Australia

Beyond Zero Emissions (BZE) launched its award-winning Zero Carbon Australia 2020 Stationary Energy Plan to a packed meeting at Perth Town Hall on March 14. BZE executive director Matthew Wright outlined the Western Australian aspects of the plan, which was developed to show how Australia could reduce its stationary energy greenhouse gas emissions to zero by 2020, using a mix of commercially available renewable energy sources, primarily concentrating solar thermal and wind.
Socialist Alliance candidate for the NSW seat of Parramatta Duncan Roden was born in Fiji and grew up in Sydney's west. He is a member of the socialist youth organisation Resistance and is an activist with the Parramatta Climate Action Network and Westies Welcome Refugees. Roden spoke to Tamil Aruvi about his views on the Tamil people’s struggle for self-determination. The interview is republished below. *** What do you know about Sri Lanka's treatment of Tamil people?
Crime and Misconduct Comission (CMC) chair Martin Moynihan said on March 15 that the anti-corruption watchdog would take no further action against police accused of covering-up the death in custody of Palm Island Aboriginal man Mulrunji Doomadgee in November 2004. In response, Aboriginal community leader Sam Watson said: “The Queensland police service have blood on their hands. This result means that the CMC [Crime and Misconduct Commission] has blood on its hands too.”
Pip Hinman, the Socialist Alliance candidate for the NSW seat of Marrickville, spoke at a March 14 election forum at St Peters Town Hall organised by Climate Action Newtown and Sydney Residents Against Coal Seam Gas. Hinman’s responses to the three questions put to her at the meeting appear below. * * * Will your party commit to not building any more coal or gas fired power stations in NSW?
About 100 protesters gathered in Brisbane Square on March 18 to protest the repression of pro-democracy protesters in the Gulf nation of Bahrain. Rallygoers chanted “Freedom for Bahrain! Stop the Saudi Arabian invasion. Yunes Ali, a representative of the Bahraini community in Brisbane, welcomed the support from all who attended the rally, and declared that the democracy movement in Bahrain could not be divided into religious categories. “No Shiites, no Sunnis. Only Bahrain,” he said.
Late on March 12, a group of drunken men yelling abuse and threats of physical violence entered the site of the Aboriginal occupation of the planned Brighton Bypass in Tasmania. Trudy Maluga from the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre described it as a “Ku Klux Klan-type” incident, the Hobart Mercury reported on March 17. “A group of Aborigines has been harassed and racially abused by a large group of drunken men and youths at the Kutalayna camp at Brighton,” Maluga said.
The Socialist Alliance and the Communist Party of Australia have released the following joint statement of left organisations and individuals about the March 26 NSW elections. * * * The NSW Labor Party is facing a trouncing in the March 26 elections because of the problems that have arisen from the ALP’s corporate profits-first, "economic rationalist" agenda. In the process, it has carried out a privatisation spree, most recently selling off our state's retail electricity assets for next to nothing.
Waving the Libyan flag.

While I agree with most of the sentiments expressed in Peter Boyle’s article on Libya in GLW #872, I think the Left must always be flexible and practical.

Having now come across several leaflets, statements and interviews arguing that the NSW Greens have put former NSW Construction Forestry Mining Energy secretary Andrew Ferguson’s election at risk on March 26 and urging people to therefore vote 1 ALP, I feel compelled to write the following. Many people know Andrew as a committed campaigner for just causes. However, if Andrew is not elected on March 26, the blame will lie with the current right-wing, anti-worker ALP government. Worse, it will be Labor’s fault that after 16 years the Liberals could return to government.
Tara community blockade, March 14.

More than 100 protesters joined a March 14 blockade of the Queensland Gas Corporation (QGC) gasworks on the QGC-owned property “Kenya” near Tara, 300 kilometres west of Brisbane.

First organising meeting of Stop CSG Illawarra, Thirroul, March 13.

On March 13, more than 100 people attended the first organising meeting of Stop CSG Illawarra, a residents’ group campaigning for a moratorium on coal seam gas mining (CSG).

In the midst of widespread anger at the on-going privatisation agenda, blatant corruption and developer connections of the New South Wales Labor government, the Liberal/National Coalition appears set to romp home in the March 26 NSW elections. With a Coalition government likely to extend the privatisation agenda even further, including massive cuts to the public sector and public services, the NSW Greens’ have come under fire for failing to direct their preferences to Labor.