Wrong Island

Writer, activist and Greens campaigner Joanna Horton joins us to talk all things Queensland election. We talk ALP, Twitter, class politics, electoralism, the pandemic, fri*ndlyj*rdies, mining royalties and how the Greens pulled off their big South Brisbane win.

 

Btw, check out some of Jo's excellent writing here: https://overland.org.au/author/joanna-horton/

Join Oscar and Freg as they dive into the history of Aussie rules, find opportunities for direct democracy on footy fan sites, and reveal whether your team is upper class or working class.

United Workers Union organisers Angus and Sukanya join us to talk about organising workers on the frontlines of Victoria's battle with the pandemic. We talk fighting casualisation, worker self-organisation, the labour movement's relationship with the state and possible openings for new forms of industrial action.

Sukanya's Jacobin interview with striking Spotless members here:

Melbourne’s Spotless Laundry Workers Went on Strike to Stop COVID-19

Ali Pennington in Jacobin on unions and Covid-19:

Australian Unions Can Win the Fight Against COVID-19 — And Against Neoliberalism

Reporting from Melbourne under dictator Dan (jks) - the team do a special lockdown advice episode addressing the quandaries, phantasies and conspiracy theories of Wrong Island listeners. With special guest Ramon Glazov.

The Wrong Island crew are joined by Promise Li, a socialist activist from Hong Kong and Los Angeles, a member of Lausan 流傘 Collective and the Democratic Socialists of America, and a former tenant organizer in Los Angeles Chinatown.

We talk national security laws, union organising, ethnonationalism and racism, transnational solidarity, Black Lives Matter and tankies.

The wrong island team talk with legendary Aboriginal activist Professor Gary Foley about Black Lives Matter, Black Power, histories of migrant and internationalist solidarity, throwing rotten cabbages at colonial statues and more.

Max, Sian and Freg talk to Alex North, the National Coordinator of the Australian Unemployed Workers Union. We chat about the woeful level of Newstart rates pre-coronavirus, the long history of unemployed workers movements in Australia and prospects for fighting back in this radically transformed situation.

Max, Sian and Freg talk with the brilliant lefty economist Alison Pennington and get her critical assessment of the Morrison government's business friendly political-economic response to the Corona crisis. We chat about the responses of the union movement and chart a tentative path forward.

In this episode of wrong island specially recorded for our overseas listeners we look at the Covid-19 crisis from a critical anti-racist perspective. Max and Sian interview Freg and Shan Windscript for a deep dive into China's virus response, Australia's coronanationalism and the long history of capitalism, colonialism and pandemics.

Recorded days ago but almost immediately outdated, we talk bushfires, covid-19, psychoanalysis and conspiracy theories.