Jim McIlroy

One hundred people rallied in Brisbane Square on May 14 to commemorate Al Nakba —— “the catastrophe”. Al Nakba took place on May 15, 1948, when Israeli forces drove hundreds of thousands of Palestinian civilians out of their lands, and consolidated the Jewish state.

The number of cars using Brisbane’s first road tunnel, which opened on March 18, has remained far below the target projected by the Brisbane City Council. After an initial toll-free period, when 65,000 vehicles used the tunnel daily, the usage plunged to a daily average of only 21,178 vehicles after a discounted toll was introduced. The drop in patronage has forced the tunnel operators, River City Motorways, to extend the discounted toll period by another seven weeks in an attempt to boost vehicle numbers.

Senior Queensland police officers have been accused of using improper methods to cover up for fellow police officers when investigating the death of 36-year-old Palm Island man Mulrunji Doomadgee in 2004. A coroner has described Doomadgee’s November 2004 arrest for intoxication as “not an appropriate exercise of police discretion”. Within an hour of the arrest by Senior Sergeant Chris Hurley, Doomadgee had died from blows to his body which almost split his liver in two.

Queensland ALP deputy premier Paul Lucas and other ALP leaders faced hostile chants and heckling from workers at the annual Labour Day march in Brisbane on May 3. The main message from the union contingents, numbering 10,000, was opposition to the sale of state assets — including railways, ports, forests and motorways — by the Bligh Labor government. Premier Anna Bligh herself was overseas to promote the sell-off to North American investors.

“Stop trampling rights to win votes”; “Stop breaking laws to win votes”; “Stop racist policy risking lives” and “Stop the freeze on asylum seekers' rights” were key slogans at a rally organised by Amnesty International and other human rights organisations on May 8, as part of a national day of action. The 300 protesters heard from Chaman Shah Nasiri, a Hazara refugee from Afghanistan who had suffered in the now-closed Nauru detention camp under previous Coalition prime minister John Howard's Pacific Solution policy.

The Queensland Teachers Union (QTU) remains defiant about its ban on conducting the NAPLAN national schools test, despite the state Labor government forcing it to go before the Queensland Industrial Relations Commission (QIRC), said the April 29 Courier-Mail. The QIRC hearing took place on April 30, after the QTU refused to abide by a direction from the commission, a week earlier, to lift its boycott of administering the tests.

BRISBANE — Fifty people gathered in Brisbane Square on April 16 to speak up for refugee rights. The action was sponsored by the Refugee Action Collective, and demands include that the government immediately resume processing Afghan and Sri Lankan asylum claims and respect its international obligations.

“Towards socialism and sustainability” was the theme of the Queensland Socialist Alliance (SA) state conference held at the Activist Centre on April 17. About 40 people gathered to discuss proposals for building the socialist project in 2010.

BRISBANE — The Climate Summit 2010, held in Canberra in March, “provided a launching pad for the building of a grassroots, activist climate action movement around the country”, Ewan Saunders, Community Climate Network Queensland activist and Socialist Alliance candidate for the federal seat of Brisbane, told about 100 people at an April 14 CCNQ forum.

BRISBANE — “We don’t need nuclear power”, Sam Watson, Aboriginal community leader and Socialist Alliance Senate candidate, told a picket against the proposed nuclear waste dump at Muckaty in the Northern Territory, held outside PM Kevin Rudd’s electorate office in Norman Park on April 12.

The annual Palm Sunday peace rally took place in Brisbane on March 28, sponsored by the Rally for Peace and Nuclear Disarmament. The main themes of the rally were: Nuclear-free Australia; oppose climate change; no to uranium weapons; and safe havens for refugees.

“Save Straddie: National park, not mining”, was the main banner displayed outside the Queensland Supreme Court building on March 26, as Friends of Stradbroke Island, other conservation organisations and Indigenous residents of the island protested against moves to establish an industry to quarry and remove sand from the island.