Kerry Smith

Activists, students and academic staff met at the University of Sydney on April 29 to discuss the university’s recent attacks on those involved in a protest against a lecture given by an Israeli colonel on March 11.

The fight against the WA government’s widely unpopular decision to close a number of remote Aboriginal communities and force Aboriginal people off their land received a further boost this week with news that activists are set to converge on the state. The Grandmothers Against Removals, a group established to respond to the continued Stolen Generation enforced by the current and previous federal governments, will converge on Perth on May 26 to lend a hand in the fight against the closures.

As New South Wales is experiencing some of the strongest winds and rain in several years, the Redfern Tent Embassy is holding fast against strong winds and relentless rain. Redfern locals, and activists have banded together over the past few nights to keep the activist spot at the Block running. The embassy was erected in protest of the Aboriginal Housing Company’s plans to develop on the site , placing th cheap and affordable Aboriginal housing the Block has previously provided.

Police have cautioned the Knitting Nannas Against Gas that their actions could be illegal and warned them to stop protesting. For three years the group has met weekly outside the offices of MPs in NSW to protest against coal seam gas development in the state. The nannas say their knitting is a form of non-violent political activism to remind politicians they are being watched.

Two thousand people rallied in Federation Square on April 4 to oppose Reclaim Australia freely spreading racism and fascism on the streets of Melbourne.

Australian NGO Australia for Dolphins (AFD) has launched legal action in Switzerland against the World Association of Zoos and Aquariums (WAZA), based in Geneva.

The Tony Abbott government’s moves to introduce the Healthy Welfare Card – income management on steroids – indicate that it remains committed to a welfare system based on deterrence and punishment.

Associate Professor Jake Lynch, a member of Sydney Staff for Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS), was assaulted by an elderly Zionist woman during a demonstration in support of Palestine on March 11.

After nearly four months of protesting, students have helped defeat the Higher Education Reform Bill for the second time. However, Education Minister Christopher Pyne has promised that he “won’t give up”, indicating that the bill will be put before the Senate once again, with further concessions to crossbenchers. Members of the NSW Education Action Network (EAN), locked themselves onto the door of the office of the Vice Chancellor of the University of Sydney, Micheal Spence, on March 16 to pressure him to come out against the bill. As it stands, Spence still supports the bill.

Land rights activists gathered outside the New South Wales Parliament — on the land of the Gaddigal people — today to protest against the closure and removal of services of remote Western Australian Aboriginal communities.

Rough sleepers in Sydney are under attack from the NSW government. Many have had their possessions removed from their usual sleeping places at the same time as funding for refuges is being cut.

The Redfern Aboriginal Tent Embassy (RATE) is working hard to defend its right to stay at its current location following being served with an eviction notice from the Aboriginal Housing Company (AHC) on February 20. The eviction orders mobilised a number of supporters and media to defend the site during the past week. So far, AHC head Mick Mundine has not called in police to shut the embassy down.