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.
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.
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.
Thousands of people packed into Sydney’s Town Hall on March 16 to hear journalist John Pilger, independent MP Andrew Wilkie and Julian Burnside QC speak out in support of WikiLeaks and its editor-in-chief Julian Assange.
Assange fears he may be extradited to the US and face Guantanamo Bay-style incarceration for publishing leaked US embassy cables.
Sydney Peace Foundation chairperson Mary Kostakidis presented the forum. She asked the audience to send a message to politicians in Canberra saying, “Hillary Clinton says WikiLeaks is a danger to the world … what do all of you think?”
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.
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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.
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.
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Will your party commit to not building any more coal or gas fired power stations in NSW?
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).
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.
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.”
The ability of real politics to focus debate is impressive. The climate movement has long debated what policy mechanisms can best combat climate change.
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.
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.
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