Jim McIlroy

Members of the Stolen Wages Working Group (SWWG) walked out of a meeting with Queensland Indigenous affairs minister Lindy Nelson-Carr on March 25 when they were told that $21.2 million in promised extra compensation payments would be redirected to

“On top of the Israeli and US siege of Gaza and the illegal collective punishment of 1.5 million Palestinians, in the last two years, 2000 Palestinians have been killed and thousands more wounded”, Kim Bullimore, who spent eight months living in the occupied West Bank, told a public forum at the Communications Electrical and Plumbing Union on March 10. The forum, organised by the International Women’s Day Collective and endorsed by the Stop the War Collective and Fair Go for Palestine, attracted 40 people.

“For a council that won’t cost us the Earth”, was the slogan for the campaign for the Brisbane City Council by David White, a member of the Socialist Alliance. The council held elections on March 15.

While the Venezuelan government of socialist President Hugo Chavez has made headlines for its battle with ExxonMobil, Venezuela is not the only country under attack by the world’s largest oil corporation for refusing to submit to its dictates.

Lawyers and civil libertarians have slammed Australian Federal Police Commissioner Mick Keelty after he called for a media black-out on coverage of cases under the federal government’s “anti-terrorism” laws until all legal avenues have been exhausted.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez received widespread popular acclaim when he toured the Central American countries of Guatemala and Honduras in mid-January, Rafael Pacheco, from Australian Solidarity with Latin America and the Committee in Support of the FMLN in Brisbane, told a meeting on January 28. The meeting was hosted by the Australia-Venezuela Solidarity Network.

Workers at the Foster’s brewery at Yatala, south of Brisbane, have stepped up their campaign for a union agreement, following a victory over the latest attempt by the company’s management to impose a non-union agreement on the workforce at the plant.

Forty years ago, the Tet Offensive changed the course of the Vietnam War and world history. On January 31, 1968, fighters of the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) and the National Liberation Front of South Vietnam (NLF) — known dismissively as the “Vietcong” — launched an all-out assault on cities and towns throughout US-occupied South Vietnam, catching the US and its puppet regime completely by surprise, and stunning the world with their courage and audacity.

On January 8, protesters took to piers around Port Philip Bay as part of the campaign against the planned dredging of the bay — scheduled to begin in the coming weeks. The Port of Melbourne Corporation intends to dredge an underwater rock wall containing unique sea life.

Long-time environmental campaigner David White has been preselected by the Socialist Alliance to contest the inner-city Central Ward in the March 15 Brisbane City Council elections.

“In the new year, the progressive community needs to take up the cudgels for all those who continue to suffer human rights abuses in this country”, Sam Watson, Murri activist and Socialist Alliance Senate candidate in the recent federal elections, told a speak-out for International Human Rights Day on December 7. He condemned the attacks on Aboriginal rights inherent in the former Howard government’s invasion of the Northern Territory, and the infringement of civil liberties represented by the mandatory detention of refugees and the “anti-terror” laws.

Workers at the Foster’s brewery at Yatala, south of Brisbane, have stepped up their campaign for a union agreement, following a victory over the latest attempt by the company’s management to impose a non-union agreement on the work force at the plant. Scott Wilson, Electrical Trades Union (ETU) organiser for the site, told Green Left Weekly that the Yatala workers had voted by 154 to 120 to reject management’s third offer of a non-union agreement, which provides wages and conditions significantly below those of workers at other breweries in southern states.