On August 17, activists organising the September 5 national student walkout against US President George Bushs visit to Sydney launched a Stop Bush Bag containing items to help publicise the student strike.
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In a new initiative for a political party in Australia, the Socialist Alliance is using the web to open up the organisation of its federal election campaign. Mainstream parties have generated a lot of media attention with their self-promotion on YouTube, MySpace and Facebook, but the alliance is enabling open access to the way its campaign is run.
Thousands of government supporters converged on Venezuelas National Assembly, carrying banners reading Yes to the reform, on the path to 21st Century Socialism, the BBCs website reported on August 16, as Venezuelas President Hugo Chavez announced proposed constitutional reforms to provide a legal framework for the increasingly radical direction of the revolutionary process led by his government. This process aims to create a system of popular power and socialism.
A conference organised by Indonesian Solidarity, in association with the University of Sydney Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies West Papua Project, was held on August 9-10, gathering West Papuan government and NGO representatives, academics and international solidarity activists to discuss the current obstacles to justice and prosperity faced by West Papua.
“Australia has failed to implement the human right to adequate housing”, concluded a report to the United Nations Human Rights Council addressing adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living.
Around 50 activists gathered on August 11 in the Maritime Union of Australia offices to nominate Socialist Alliance Senate candidates in WA and plan campaigns.
On August 14, Alex Salmond, Scotland’s first minister and leader of the Scottish National Party (SNP), revealed his minority government’s plans for a referendum on Scottish independence.
On August 15, 150 of Western Australias lowest-paid workers took strike action and rallied in a campaign to win better wages. Staff at the Royal Perth Hospital, including orderlies and kitchen staff, are seeking a $3 increase to their $16 hourly wage.
The August 8 announcement of the Reserve Bank board’s decision to raise official interest rates by a further 0.25% focused renewed media attention on the non-affordability of housing. The interest rate rise — the fifth since the 2004 election and the ninth since 2002 — increased mortgage repayments for home owners with average mortgages by $50 a week, placing extra pressure on already stretched budgets.
The only way this war will end is if we end it this was the central point of a talk by Matt Howard to an audience of around 100 people at the University of Sydney on August 14. Howard, a former soldier and a member of the US-based group Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW), was in Sydney as part of a national speaking tour.
The Howard governments legislation for its emergency military-police intervention into Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory was rushed through the House of Representatives on August 7. MHRs were given less than 24 hours to read the 500-odd pages of legislation before being asked to vote on it.
Three years on from the passage of the federal ban on same-sex marriage, people have not given up on fighting back. Around 3000 people protested nationwide during an August 12 national day of action calling for same-sex marriage rights, civil unions and adoption rights.
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