War reveal the significance.

The Philippines is strategically placed along the first island chain, which runs from northern Kuril Islands, and Bering Sea, to Japan, Taiwan, Luzon and Indonesia. The Kuril-Kamchatea Trench separates sea-waters a few hundred feet deep, from wider ocean depths of thousands of feet. (10) The second island chain extends further to the east, from Japan to Guam in Micronesia with a major US military presence. (11) The third island chain is Oceania, which has included Australia and New Zealand.

The US proposed nearly a decade ago to extend the three island chains into fourth and fifth chains, across the entire Indian Ocean, with Diego Garcia being a centre for the new chains; the remote island houses sensitive global intelligence-gathering facilities linked to Pine Gap in central Australia. (12)

It is not coincidental that the arc from US military facilities in Luzon, swings to the beginning of the first northerly island chain, then Diego Garcia and finally Pine Gap. Military facilities in Luzon, therefore, appear central importance for the IPS.

While official media releases from the Pentagon have stressed the new Squad grouping has 'more relevant focus on defending freedom of navigation in the South China Sea', other considerations have been subject to diplomatic silence. (13) And the silence speaks louder than words. The evidence, nevertheless, is already in the public domain, complete with military assessments and maps.

Changes in climatic conditions have caused a significant part of the normally frozen Arctic wastelands to thaw, exposing a sea route along the northern Russian borders, with access and egress from the Bering Straits into the Chuckchi Sea along to Greenland. China's close diplomatic relationship with Russia, furthermore, is regarded as problematic by the Pentagon. China, for example, has already navigated the northern sea route.

A carefully worded diplomatic release would tend to indicate that the Pentagon has responded with alarm to this recent development and assessed the northerly sea route along lines that, 'the greatest danger the US and our allies face in this region is the erosion of conventional deterrence vis-a-vis the PRC'. (14) Classic Cold War paranoia arising from inter-imperialist rivalry/

Hidden in the small print of the Balikaton exercises, therefore, lies far more than a display of military power and inter-operability focused solely upon the South China Sea. But then, deflecting attention away from sensitivities and hidden agendas is nothing new.

Exercise Balikaton, 2026, has been marked by the upgrading of the Philippines and sensitive US military facilities in Luzon as part of a global plan to serve 'US interests' elsewhere, well to the north!

 

1.     Different strait for US show of force, Australian, 21 April 2026.
2.     The reasons behind Washington's push for GSOMIA., Hankyoreh, 12 November 2019.
3.     Japan to extend military reach beyond self-defence, The Age (Melbourne), 29 April 2015.
3.     Australian, op.cit., 21 April 2026.
4.     Ibid.
5.     See: The role of the bases, A. Counter-insurgency and the US bases, B. Springboards for intervention into other countries, The Bases of our Insecurity, Roland G. Simbulan, (Quezon City, 1983), Chapter Five, pp. 169-216.
6.     The Objectives of the US., The Guardian, 6 August 2003; and, Ibid., page 193, which has provided a diagram of the region, with the Philippines depicted in a central position linked in straight lines to other US military facilities.
7.     Ibid.
8.     Hankyoreh, op.cit., 12 November 2019.
9.     See: Quad was made to stop China; war just broke it,  Australian, 21 January 2026; and, Quad must not whither and die, Editorial, Australian, 22 April 2026.
10.   See: Pacific Ocean, Atlas Plate 61, National Geographical Magazine, April 1962.
11.   US Indo-Pacific command proposes new missile capabilities to deter China, RFA., 5 March 2021; and, US to build anti-China missile network along first island chain, Nikkei, 5 March 2021.
12.   Wikipedia: Fourth and Fifth Island Chains.
13.   Australian, op.cit., 21 April 2026.
14.   RFA., op.cit., 5 March 2021.

 

Elections Within Unions and Their Limitations

Written by: Ned K. on 26 April 2026

 

(Original image from www.freepik.com)

Marx and Engels in the Communist Manifesto writing about the class struggle of workers under capitalism said, "Now and then the workers are victorious, but only for a time. The real fruit of their battles lies, not in the immediate result, but in the ever-expanding union of the workers."

The expanding union of workers is influenced by the leadership of workers' mass organisations (unions) as well as other factors such as unemployment, and the relative strength of competing classes in particular industries or regions. In Australia, leaderships of Unions periodically have to answer to members as a whole.

Most Unions hold elections every four years or so when members vote for governing bodies of the respective Union concerned. There are variations from one Union to another on whether members vote for industry or occupation-wide candidates or whether they vote for candidates standing for a geographical region, similar to the parliamentary geographical electorates. Union elections are a voluntary voting system. 

Some Unions are Federations which means the members of each State or Territory vote directly for their State or Territory governing body such as a State Council. They also vote directly for the State Officers of the Union such as State Secretary, Assistant Secretary and State Presidents and Vice President/s.
The elected State and Territory candidates may then vote on who becomes the National Executive and National Officers of the federated Union. 

Some Unions are national in character and candidates elected to governing bodies such as a National Council are elected by members from clusters of industries or occupations covered by the Union. In National Unions, members may directly elect the National Executive and full time National Officers of the Union, or members only directly elect a large National Council who in turn elect the National Executive and the full time National Officers. The bodies such as National Councils usually have to meet on a regular basis during each year of each term of office and the Executives and full time Officers such as Secretaries are accountable to the elected National Councils.

Within both the Federated and National Unions it may or may not eventuate that there are rank and file members on the Executive for the National Officers.
Unions are mass organisations and came in to being to defend and extend the collective interests of workers, whether they are federated Unions or national Unions. The biggest challenge for Union members standing for any elected position in a Union is that capitalism in Australia has imposed an industrial system on workers that alienates them from one another and separates them from those in the leadership positions.

Site specific and company specific enterprise bargaining in place of industry-wide Awards as the method for workers acting collectively to improve wages and conditions, are coupled with industrial laws that make taking action on the job a highly risky business.

Workers nowadays who do join Unions have the opportunity to take significant collective action every three or four years if they have an enterprise agreement. If they are on an Award, they do not have any legal right to take industrial action in pursuit of better pay and conditions.

Transactional Relationship Between Union Member and Their Union Organisation

The restrictions placed on workers in the workplace by the system of capitalism as it operates today has resulted in many workers joining a Union firstly as an insurance policy if individually in trouble with the boss or needing information on their legal rights and entitlements.

This transactional relationship with the Union as an organisation as the primary relationship combined with the voluntary nature of internal Union elections has often seen candidates at Union election time appealing to members on the basis of what they will do for members rather than what they will do collectively with members to further the interests of workers as a whole.

Competing candidates or competing groups of candidates all "promise the world" to members and often "the world" they all promise is very similar.
When this is coupled with a voluntary voting system, candidates become desperate to find ways not only to win over hundreds or even thousands of members who they have never met to agree with what they offer, but also to ensure that those convinced members actually vote!

Recently a Union in England held the required Union election under English law and under 10% of members voted!

In Australia, Union elections are often conducted by the Electoral Commission who post the election ballot papers to residential letter boxes. This method of voting occurs in a social environment where more and more transactions are completed online, adding to the likelihood of low return rates of those who vote.

The limitations of Union elections facilitate unpredictable outcomes, irrespective of the sincerity of most candidates who stand for election and irrespective of the hopes of those who vote.

In Australia, there is the additional factor of affiliation of most Unions to the ALP. Union members may or may not know the political affiliation of candidates for a Union election. For some members the most important factor determining whether they vote or not, or who they vote for will have nothing to do with parliamentary political affiliations of the Union or a candidate. The decisive factor for them may be how the Union leadership which in their eyes may be their immediate Union rep or Organiser will represent them in the near future. 

The upshot of all this is that outcomes of Union elections when there are highly contested groups of candidates are very hard to predict.

 

Financialisation: fictitious capital and its real impact

 

Financialisation: fictitious capital and its real impact

Written by: Nick G. on 24 April 2026

 

A new Party publication addresses the political economy of finance capital. 

Marx analysed the growing separation of capital from the productive economy, calling such investments “fictitious capital”.  Lenin analysed finance capital’s control over industrial capital and the export of capital as one of the characteristics of imperialism. The separation of finance capital from production in the imperialist era has seen a massive growth in fictitious capital in the new financial arenas of derivatives and cryptocurrencies. The publication analyses this and the damaging impact of finance capital in Australian conditions in respect of interest rates, housing and the privatised water market. It concludes that only independence and socialism will break the hold of imperialist finance capital.

The publication is available as a pdf here: Financialisation+2.pdf

Imperialism's "Global Supply Chains" Exposed

 Written by: Ned K. on 24 April 2026

 

(Source: www.freepik.com)

The closing of the Strait of Hormuz by Iran has exposed for millions of working people around the world to see the fragility of "globalization" and "global supply chains". US imperialism's Trump's decision to attack Iran militarily has been a case of lifting a rock only to drop it in their own feet.

Albanese stupidly but predictably became one of Trump's first cheer leaders when the US war machine started its war on Iran. It wasn't long before he was jet setting to other countries to try and shore up alternative energy and fertiliser supplies to keep the squeaky wheels of capitalism in Australia. 

Closure of oil refineries in Australia over the last 30 years were part of the de-industrialisation of Australia by imperialism. One government after another assured the Australian people that "free trade" and "global supply chains" would more than compensate for the destruction of whole industries including oil refining in Australia.

The actions of one relatively small country, Iran, supported by its people, in blocking the Strait of Hormuz has shown the fragility of the imperialist "world economy" and caused increased hardship to millions of people across the globe.

The Albanese Government is now looking to use taxpayers' money to lure multinational oil barons to build new oil refineries in Australia as well as expand the capacity of the two remaining ones in Australia.

This is unlikely to occur as the biggest oil corporations Exxon Mobil and Chevron are frantically doing deals with African countries to seize their oil reserves both on and off - shore.

The tactic of blocking the Strait of Hormuz by Iran has also shown how dependent on fossil fuels countries like Australia are, despite all the talk about moving rapidly to a green energy future.

For millions of Australian people, the US war on Iran and the Albanese Government's tamely applauding it, has them thinking it's time for Australia to establish economic, political and military independence from foreign powers, especially USA.