Jim McIlroy

Sydney City Council officers, with the support of police, moved to close down the Occupy Sydney camp in Martin Place on the night of July 4. This follows a resolution passed by the council to evict the camp recently. Occupy Sydney participant Lance told Green Left Weekly that the council took away two truckloads of Occupy material that evening, most of which was to support the homeless community of the city, as well as political banners.

About 50 people attended a forum on the Labor government's oppressive "Pacific solution" refugee policy at the Teachers Federation building in Sydney on July 1. Organised by the Refugee Action Coalition, the forum condemned "the logic of Labor's race to the bottom on refugee policy with [Liberal leader] Tony Abbott”. “Under the government's 'no advantage' measures, hundreds of asylum seekers have been sent to Nauru and Manus Island as part of the revamped Pacific Solution," the meeting said.

The new changes to NSW planning laws proposed by the Barry O'Farrell Liberal government involve "the most significant backward step in public participation and environment protection in more than a generation. They are significantly worse than Part 3A," James Ryan from the Nature Conservation Council told a public forum of about 60 people at Redfern Town Hall on May 27. Part 3A was the infamous law under which the previous Labor state government could override community and environmental concerns in making planning decisions in the interests of big developers.

Hundreds of members of the Turkish community rallied in central Sydney on June 1 to protest the Turkish government's crackdown on peaceful protesters in Istanbul over recent days.

As part of its federal election campaign this year, the Socialist Alliance is calling for the mining industry, the big banks and the energy companies to be put back into public hands, so that they can be run in a way that respects the environment and social justice. But several other important industries should also be in line for nationalisation under workers' and community control in future.

About 100 people packed into the Gaelic Club on May 10 for the Politics in the Pub forum: "Venezuela — A New Democracy or a Command Capitalist State?" Speakers were Latin America’s Turbulent Transitions co-author Federico Fuentes and Latin American studies post-graduate Rodrigo Acuna. The speakers rejected the "Command Capitalist State" definition of Venezuela today.

About 20 people gathered outside the Department of Immigration offices in Sydney on May 10 to demand freedom for a Tamil refugee named Ranjini and freedom for all refugees with negative ASIO assessments. Another protest was held outside Villawood detention centre on the same day. A statement by the Refugee Action Collective said: "The Sydney actions are part of national protests to coincide with the one-year anniversary of the detention of Ranjini and her two children in Melbourne. Ranjini has since had her third child, Paari, born in detention in January 2013.

"Why are Sri Lankan Tamils seeking refuge in Australia? And why are we keeping them locked up?" was the theme of a forum on May 8, sponsored by the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies (CPCS) and the Sydney Peace Foundation. About 30 people attended the meeting held at the University of Sydney. Brami Jegan from the Sri Lanka Human Rights Project told the audience that up to 100,000 Tamils were massacred by the Sri Lankan military at the end of the 28-year civil war between the Sri Lankan government and the Tamil Tiger guerrilla forces in 2009.

About 40 protesters rallied outside the University of New South Wales main library on April 30 to oppose the planned opening of a Max Brenner chocolate store on campus, and call for UNSW to adopt the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israeli apartheid.

About 200 people rallied outside NSW government offices on May 3 to protest the decision of the NSW Liberal government to defund the Welfare Rights Centre (WRC), an advice and advocacy service for pensioners, the unemployed and other welfare recipients. The $400,000 cut is 40% of the WRC funding (the rest coming from the federal government) and is seen as an attempt to silence a voice for the poorest sector of society. This follows federal Labor government cuts to sole parent pensions, a step which plunged thousands more women under the poverty line.

An emergency speak-out: "Hands off Venezuela" was called by the Australia-Venezuela Solidarity Network (AVSN) at Sydney Town Hall on April 19. Almost 100 people attended the rally, plus a small counter-protest of about a dozen Venezuelan supporters of the right-wing opposition. The rally called for "an immediate end to the opposition-initiated violence [in Venezuela], and to demand that the US and Australian governments come out and recognise [Nicolas Maduro] as Venezuela's head of state."

The SEARCH foundation held a conference called “Secure Jobs in a Green Future: Australian Left Renewal Conference”, on April 6-7. It featured international guest Costas Isychos, a member of the Greek left party SYRIZA and head of the party’s external and defence policy.