Jenny McAllister is a NSW Labor Senator

Last week the Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA) issued its 2017-18 corporate plan. While this may not have been marked in everyone’s calendar, it makes for interesting reading, because (amongst other things) it sets out what the RBA thinks are the key risks for its monetary policy functions in the year ahead. 

Jack Whitney is a social and community worker, LGBT activist and Convenor of Young Labor Left 

Victorian Premier, Joan Kirner, once said:

“There is no such thing as being non-political. Just by making a decision to stay out of politics you are making the decision to allow others to shape politics and exert power over you. And if you are alienated from the current political system, then just by staying out of it you do nothing to change it, you simply entrench it.”

Daniel Hannington-Pinto is a PhD candidate at the University of Melbourne

For scholars and practitioners of trade unionism today, ‘revitalisation’ and ‘renewal’ are not so much buzzwords as guiding principles. 

Felicity Wade is the National Co-convenor of the Labor Environment Action Network

Over the last months, LEAN in Queensland has been campaigning - with the support of the Electrical Trades Union - for public investment and ownership of renewable energy. This campaign gathered huge support across the rank and file in the lead up to Queensland Conference in late July.

Dom Cradick is Vice President of the ACT Branch of the National Union of Students and Vice President of ANU Labor Left

There should be no doubt in anyone’s mind that the left is experiencing victories around the world which it has not experienced in decades. Whether these are symbolised in electoral gains or mass ideological shifts that change the nature of national discussions, the left is definitely back. There is now a mainstream debate about the impacts of neoliberal policies – something that until a few years ago was unimaginable. Despite all this global success, it presents an extreme identity crisis to the Australian left as they struggle to find a coherent direction that replicates the triumphs abroad.