Perth Indymedia

Kristin O'Connell, spokesperson for the Australian Unemployed Workers Union, talks to Alex Whisson about the Morrison government's phasing out of the coronavirus supplement to the JobSeeker payment, and the need for a substantial increase to the allowance.

In light of Facebook's ban on news media in Australia we speak to author, editor and academic Timothy Erik Strom about the implications of Platform/Surveillance capitalism on our political and social economies.

You can read some of Timothy's work via Arena, which he also edits: www.arena.org.au

In June 2019, the eyes of the world turned to Hong Kong, as a mass protest movement erupted in defiance of Beijing. Initially catalysed by the introduction of an extradition bill into the Hong Kong Legislative Council, the movement soon came to embrace a set of much wider demands. Some on the left quickly dismissed it as a creature of Western interests, while others recognised the importance of solidarity with a pro-democracy movement. To get to the truth of what the Hong Kong protests were about, and what the situation is now, Alex Whisson spoke to writer and activist Au Loong Yu.

As protests erupt throughout Myanmar in response to the attempted military coup, we speak to local Burmese community member and activist Khin Myo Myint.

We speak to public housing advocate Jesse Noakes about the eviction of the tent city in Fremantle and the ongoing homelessness crisis in WA.

We speak to Jonny Windus, an organiser at the Fremantle Tent City that was dismantled by the state government over the weekend.

We speak to Jess Beckerling from the Western Australian Forest Alliance about a recent action at Simcoa by Nannas For Native Forests and the ongoing issue of native logging in WA.

We speak to writer and comedian Patrick Marlborough about their Fringe show On Fringe and about the complex relationship between the big polluters such as Woodside and the arts.

The struggle for self-determination and independence in West Papua has ramped up in recent weeks and months. With calls for a general strike by West Papuan activists, solidarity protests in Indonesia and actions here in Australia, all amid the heightened state repression of West Papuans by Indonesian authorities. We speak to Lewis Prai Wellip, a West Papuan activist based in Melbourne.

In the annals of working class history in this country, the Jobs for Women campaign has, quite rightly, gone down as the stuff of legend.

Beginning in 1980, and centred around the right of women to work at the Port Kembla steelworks in Wollongong, owned and operated at the time by Australian Iron & Steel, a subsidiary of BHP, the bitter struggle would carry on throughout the entire decade of the 1980's, eventually ending in a crucial, historic victory for working class women, not only in the steel industry, but throughout the country.

Robynne Murphy is an activist, filmmaker, and retired steelworker. She was central to organising the Jobs for Women campaign, and is the director of Women of Steel, a documentary film chronicling this important struggle, one from which younger activists can learn a great deal.