The President of the Uniting Church in Australia Assembly, Rev. Alistair Macrae, released the statement below on June 29.
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Over the last few months, thousands of Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians have raised their voices in opposition to the discriminatory aspects of the “Stronger Futures” legislation.
Australia
Human rights lawyer Lizzie O’Shea spoke at a July 1 rally in Melbourne organised by the WikiLeaks Australian Citizens Alliance. Her speech is below.
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These are dangerous times: when speaking truth to power has the potential to cost you your freedom.
There can be no doubt that the US is planning to get their hands on Assange — we may not know exactly how or exactly when. But anyone who dismisses this as paranoid is foolish at best and willfully blind at worst.
Australia is the world’s first murdochracy. US citizen Rupert Murdoch controls 70% of the metropolitan press. He has monopolies in state capitals and provincial centres. The only national newspaper is his. He is a dominant force online and in pay-TV and publishing. Known fearfully as “Rupert”, he is the Chief Mate.
Hundreds of people braved heavy rain in Melbourne on July 1 to attend a rally to defend WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. The rally was organised by the WikiLeaks Australian Citizens Alliance.
More than 300 supporters of Julian Assange gathered at the State Library in Melbourne on July 1 to call for the Australian government to act to bring Assange home.
The Western Suburbs Alliance (WSA) released the statement below on June 29.
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WSA has been formed by members of community groups and individuals in Claremont, Cottesloe, Mosman Park, Peppermint Grove, Nedlands and Subiaco concerned about the growing wave of fear, anger and alienation across the western suburbs resulting from the erosion of our democratic rights and the threats to our communities and built and natural environment by the Barnett Government.
So now we have a carbon price in Australia. The sky hasn’t fallen in but neither are we getting anywhere near doing what needs to be done to respond to the climate change crisis.
Australia currently gets its energy in this mix:
• Fossil fuels: 95%, comprising coal: 39%, gas: 22%, petroleum: 35%
• Renewables: a miserable 5%.
According to the Labor government's own projections, with the carbon price, by 2035 Australia's energy mix will be:
• Fossil fuels: 91%, comprising less coal at 21%, more gas at 35%, petroleum: 36%
• Renewables: rising slightly to 9%.
Having taken her share in Fairfax Media to nearly 20%, Gina Rinehart has demanded a greater say in the workings of Fairfax, including editorial matters at its major papers The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald.
Fairfax’s board has so far rejected Rinehart’s manoeuvres, saying she must first commit to signing the “Fairfax Media Charter of Editorial Independence”, which is based on the “fundamental and longstanding principle of editorial independence”.
The newly opened Yongah Hill detention centre in remote Western Australia is “probably one of the most secure facilities in the entire network,” immigration media manager Sandi Logan said on June 25.
The new detention centre is about 90 kilometres north-east of Perth, about five kilometres outside the rural town of Northam. The $125 million centre was a disused army barracks and will house up to 600 male asylum seekers.
It is now fitted with electric fences, “scale-proof” walls, cameras and bars on most windows, said an AAP reporter who visited the site.
A community protest of up to 30 people was held outside a global shale industry conference in Perth on June 28. Campaign group No Fracking WAy organised the protest. The two-day conference on global shale gas development put on by the Electric Utility Consultants, Inc (EUCI) at the Seasons of Perth Hotel, 37 Pier St, Perth.
The protesters held up banners, sang anti-fracking songs and heard from several speakers about the problems with the shale gas industry, which is expanding rapidly in Western Australia.
The prosecution of two activists dubbed the “Christmas Carol Criminals” collapsed when a Perth magistrate dismissed all charges on June 29. Alex Bainbridge and Miranda Wood from the group Friends of Palestine WA (FOPWA) had been charged with trespassing during a December protest outside Israeli cosmetics company Seacret. Seacret benefits from the illegal occupation of Palestine by stealing minerals and resources from the Dead Sea to use in its products.
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