Close to 1000 people turned out on August 14 for a rally to “Save the Kimberley”. Musicians entertained the crowd in between speakers from environment groups and Indigenous communities.
The protest was called by local group Country Calling in support of the campaign to prevent a natural gas processing facility being built at James Price Point, called Walmadan by the Indigenous people of the area. The point is on the Dampier Peninsula near Broome, Western Australia, in the famous Kimberley wilderness region.
Australia
About 100 supporters rallied in persistent rain at Sylvia Creek, in the Toolangi State Forest north-east of Melbourne, to protest logging operations by Vic Forests. The supporters joined locals and forest campaigners who have been blockading the 19-hectare “Gunbarrel” coupe for five weeks.
Quarantine staff at Australia's international airports walked off the job for four hours on August 19.
The action was part of a campaign by Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU) members working in the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (DAFF) to win a better enterprise agreement.
The strike caused some delays at the airports, and affected cargo inspections, the release of imported goods and the x-ray screening of international mail.
You’ll never guess which political party sat and watched while the Aboriginal incarceration rate sky-rocketed.
We heard it on the radio. And we saw it on the television. Report after report, and promises delivered by talking politicians.
But while this was occurring, Aboriginal people wallowed inside this nation’s jails and detention centres, their futures cast by a system that jails them at staggeringly disproportionate rates.
It’s a problem that cripples our families, and our communities, and is as complex as it is troubling.
Most of us protesters were across the road from the Sofitel Wentworth luxury hotel in the heart of Sydney’s business district where the $900-a-head NSW Mineral Exploration and Investment Conference was underway on August 18.
Federal Labor MP Anna Burke captured the Gillard government’s increasingly right-wing refugee policy when she said plans to reopen the Manus Island detention centre in Papua New Guinea would be “going back to something we said we wouldn’t do, which is the Pacific solution”.
Burke told ABC news on August 15 she had raised concerns in caucus about an overseas detention centre as well as the “Malaysia solution”, which faces a legal challenge in the High Court and could also be subject to a parliamentary inquiry.
The following message was received by Indymedia from within Curtin Detention Centre with a request that it posted on the site. Please circulate this cry for help and solidarity amongst your networks.
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Putty valley residents organising against coal seam gas mining in their community, about 150 kilometres northwest of Sydney, released the statement below on August 15. It first appeared on the Putty Gasbag blog.
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About 50 people were at a protest against coal seam gas on a private property on Putty Road on Sunday August 14.
The ABC chopper landed in the paddock to the cheers of the placard-waving crowd.
In an exciting development in the South Australian climate action scene, a range of groups have united to campaign for Australia’s first concentrated solar thermal power plants in Port Augusta, about four hours north of Adelaide.
The Adelaide Moving Planet Organising Collective includes representatives from the Australian Youth Climate Coalition, the Conservation Council of South Australia, the Climate Emergency Network of South Australia, the Young Greens, the Socialist Alliance and Resistance.
Australian Marriage Equality released the statement below on August 16.
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Christian leaders join campaign for equality.
A national opinion poll has found a majority of Australian Christians believe same-sex couples should be allowed to marry and several mainstream Christian ministers have spoken out in favour of the reform.
Video footage and photos of the unfurling of the giant "Enough Is Enough: Stop Coal & Gas Expansion" banner by two activists who abseiled down the front of the hotel where mining company executives were meeting to plan the wholesale exploitation of NSW even at the cost of communities and the environment.
A group of about 50 protesters chanted “No coal seam gas! No fracking way!” outside the Queensland Gas Conference at the Brisbane Convention Centre on August 17.
The rally, which coincided with “People's Day” at the Ekka (the Brisbane Exhibition Show Day), was organised by the Stop CSG Brisbane Committee. It indicated the strong public opposition to the threat the expanding coal seam gas industry poses to land, water and the environment.
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