Natalie Zirngast

  • Residents rally against traffic plans

    FOOTSCRAY — On November 21, more than 200 inner-west Melbourne residents rallied against state government plans to build a tunnel, freeway and truck route through residential areas.

  • Residents organise after chlorine fire

    A December 22 warehouse fire in a shared residential and industrial zone on the outskirts of the western Melbourne suburb of Tottenham has caused local residents to demand information and better emergency response procedures after a cloud of chlorine gas covered a substantial part of the suburb.

  • Snap action for choice

    MELBOURNE — Two dozen people attended an emergency action called by the Socialist Alliance on the steps of Parliament House here on February 14 to support removing control of RU486 from the federal health minister and returning it to the

  • Academic threatened with the sack

    RMIT University academic Robert Austin is facing the sack for rescheduling classes on August 10 so that students could attend a protest against the government’s “voluntary student unionism” (VSU) legislation.

  • Abortion laws need repealing!

    While ACT women can now access abortion without fear of criminal prosecution, elsewhere in Australia women accessing abortion face a web of legal and medical barriers. This is the situation around the country. New South Wales

  • RMIT forced to drop detention centre bid

    BY NATALIE ZIRNGAST & KYLIE MOON MELBOURNE &#151 In a victory for the staff and student campaign against RMIT's bid to provide education and recreational facilities to asylum seekers in detention, RMIT vice chancellor Ruth Dunkin announced on

  • TCFUA workers do it with Flair

    BY LINDA WALDRON& NATALIE ZIRNGAST MELBOURNE — Workers at Flair Menswear Preston, manufacturers of Hugo Boss fashions, held a victory barbecue on the morning of March 18, after a two-week picket. A planned solidarity sausage sizzle at the

  • Marysville forest blockade attacked

    MARYSVILLE, Victoria — On January 23, a forest blockade near Marysville was broken up by police. David Marsden, a spokesperson for the blockade organising group, Actively Conserving Marysville Environs (ACME), described the

  • Merri Creek green bans defended

    MELBOURNE — Protesters continue to picket the construction of a gas pipeline which will run through Merri Creek, despite an Industrial Relations Commission (IRC) ruling on September 20 overturning a green ban placed on the

  • Streets for people, not for cars

    "The car has made the big city uninhabitable ... Thus, since cars have killed the city, we need faster cars to escape on superhighways to suburbs that are even farther away. What an impeccable circular argument: give us more

  • Ruddock revives white Australia policy

    Proposed changes to immigration policy on asylum seekers, currently being championed by federal Coalition immigration minister Philip Ruddock, hark back to the racism of the white Australia policy. The white Australia policy

  • Big money and the media — opinions for hire

    The Australian Broadcasting Authority (ABA) inquiry into the "cash for comments" scandal involving 2UE's shock jocks John Laws and Alan Jones has the rest of the Australian media running scared. Alan Kohler commented in the