Sydney

This rally and march on October 31 to protest moves by the Sydney University administration to weaken the Koori Centre has already won some ground. According to Rachel Evans, after the protest Professor Shane Houston, Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Indigenous Strategy and Services), promised to return the support staff to the Koori Centre and ensure the Koori students' common room remains open. Video by Peter Boyle/Green Left TV.

Inside Sydney Town Hall on October 31, guarded by suited security, the bankers and biggest property owners were meeting in the elite Property Congress. Outside some 200 cleaners were the voices from below. Their families struggle to survive on wage rates of just $17 an hour while those at the Congress planned to spend more than a month's pay for a cleaner just on lunch today. Video by Peter Boyle/Green Left TV.

Students from the Koori Centre released the statement below on October 29.

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Join us in saving the Koori Centre.

The Koori Centre puts their collective view.

The Koori Centre is a space in the University of Sydney on the ground floor of the Old Teachers' College that allows Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students to gather in a community environment to study together.

Aboriginal students and their supporters rallied at the University of Sydney on October 31 to demand university management commit to maintaining the Koori Centre.

The Koori Centre provides a supportive place for Aboriginal students to work and study together. Students organised the protest in response to information that the centre was slated for closure.

The protesters marched from the Fischer library to the university administration building, where they handed over petitions calling for management to stop attacking the centre.

The University of Sydney ended last year with a $117 million surplus, but is moving close it's Koori Centre. The Koori Centre has supported Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander students at the university since 1989. It also coordinates the teaching of Indigenous Studies and provides a library, comfortable meeting space and computers.

The Centre provides support staff whose role was to help Aboriginal students through their degree. Instead of maintaining and expanding the Centre, student says the university is seeking to close it.

The NSW Liberal government is planning to put vital community services on the chopping block.

An October 12 article titled “Child sex assault services on hit-list” by the Sydney Morning Herald’s Josephine Tovey said a “leaked departmental briefing note” showed “funding for child sexual assault services and the child protection helpline are on a hit-list as part of cuts of almost half a billion dollars over the next four years to community services in NSW”.

Reclaim the Night Sydney released the statement below on October 24.

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Reclaim The Night, an annual worldwide campaign against all forms of violence against women, will hold its annual march this Sunday October 28 at Hyde Park at 7pm.

“In the wake of the Jill Meagher case, it is more important than ever that we highlight the effect violence against women has on our community,” Reclaim the Night spokeswoman Annabel Osborn said.

Speakers at the rally this year include:

Sydney Stop CSG organised a human sign action at Sydney Park, St Peters, as its part of an Australia-wide week of action on this issue. A thousand people participated in this successful event.

Independent journalist, political activist and author Antony Loewenstein discusses his new book After Zionism, at Sydney's Gleebooks on October 2. In discussion with Peter Manning and the audience, Loewenstein covers questions of zionism, one or two state solutions, the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign, Israel as an apartheid state, debates in Palestine, Israel and beyond, the Gaza flotillas, and much more.

A crowd of up to 200 protesters met in support of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange at the “Rally for Assange and WikiLeaks: Don’t Shoot the Messenger” at Sydney Town Hall on October 6.

As well as an end to the persecution of Assange, protesters called for the withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan. This year marks 11 years since the US-led invasion and occupation of the nation.

Although drab weather did deter some, the strength of the crowd was still felt through the bellowing of a “WikiLeaks ballad”, which captured the attention of many passersby.