New Zealand resettles more refugees
On January 27, the New Zealand government announced that it would resettle on humanitarian grounds 20 asylum seekers held in the Australian-funded detention centre on Nauru.
The asylum seekers have not been assessed as refugees, but were referred to New Zealand by the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) after being identified as particularly vulnerable and in need of permanent protection.
They include three men - a Palestinian, a Pakistani and an Afghan - and six Iraqi women and their children. The women have been separated by the Australian government from their husbands, who are in Australia on temporary visas. New Zealand immigration minister Helen Dalziel said the men would be able to join their families in New Zealand.
Dalziel has carefully avoided criticism of Australian government policy. She also downplayed the generosity of the decision, explaining that the 20 would be counted in the existing refugee quota of 750 per year.
Of the 266 asylum seekers who remain trapped on Nauru, 22 Afghans are having their cases reassessed by the UNHCR as a result of the month-long hunger strike by 40 asylum seekers in December and the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan.
The remaining asylum seekers are Australia's responsibility and will, according to promises made by the Australian government at the end of the hunger strike, also have their cases reassessed.
Sarah Stephen
Protest against live sheep exports
HOBART - On January 31, 65 protesters gathered outside Tasmania's Parliament House to voice opposition to the continued export of live sheep from Australia. Tasmania has exported 853,943 live sheep since 1998. Of these, 250,000 went to foreign processors.
Against Animal Cruelty Tasmania co-ordinator Yvette Watt told the protesters the state government was taking a "passive role" on the issue. Australasian Meat Industry Employees Union state secretary Grant Courtney shared Watt's frustration, saying he was disappointed Premier Jim Bacon's Labor government would not take a firm stand.
"It would be one of the best political moves Bacon's government could make", he said. "The only thing stopping them from taking that stand is they don't want to be seen supporting a Greens' motion."
Greens MP Kim Booth said the live export trade undermined job security for Tasmanian meat workers. "This barbaric trade must stop and we have yet to hear any coherent argument for why it cannot stop", he said.
Defenders of the trade claim its cessation would put thousands of people out of work. "The truth of the matter is, the live animal export trade has had a direct effect on the closures of more than 70 processing plants nationally", said Courtney. "As a consequence of these closures, over 20,000 direct jobs have been lost in the meat industry alone and 10,000 jobs lost in support industries over the last 20 years."
Joseph Vince
& Duncan Meerding
Women to rally against war, racism and sexism
MELBOURNE- The International Women's Day rally organising collective has set a theme of "Women against war, racism and sexism". The rally will demand "jobs, education, childcare, reproductive rights and health, not warfare".
Members of the Socialist Alliance, Worker Communist Party of Iraq, Turkish-Kurdish Human Rights Association and Radical Women, as well as women's officers from RMIT have been involved in the collective.
The collective meets on Monday evenings at 6.30pm in the Evett Room at Trades Hall.
Zoe Kenny
Racist attacks on the rise
PERTH - Two men were formally charged on February 7 over the firebombings of three Chinese restaurants in the southern suburbs of Willetton, Spearwood and Yangebup on February 1. Swastikas were painted on the buildings. Damage was estimated at more than $100,000.
WA police commissioner Barry Matthews said it was unlikely that the men are members of an organisation.
Last year, the owner of the Willetton restaurant reported to police that racist slogans had been painted on his building. Nothing was done, he said.
The mainstream media had noted that the attacks are similar to firebombings of Chinese restaurants in the 1980. Well known neo-Nazi Jack van Tongeren, who was a leader of the Australian Nationalist Movement (ANM) at the time, was jailed for those attacks and has recently been released.
Van Tongeren is associated with a new racist group, the Australian Nationalist Workers Union (ANWU). The group denies any involvement, and the police have no evidence to implicate them.
The West Australian reported on February 4 that "the White Aryan Resistance, a militant race-hate group which had links to the ANM in the 1980s, sent a letter to Channel 9 yesterday with the chilling message, 'Were [sic] back'".
There has been a resurgence of racist and neo-Nazi propaganda in Perth in recent months. Stickers and posters promoting the ANWU and other far-right groups, and inciting race hate are being plastered all over the city.
Emma Clancy
From Green Left Weekly, February 11, 2004.
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