Resistance!

The ALP is the party for ordinary Australians, right?

Resistance members will often talk about the importance of political movements being independent of political parties, but what does this mean for the ALP?

Isn’t the ALP Australia’s party of progress? And surely they are better then the Tories? Isn’t it our party?

Well, it is a party that’s designed for progressives, unionists and activists, but that doesn’t mean that it's ours. If you look at its history, the ALP has attracted progressive people but rarely helped create change.

If you were sexually assaulted by a member of your school sporting team, would you want to cheer for them when they played? Would you expect your school to uphold your rights over those of your attacker? If the school failed to uphold your rights, would you then expect the courts to find in your favour if you sued?

The answers to these questions should be obvious, but this is not an exercise in rhetorical questioning.

There is no denying it, depression is on the rise across the world. The World Health Organisation says depression will be the second largest contributor to the global burden of disease by 2020. For young people this is already the case. Depression leads to about 850,000 deaths every year.

But why is depression on the rise? In some instances it is a product of more readily available methods of diagnosis and public understanding of the disorder. But increases in suicide rates and other indicators suggest that the increase in depression is well beyond this statistical readjustment.

The family of Rex Bellotti Junior have called a rally for July 23 in Albany where Aboriginal youth Bellotti, then 15 years old, was run over by police driving on the wrong side of the road in March 2009.

The family organised the protest to call for a public inquiry into alleged police misconduct and the failure of the state government and the Western Australian police to provide adequate compensation and support for Bellotti and his family. State politicians and legal bodies have left the family to fend for themselves.

The Perth community has witnessed in past weeks an inspiring mobilisation of people affected by homelessness or as they like to be called, the “streeties”.

It started as a small rally to protest against the treatment of those living on the streets during the Commonwealth Heads Of Government Meeting (CHOGM), and against insensitive comments made by Liberal police minister Rob Johnson. Now it has broadened to challenge the government on homelessness.

Resistance members in Perth took part in a protest outside the office of Melissa Parke organised by the Refugee Rights Action Network on July 1 to demand an end to mandatory detention and the immediate release of 16-year-old Indonesian Hadi Kurniawan from the Hakea adult prison.

Resistance organised a visit to Villawood detention centre on July 3. Twenty people came to show solidarity with the asylum seekers inside.

We visited four different sections that house families and single people from many countries including Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Iran and Iraq.

I spoke with a family who live in Villawood with their three young children. The youngest two had never known life outside detention.

They live in their own small house, and once a week a member of the family is allowed to go shopping, with guards, so the family can cook for themselves.

The June 10 Sydney Morning Herald said that a study released by the National Union of Students (NUS) that day indicated a “surprisingly high proportion of female university students have been sexually assaulted, stalked or sexually harassed”.

The article mentioned an Australian Defence Force Academy student who, after being raped, had experienced attitudes of “just get over it” from fellow students — a culture of silence surrounds such attacks.

In the first week of June, the Baillieu state government introduced new laws that give Victorian police the power to issue on-the-spot fines of up to $240 for using offensive language.

Victorian police already had the power to charge people with indecent language offences, but they had to do this through the court system. This meant that people had the opportunity to defend their behaviour through the judicial system and were more likely to get a fair hearing.

Sydney hip hop act the Herd, famous for politically conscious songs like “77%” and “Burn Down the Parliament”, has gone on strike, refusing to play at a festival sponsored by the coal industry.Sydney hip hop act the Herd, famous for politically conscious songs like "77%" and "Burn Down the Parliament", has gone on strike, refusing to play at a festival sponsored by the coal industry.