The statement below was released by the Refugee Action Coalition on May 11.
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A Tamil refugee with an ASIO negative security finding attempted suicide in the early hours of May 11. He is the second ASIO negative Tamil refugee to attempt suicide in less than a month at the misnamed Melbourne Immigration Transit Accommodation (MITA) detention centre.
The Tamil man, in his early 30s, had attempted suicide by hanging and was dropped down by fellow refugees who found him at around 1.30am this morning.
Australia
An ANZ spokesperson told the Age the bank’s interest rate policy had created “public relations” challenges, but said: “We are in it for the long haul and part of that is an education process for our customers and us.”
About 40 unionists protested outside the annual meeting of mining giant Rio Tinto's board meeting on May 10 against the company's involvement in the London Olympic Games. Rio Tinto is manufacturing medals for the games.
At the same time, the mining corporation has staged a lock-out of 800 mine workers at the Alma smelter in Canada. Unions say the lock-out began after the Canadian workers refused contracts that would cut wages of new workers by half.
Suncorp Insurance has left residents of Emerald and Roma in the lurch after it announced it would refuse all new insurance policies to householders in the region. No other insurers offer policies in the area.
The small Queensland towns were hit hard by floods in recent years. Suncorp said on May 7 no new policies for home and contents insurance would be offered until flood mitigation works, including flood levees, are built around the two towns. Premiums for existing policy holders are due to rise dramatically.
Allan Rees, spokesperson for the No Aircraft Noise (NAN) party, believes that the site south of Wilton must be assessed as a replacement airport for Sydney. “This is the only way to end the growing noise nightmare for 100,000 people,” he said on May 9.
NAN has campaigned for decades to get the Sydney airport moved out of the city on the grounds of its detrimental health and environmental impacts.
Friends of the Earth Australia released the statement below on May 11.
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Today, the Brisbane magistrates court supported the efforts of Gladstone local Mark Driscoll in his stand defending the destructive dredging of the Gladstone Harbour in the Great Barrier Reef.
Organisers of a Sydney Palestine solidarity protest — Commemorate Al-Nakba: Protest Against Israeli Apartheid! — released the statement below on May 11.
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The NSW Police have contacted the organisers of the Al-Nakba commemoration march in Sydney threatening to seek a Supreme Court injunction unless the march is cancelled.
The protesters have decided to assert their right to public protest, saying that they will contest any attempt to prohibit the march.
Community Action Against Homophobia released the statement below on May 10.
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Marriage equality advocates are preparing to hit the streets across Australia on Saturday May 12 in a national day of protest, just as US President Obama declares his support for equal marriage rights.
The Stop the Intervention Collective Sydney released the statement below on May 9.
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Remote NT communities are joining with the south-western Sydney suburb of Bankstown in a pledge to challenge the implementation of 'Stronger Futures' legislation which is set to be debated in the Senate.
Green Left Weekly hosted a forum at the Brisbane Activist Centre on May 8 called “Challenges facing the Queensland labour movement: Where to now for the unions under a Liberal National Party government?”
The meeting heard from Mark Taylor, a workplace delegate for the Together union in the Brisbane City Council and a state council delegate for the Queensland Greens. It also heard from Marg Gleeson, an Australian Services Union (ASU) delegate in the community housing sector and Socialist Alliance activist.
Since WikiLeaks raised the ire of the US government in 2010 through the publication of leaked diplomatic cables, PM Gillard’s conduct towards Australian founder Julian Assange has been reprehensible.
Gillard is yet to apologise for her inflammatory claims that Assange had acted illegally, despite the Australian Federal Police’s subsequent findings that he had broken no laws.
Her remarks were made at a time when she should have been defending Assange from the US politicians calling for his assassination.
An enthusiastic group of twenty people gathered for the inaugural meeting of the local Repower Port Augusta group on May 8 at the Cooinda Club in Port Augusta, South Australia.
The group said its purpose was to raise awareness and build broad support in the community for concentrating solar thermal power to replace the ageing coal-fired power stations in Port Augusta.
Melbourne-based renewable energy research group Beyond Zero Emissions recently released a report detailing how Port Augusta could become a renewable energy hub.
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