Australia

The Refugee Action Coalition Sydney released the statement below on March 8. * * * Tamil refugees from the boat stranded in 2009 in Merak, Indonesia, after being stopped at the request of then Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, have been told that 24 of their number have been accepted to be resettled in Australia. The announcement came only a couple of hours after a demonstration of about 80 of the 134 recognised refugees at the Medan United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) offices in protest at the long delays in their resettlement.

In the biggest staff and student rally at the University of Sydney for years, 700 students and staff packed the university’s Main Quad on March 7 to protest management plans to axe 340 staff. One hundred staff have already received redundancy notices unless they can “show cause” they should keep their jobs. A further 64 staff have been told they must ditch research projects and take up teaching-intensive roles or also face losing their jobs. Despite the university having 1000 more students than last year, management also plans to cut 190 general staff positions.

I remember Grong Grong; my aunt and uncle had a store there in the 1960s. Floods are not common in this stretch of the NSW Riverina, but they happen in odd years when the Murrumbidgee River further south rises and breaks its banks. For runoff from the often-parched paddocks around Grong Grong to cause flooding is almost unheard of.

The Aboriginal Legal Service of Western Australia released the statement below on March 6. * * * The Aboriginal Legal Service of Western Australia (ALSWA) has slammed the WA state government’s offer of up to $2000 to Aboriginal workers whose past wages were stolen by the state. “This is a slap in the face and a cruel and heartless offer which offends the very notion of recompense,” said ALSWA CEO Adjunct Professor Dennis Eggington.