Kevin Rudd has made his intentions clear: His government would ban strikes "outside the bargaining period", strike pay and pattern (industry-wide) bargaining. This would mean a continuation of anti-strike provisions in the Work Choices legislation.

The budget was hailed by the media as the "battlers' budget", with tax cuts supposedly aimed at lower to middle-income workers, a "future fund" for education and increased childcare rebates for working mothers. But the idea that this was a battlers' budget is a joke.

ACTIVISTS ARE preparing a campaign to stop a massive new coal mine at Anvil Hill, in the remnant forest of the NSW Upper Hunter region.

Middle East specialist Sara Poya and Sydney University Student Representative Council Women's Officer Sara Haghdoosti spoke at a recent campus meeting on the struggle for women's rights in the Middle East and Afghanistan. Socialist Worker reprints edited versions of their speeches.

PRIVATISATION FOR profit and privilege-that's the Liberal strategy for higher education revealed in Peter Costello's budget. It comes on the back of two decades of a neo-liberal rampage against our universities. Australia has gone from a free education system to the most expensive in the industrialised world.

DON'T EXPECT the university vice-chancellors to stand up for publicly-funded education. The "sandstones"-Melbourne, Sydney, UWA and UQ-expect to get richly rewarded as the sector goes private.

"THIS GOVERNMENT is only interested in papering over the cracks of childcare for the next few weeks and months as they hunt for every vote they can get to hold onto power," said Jeff Lawrence, national secretary of the childcare workers' union (LHMU), in response to the Liberals' childcare policy announced in the federal budget.

LA TROBE University political scientist Robert Manne has attacked Sydney University Vice-Chancellor Gavin Brown for his backing of the new US Studies Centre.

"The right to collectively organise pay and conditions of work is a basic civil right. When you say to people, 'You can't get together at work, you can't organise your conditions', you're back to the earlier part of the industrial revolution. And that's where Howard belongs. You know, he's a pre-Copernican obscurantist."

THE HOWARD government has wasted $6.6 billion on a lemon-the Super Hornet fighter jet-as part of its recent budget. According to Peter Criss, former Air Commander of Australia, "I have trouble with the word 'super' and 'hornet'. Perhaps I would call it super-dog or super-bug, but certainly not a Super Hornet."

TWENTY-TWO billion dollars-That's how much the Liberals have set aside for the military over the next 12 months. That's nearly 10 per cent of all government spending, representing a 150 per cent rise in the military coffers since 1996.

ANTI-WAR ACTIVISTS are planning for demonstrations against joint US-Australian "war games" off the coast of Queensland on June 21-25. Operation Talisman Sabre 2007 will be the biggest simulated War Games operation to take place on Australian shores.

Never mind the Super-Dog-here's how $6.6 billion could be spent.

How Bush's $200 billion F-35 order could be spent each year.

THE LIBERALS won't win votes with bribes-that's the response of workers across the country to the federal budget.

This month's letters from SW readers…

IGNORE THE scare-mongering by business and media over Labor's IR agenda. In practice, Labor's policy-"Forward with Fairness"-has been carefully crafted to give unions and workers the minimum to keep them onside, while preserving key gains by employers over two decades.

BIG BUSINESS'S assault on Labor's IR policy was led by BHP Billiton who described it as "a retrograde step that will only contribute to inflexibility for employers and employees". But no one should expect a company like BHP to support fairness. Just look at their record.

KEVIN RUDD has been welcomed as a saviour by many in the Labor Party and the union movement. This is understandable given his huge lead over Howard in the polls. But what does he really stand for?

THE US might be promising reconciliation in Iraq-but behind the scenes, it is playing the old imperialist game of divide-and-conquer.

ON THE fourth anniversary of his "mission accomplished" speech, Bush used his veto powers to block the Democrat's war appropriation bill that includes a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq.

A POLL last week in Britain's Independent showed that 69 per cent thought that Tony Blair would be remembered for the war in Iraq.

NICOLAS SARKOZY'S victory in the recent French presidential election was greeted positively by business and political leaders who see it as an opportunity for France to "modernise" and to unblock the process of neo-liberal reform in the European Union (EU), which has stalled since France voted against the EU constitution in the 2005 referendum.

"THIS IS an event that will bring disruption to the daily lives of hundreds of thousands of Sydneysiders with very little benefit to them." No, these weren't the words of anti-war activists - it was NSW deputy premier John Watkins.

The following motion was recently passed by the Canterbury-Bankstown branch of the NSW Teachers Federation…

ACTIVISTS ARE opposing John Howard's plans for a domestic nuclear energy industry-and Labor's decision to expand the uranium export industry that underpins it.

Paul Wolfowitz's tenure as President of the World Bank is over. A 600-page internal report has found him guilty of a conflict of interest and of breaching bank rules.

WHILE IMMIGRATION and refugees haven't been front page news, a recent visit by Minister Kevin Andrews to Indonesia effectively spread the failed "Pacific Solution" to Southeast Asia, and cemented "border protection" as a central pillar of the Liberal government's xenophobic agenda.

THE CAMPAIGN to defend 32 activists facing charges arising from the anti-G20 protests is gathering momentum with a series of successful public events.

As Socialist Worker goes to press, David Hicks was due to arrive back in Australia within days. A specially chartered plane was to fly him from Guantanamo Bay to Adelaide's Yatala prison.

JOHN HOWARD and George Bush tell us that the occupation of Afghanistan is bringing stability and prosperity to the region. But the experience across the border in Pakistan shows how big a lie this is.

On April 19 over 3000 Pakistani lawyers protested against the sacking of the Supreme Court chief justice, writes Haroon Khalid

MAY MARKS 70 years since the most important battle of the Spanish Civil War. Studying the history of the Civil War is important for any person concerned about the struggle for democratic rights today.

TODAY IS Zimbabwe's Independence Day. It is worth noting that the Australian worker's movement played a big role in supporting a liberation movement that removed one of the last outposts of colonialism in Africa.

THIS ABC mini-series screened on May 13-14, stars Colin Friels as MUA official John Coombs, Jack Thompson as wharfie Tony Tully, Daniel Frederikson as Greg Combet, and Geoff Morrell as Patrick Stevedores boss Chris Corrigan.

"He doesn't seem the sort of bloke we want in this country." Which undesirable is the department of immigration talking about now? Is it US Vice-President Dick Cheney?

"NO JOBS on a dead planet" is a slogan John Howard can't understand. His argument that mining jobs are more important than global warming just seems silly.

VICTORIAN UNIONS are organising to defend the right to strike, following Kevin Rudd's decision to include secret ballot provisions in Labor's industrial relations policy.

WORKERS AT Vopak, a bulk liquids handling dock at Port Botany, Sydney, hosted 80 MUA members in a solidarity meeting on April 30.