Adam Bandt

The latest episode of the Green left Report has a focus on Aboriginal rights, with a feature interview with Chris Graham, managing editor of Tracker. The show also includes activist news on Aboriginal boxer Damien Hooper; refugee deportations; equal marriage rallies; Miranda Gibson's tree sit; the super trawler; Quebec's student uprising and from the Resistance conference, plus the return of Carlo Sands and his take on the ALP-Coalition refugee deal.

National round up from the August 11 equal marriage demonstrations marking the 8th anniversary of the Liberal-Labor ban on same-sex marriage. Footage includes Melbourne, Sydney, Perth, Hobart, Brisbane and Adelaide rallies, and features Greens MP Adam Bandt (Melbourne rally) , prominent gay rights campaigner Rodney Croomb (Hobart rally), SYdney MUA secretary Paul McAleer (Sydney rally) plus more.

Socialist Alliance National co-convener Peter Boyle spoke alongside NSW Greens MLC John Kaye at the opening session of Green Left Weekly’s Climate Change Social Change conference in Parramatta on June 30. His speech is below.

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I want to dedicate this little presentation to our Pakistani comrade Baba Jan — who has been imprisoned and tortured since August last year for standing up for the rights of his people from the Hunza Valley after their villages and farmlands were flooded in 2010.

A Senate committee recommended on June 25 that Australian parliament make marriage equality law after almost 60% of 46,000 submissions were in favour. A report tabled for the lower house on June 18 also had overwhelming support, but did not support or reject the two marriage equality bills before parliament.

The lower house committee received a record 276,000 responses during its inquiry, with more than two-thirds in support of gay marriage.

After Julian Assange sought asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy in London a rally was held in his home town Melbourne on July 1. Adam Bandt, the Deputy Leader of the Australian Greens and member of parliament spells out the Greens' perspective.

Suncorp Insurance has left residents of Emerald and Roma in the lurch after it announced it would refuse all new insurance policies to householders in the region. No other insurers offer policies in the area.

The small Queensland towns were hit hard by floods in recent years. Suncorp said on May 7 no new policies for home and contents insurance would be offered until flood mitigation works, including flood levees, are built around the two towns. Premiums for existing policy holders are due to rise dramatically.

There is a lot to celebrate in the legacy of retiring Greens leader Senator Bob Brown. Above all, he has been central to holding together the most successful new electoral party project in Australia that sits significantly to the left of the traditional parties of government, Labor and Liberal-National. The Greens won 1.7 million votes out of 13 million voters in the last federal election.

On November 18, the federal House of Representatives passed a motion calling on members to gauge their constituents’ views on marriage equality. The motion passed 73-72, opposed by the Liberal-National Coalition and independent MP Bob Katter. In his November 12 speech introducing the motion, Greens MP Adam Bandt explained that while his motion would not repeal discriminatory marriage laws, it would force parliament to recognise changing community views on the issue. His speech is abridged below.