Workers’ struggle as a class gives life to ACTU's "strength in numbers, power in solidarity, we are unstoppable"

 Written by: Ned K. on 14 December 2025

 

(AMWU members in Victoria take action this month against US giant biopharmaceutical company CSL Behring.)

The ACTU web site "Australian Unions" opens with the inspiring words of "Strength In Numbers, Power in Solidarity, We Are Unstoppable".

It is followed by a quote from ACTU Secretary Sally McManus, "The Australian union movement has always worked towards big, important and permanent changes that benefit all workers."

In 2025 thousands of workers in their respective Unions have taken collective action to advance their working conditions and to make a dent in the continual rising cost of everyday living. It is their collective actions which breathe life into the ACTU's words quoted above.

There have been big wins by workers in the public sector in particular in several states and territories and in sectors reliant on federal or state government funding for wage increases.

Public hospital workers, aged care and early childhood education workers and disabilities sector workers are examples.
In the private sector, workers in the mining industry in particular have forced big companies and labour hire contractors to comply with "Same Job, Same Pay" resulting in significant wage increases to labour hire workers. 

However, there are large sections of the working class that have not been involved in any form of collective action recently and who have little or no knowledge of the ACTU and its role, let alone any feeling of being "unstoppable" or having experienced any form of "power in solidarity". 

There are many reasons for this situation, but one reason is that since the election of the Albanese Government, the ACTU leadership has been a "dead hand" on leading working class struggles that have "big, important and permanent changes that benefit all workers".

Peace and Justice Is Union Business:

The Australian union movement has until recent times educated and mobilized workers for peace and justice. For example, the anti-conscription movement in the imperialist World War 1 of 1914-1918. The refusal of maritime workers to load iron ore bound for Japan in World War 2 and the participation of thousands of unionists in the anti-Vietnam War campaign in Australia.

However, since the intensified genocidal bombardment of the Palestinian people by Israel over the last two years, the ACTU leadership has been conspicuous by its absence in educating and mobilizing Unions and their members to take part in the world-wide grass roots movement in support of the Palestinian people.

The ACTU and several large corporate structured Unions have shamefully been silent on supporting Palestinians and effectively fallen in behind the Albanese Government's support for Israel and its US backers. The same silence has prevailed over the issue of the increasing militarization of Australia by the US under the AUKUS banner.

Workers' Rights, Still Worth Fighting For:

The ACTU leaders may argue that they have been focused under the Albanese government's years on "big, important and permanent changes" that are closer to home for all workers in Australia. For example, the changes to the Fair Work Act which recognize in law the role of Delegates in the workplace, multi-employer enterprise agreements, the right to disconnect and same job. same pay.

Important as these changes are for workers, the ACTU has overseen the destruction of the construction division of the CFMEU which hardly resonates with the ACTU catch cry "strength in numbers, power in solidarity, we are unstoppable!"

If ACTU leaders are serious about mobilizing workers on issues "closer to home" to make permanent change, they need to have the desire and courage to campaign on an agenda that is independent of any parliamentary political party, and independent of the government of the day, whether that be a government of one Party, or a government reliant on support from minor Parties or Independents.

A good start would be for the ACTU to mobilize workers for the right to take industrial action. The only right to industrial action by workers is the so-called "protected industrial action" during a formal enterprise bargaining period. This means protection for bosses against workers’ action during the life of Agreements which is usually a  period of three or four years. For those workers paid under an Award or on an ABN, there is no right to take any industrial action at any time at all!

If the ACTU wants to be taken seriously by workers as a class regarding its mantra of "big, important and permanent changes", there's no shortage of campaigns they should be cranking up!

US imperialism: can it manage its decline to stay on top?

Written by: Nick G on 13 December 2025

 

On December 4, 2025, the Trump administration published its 2025 National Security Strategy (NSS).

The paper should be read by all: it is a manageable 32 pages.

It is a revealing document.  Although it does not refer to the decline of the US as a global hegemon, it is clearly articulating what needs to be done for the US to strengthen its choke-hold on the peoples and nations of the world.

It opens with a statement by Trump that is every bit as boastful and dishonest as one might expect, bragging about having restored American strength at home and abroad and bringing "peace and stability to our world".

Before we descend into the textual details, it is important to understand the complexity of the competition within the US ruling class for control over the direction of US policy and for influence with Trump.

Deborah Veneziale, a journalist and researcher at the Tricontinental Institute for Social Research, wrote last March that Trump's core supporter group "encompasses several factions, sometimes overlapping, each with its own policies and contradictions."

"Three sections of capital are the main forces behind the far-right movement. Silicon Valley is now charging forward to become the leader of the military-industrial complex. Amazon, Palantir, Microsoft, Google, Anduril, SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic PBC are US military suppliers. Most view China as their major impediment and threat. Private equity now focuses on tech unicorns, more accurately described as tech monopolies and duopolies. They sit at the nexus of military, tech, and finance. The oil and gas section of capital needs to destroy the threat of renewables and maintain its monopoly position. Other sections of capital have, in the main, gone silent. There are 13 billionaires and some centimillionaires in the administration, many from the group of three above."

The contradictions of which she spoke were seen in Trump's attacks on people like his former chief strategist Steve Bannon and former national security advisor John Bolton, as well as his falling out with DOGE boss Elon Musk when the tariff war threatened the latter's investments in China.

Running through the NSS is a fascist ideological thread. It helps bind the sectional interests of US capital to Trump.

Thus, the NSS declares "we want the restoration and reinvigoration of American spiritual and cultural health, without which long-term security is impossible. We want an America that cherishes its past glories and its heroes, and that looks forward to a new golden age."

It is made clear that this resurgent US is based on white nationalism and Christian conservatism. It declares that "In countries throughout the world, mass migration has strained domestic resources, increased violence and other crime, weakened social cohesion, distorted labor markets, and undermined national security. The era of mass migration must end."

Trump went so far after the shooting of two National Guard troops in Washington on November 26 as to declare that he would ban all migration from Third World countries and dramatically increase the expulsion of those already in the US. 

By demonising migrants of colour and Muslims in this way, Trump is dog-whistling to white supremacists, and his call to "cherish past glories" has echoes of Nazi era "blood and honour". 

To this can be added Trump's self-indulgent gloating in his Introduction about having "got radical gender ideology and woke lunacy out of our Armed Forces", echoed in a broader context by the NSS's boast of "rooting out so-called "DEI" and other discriminatory and anti-competitive practices that degrade our institutions and hold us back". "DEI" is the acronym for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.

Many commentators have noted the references to Europe in the NSS. Most have likened it to Europe being "thrown under a bus". In order to manage its global decline, the US wants Europe to accept the reality of Russia's interests and to restrain the views that see Russia as an "existential threat". 

Europe should instead focus on its own restoration of former greatness. It faces "civilisational erasure" as a result of its migration policies and its "censorship of free speech and suppression of political opposition".  The latter reference is to attempts by some European governments to prevent the spread of far-right white supremacist views.  It also refers to the criticism that was levelled at Elon Musk for campaigning for the far-right Alternative for Germany, and the rejection of Vice-President JD Vance's speech at the 61st Munich Security Conference last February where he criticised European leaders for suppressing populist (ie far-right) speeches and clamping down on disinformation, which he rejected as a Soviet-era term.

As far as our region (the Indo-Pacific) is concerned, Australia is still to be pressured to increase its "defence" spending, US trade with China is to be "re-balanced", and war is to be prevented by "strong US deterrence". Much is made of defending the First Island Chain from China, but also of "restoring" a military balance favourable to the US which assumes that the current military balance is not particularly favourable to the US. This confirms various war games studies that show the US losing to China.

The key to the US preventing any further decline globally, is to be a re-focussing on the Western Hemisphere (North, Central and South America). 

The NSS proposes a "Trump Corollary" or a following-on from the Monroe Doctrine, according to which US capital sought to keep its European rivals from the 1820s to the 1900s from investing in or colonising any part of the Americas.

Trump has already foreshadowed his version of the Monroe Doctrine with his goal of making Canada a state of the Union, taking Greenland from Norway, and taking over Panama with its Canal. 

Despite the NSS's pious rhetoric about respect for the independence of other countries, and a "predisposition to non-interventionism", Trump's October authorisation of CIA covert operations inside Venezuela, his killing of over 80 suspected drug runners in their boats in international waters, and his piratical seizure of a Venezuelan oil tanker put the lie to that.

As a recalibration of US foreign policy, the NSS proceeds from the mistaken belief that the uneven development of inter-imperialist rivalries can somehow be managed by a US strategy based on an ideological appeal to European values and Western (white) identity.

The only certainty is the existence of contradiction in all things, and the struggle between opposing aspects of those contradictions.

Imperialism cannot be managed: it must be fought and overthrown if the civilisational values of the people are to be guaranteed.

China winning the economic war with USA

Written by: Ned K. on 11 December 2025

 

Donald Trump's Make America Great Again is largely about trying to keep its spot as the world's biggest imperialist power on the economic front as well as military front.

On the economic front it is being outpaced by its main rival China.

The Times newspaper reports that China's current trade surplus is now $ Aust 1.6 trillion in physical goods alone. 

Despite the tariffs imposed by the USA against China, China's exports have actually increased over the world as a whole.

Car exports from China to Europe, South America and Africa have increased compensating for the reduction of exports of cars from China to the USA.

French President Macron said that the significant increase in goods from China into Europe will have an impact on the value of the Euro.

In the year ending November 2025, China's exports increased by 5.9% while imports of goods (which would include Australia's iron ore) increased by 1.9%. 

Sales to the European Union rose by 14.1 in the month of November 2025 alone.

To compensate for its decline relative to China on the economic front, the USA is increasing its military buildup against China as it knows that if the USA loses control of Taiwan, not only will it be a big military blow, but it will further increase the gap between China and the USA as an economic imperialist power.

This is the economic context in which we see the Albanese Government kowtow to USA demands to extend and deepen Australia as a military base for US imperialism. At the same time, the US government demands another $1.5 billion from Australian taxpayers towards production of more nuclear submarines made in the USA.

To top it off, the US government demands that the HMAS Stirling Naval Base in WA be ready to have US nuclear powered and armed submarines rotated and serviced there in 2027.

The Albanese Government is leading Australia into the firing line when an increasingly desperate declining US power goes to war with China. 

The way out of this mess is for a broad mass movement to demand and fight for an independent Australia with removal of all foreign military forces and bases from Australia a first step. If the USA and China are at war, why should Australia be caught up in it?

AUKUS: “Full steam ahead” to nowhere?

 Written by: Nick G. on 11 December 2025

 

US con artists Pete Hegseth (Minister for War) and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, meeting with Australian puppets Penny Wong and Richard Marles, have reiterated Trump’s assurances that AUKUS is “full steam ahead”.

The comments were made at the annual AUSMIN meeting held in Washington on December 8.

The US has recently completed a review of the AUKUS arrangements, a copy of which has gone to their agent of influence Marles, but which has not been made public.

The review has apparently cleared the AUKUS arrangements as being consistent with US national interests, but we are no clearer about how the US intends to supply Australia with a couple of second-hand subs when it cannot yet guarantee a production rate that meets its own supply needs, let alone those of Australia.

Compounding the uncertainty about AUKUS was a statement on December 6 by a former Chief of the British Royal Navy that Britain was “no longer capable” of running a nuclear submarine programme after “catastrophic” failures had pushed it to the brink.

Rear Admiral Philip Mathias called for Britain to pull out of the multi-billion AUKUS defence deal with America and Australia to build 12 new nuclear submarines.

He said the AUKUS programme should be “cancelled now”.

Toadying up to their US masters, Australian politicians are set to send another gratis payment of $1 billion to try and pump-prime the ailing US submarine program. This is in addition to previous payments of $1.6 billion and is part of a promised $4.6 billion of non-refundable payments to US submarine builders.
If anything about AUKUS is “full steam ahead”, it is the handing over of Australian billions of dollars to the US with no guaranteed outcomes. 

Meanwhile, Australia is to have its own “review” of AUKUS, conducted by a committee of 7 politicians and 6 others.  As Dr Albert Palazzo, former director of war studies for the Australian Army, and adjunct professor at the University of New South Wales said on the 7am podcast, they will all be AUKUS loyalists and “it will not be a review committee but a rubber stamp committee.”

The demand for a genuine Australian independence is growing.

There is no place for the grovelling subservience of the US loyalists in Canberra.

Dangers in multinational corporations’ drive to establish Space-based data centres

 Written by: (Contributed) on 9 December 2025

 

The dividing line between legitimate intelligence-gathering and the accumulation of vast troves of personal data accessed through questionable means has always been blurred. The problem now, however, is set to escalate, if recently announced plans are ever implemented: western intelligence services, and their associates, will be able to operate in a totally non-regulated and unaccountable manner. Further considerations also arise about spurious tax-payer funded research programs designed, specifically, for other purposes and other agendas.

A seemingly innocent looking article in the Australian business press in November has thrown light upon defence and security planning to 'build gigantic data centres to run artificial-intelligence models among the stars'. (1) Those concerned are, presumably, planning satellite-systems specifically for the purpose. The use of AI is generally considered to also provide spooks with increased opportunities for data-mining and profiling of whole populations.

Declassified documents from the previous Cold War reveal a great deal about the power of the state to profile a general population. There is no reason to think the same procedures are not now taking place with the present Cold War. (2)

Australia, however, has some limited regulations to prevent cyber-crime, and also some accountability through declining freedom of information legislation. While problems arise, the regulations provide some restrictions to most data-mining practices, which can be very unpleasant, particularly when they occur under the guise of respectable correspondence with links which can be used to let unwanted intruders into computerised systems. Once they are in it is often difficult to get them to leave. Recent publicity about cyber-crime in Australia, for example, has noted the following problems have become increasingly commonplace: email compromise, ransom-ware extortion, remote access scams, phishing, cyber-enabled investment scams, identity theft and sextortion. (3)

Revelations that AI platforms can be hacked within minutes have provided a highly probable nightmare scenario, more likely sooner rather than later. (4)

Attention was drawn to some possible scenarios by a top cyber-security former advisor to the US National Security Agency (NSA) recently, when he acknowledged areas of concern included 'privileged communications with a lawyer or human resources regarding an employee matter or even a customer'. (5) Our civil liberties hang by a thread.

Revelations that Australian Super funds have already been hacked into have sent warning signals to the general public; while law enforcement agencies have issued official press releases, the matter has been given little publicity. (6)

The Australian cyber-crime legislation and the restrictions it presents, however, have been duly noted by the cyber-spooks; the article about data-centres in outer space, for example noted, 'there aren't those pesky regulations that executives like to complain about ... to meet data-centre needs'. (7) The law means nothing to such people. Making a fast buck is all that really matters. When their research is subsidised with government support they really do get enthusiastic. 

The article then noted the new Project Suncatcher aimed 'to scale machine learning in space. It plans to launch two satellites by early 2027 to test its hardware in orbit'. (8) Planning would appear well under-way to implement data-centres in outer space within a few years.

The procedure for circumventing civil liberties through advanced telecommunications is not, however, anything new. In fact, the US-led Echelon system became operational decades ago. While based in the NSA, at Fort Meade in Maryland, it effectively uses networks of computers which intercept telecommunications and relay the information to another Five Eyes partner to avoid detection and unwanted publicity.

The NSA, for example, can monitor all Australian telecommunications without a warrant to authorise data-mining and intelligence-gathering; Australians might think they are protected by Canberra, in reality, however, they have no control over US facilities and their satellite systems, even though they are routed through Pine Gap in Central Australia. (9)

Studies of the Echelon system have noted it has also 'created an awesome spying capacity for the USA, allowing it to monitor continuously most of the world's communications targeting civilian as well as military traffic'. (10) Based on data-collection activated by trigger words, vast troves of personal information are systematically gathered for analysis and profiling. Those pursuing the data-collection remain totally unaccountable.

The system has been systematically updated and is now beginning to experiment with AI.

And there is no jurisdiction; outer space is out-of-bounds for law enforcement agencies.

Just how much of the massive allocation of official funding for space research, from Australian tax-payers money, has been directed toward these projects designed specifically to systematically enhance class and state power remains a question of which there have been no answers. Nor are any expected. The proportion of the funding allocations specifically directed toward US defence and security considerations, likewise, will of course, be subject to official diplomatic silence. They have too much to hide from making open statements.

The 'accidents' and 'mistakes' which are highly likely to have serious implications for ordinary Australian people, are just waiting to happen. Many already occur through use of older technology and a multitude of problems pursued by those holding questionable agendas in decision-making positions. The recruitment to elite government departments is hardly representative of the population at large; it is filled largely by elite patronage systems to serve elites and those in control, who do not like opposition or those who ask questions and present a challenge. Government departments usually display a fortress mentality.

Peering through the seemingly opaque fortress mentality is difficult, but recent statements from Canberra have offered an indication that preparations are well under-way for the data-centres in outer space. A present review of the ADF, for example, has revealed senior commanders possessing 'complex new roles, including space and cyber positions'. (11)   

There are implications of those 'complex new roles'. Ever wondered, for example, about that job you were well qualified to hold which never materialised, or those strange coincidences of mistaken identity, or continually being accused to fictitious matters, often totally ridiculous although seemingly taken very seriously by supervisors and managers. They, and numerous other everyday examples, can be sensibly taken as symptomatic of identity theft and incorrect profiling techniques.

The problems are now set to escalate, silently and without opposition, in outer space. The shadowy Urban-Spacemen/women in control, however, will remain with feet firmly on the ground after out-sourcing any liability into orbit: 

We need an independent foreign policy!

1.     Tech moguls want to build data centres on the moon, Australian, 18 November 2025.
2.     See: The Army Foreign Intelligence Assistance Program,  Army Regulation 381-20, declassified 15 November 1993; and, Army's Project X had wider audience, The Washington Post, 6 March 1997; and, The CIA cleanses itself, The New York Times, 4 March 1997.
3.     'Most cyber-crime tracking ineffective', Australian, 18 November 2025.
4.     See: AI platforms 'hacked within minutes', Australian, 2 December 2025.
5.     Ibid.
6.     See: Super funds vulnerable as thieves still at large after $500k heist, Australian, 3 December 2025.
7.     Tech moguls, Australian, op.cit., 18 November 2025.
8.     Ibid.
9.     Echelon, Espionage, Spies and Secrets, Richard M. Bennett, (London, 2002), pp. 89-93; and, The Falcon and the Snowman, Robert Lindsay, (London, 1980).
10.   Ibid., Echelon, Espionage, Spies and Secrets.
11.   US subs based here 'could carry nukes', Australian, 4 December 2025.

Snap SA protest targets arms manufacturers

Written by: (Contributed) on 10 December 2025

 

On Monday December 8, a protest organised by Disrupt Arms Traders and supported by Qakers, IPAN-SA and Port Adelaide Community Opposing AUKUS (PACOA), targeted the offices of SA Defence and the SA Premier MalinAUKUS.

For a protest in working hours, called at short notice, and attended by mainly retired persons, it was quite effective.

The protest came days after the announcement by the SA Premier, the federal minister for Defence Industry Pat Conroy, and representatives of US arms manufacturer Lockheed Martin, that a new facility, built at Pt Wakefield, will be used for the assembly of missiles.

The facility was designed and built by Indigenous construction company Intract Australia in a move aimed to strengthen ties between First Peoples and the pro-US Australian military.

It will be owned by the Department of Defence and assemble parts imported from the US.

It will be the only facility in the world outside of the Lockheed Martin facility in Camden, Arkansas to produce the company’s Guided Missile Launch Rocket System (GMLRS) missiles.

It is yet another step in making the SA economy dependent on foreign armaments producers – a far cry from the days when SA manufacturers produced agricultural machinery, various white goods (fridges, washing machines etc), and cars.

At the offices of SA Defence, the protesters organised into two groups: one going inside to hand deliver a letter condemning the MalinAUKUS government, while the other stayed outside, chanting slogans and displaying banners to passer-byers and traffic.

They then re-assembled outside the electoral office of the SA Premier, displaying banners and chanting slogans in opposition to the drive to war. Two people went inside to speak to MalinAUKUS, but he was not there, so they had to content themselves with passing on messages through his staff.

Palestinian people's struggle not forgotten

 Written by: Ned K. on 7 December 2025

 

On Sunday 7 December about 1,000 people turned out to a rally and demonstration through the main street of Adelaide to continue their show of support for the Palestinian people.

The chants were ones of solidarity with Palestinians but also ones showing alarm and disgust at the on-going support for the Israeli apartheid state of Israel by the Australian Government and the so-called parliamentary "Opposition" Liberal and National Party Coalition.

There have been much bigger rallies in Adelaide in support of the Palestinian people's struggle for a free, independent Palestine. However, given the bombardment in the mainstream (false) news bulletins that Trump had ended the armed attacks of the Israel Defense Force against Palestinians, and given the time of the year approaching the holiday season, the turnout of 1,000 people was amazing.

Many young people and Palestinian Australians took part, undermining the false reports that the rallies for Palestinians are only attended by "hardline lefties" and students looking for something to protest about.

One of the speakers spoke for the first time. He was a Palestinian Australian engineer who migrated to Australia 30 years ago. He told the people that he had firsthand phone conversations with Palestinians living in Gaza. They told him not a day went by without Israeli soldiers killing civilians in Gaza, including children and that the situation was grim for Palestinians facing the cold winter. Some children were sleeping on damp ground inside makeshift tents, a far different reality from the Australian Prime Minister's $3,000 a night luxury lodge honeymoon suite in a luxury lodge on Kangaroo Island!

The rally and speeches ended with a chant of "We'll be back" meaning that people's support for Palestinians and demands on the Australian Government to take action against Israeli genocide will not go away as 2026 draws nearer.