Australia

The premiere of the new Venezuela solidarity film “Chasing Chavez” hit the big screen at the Schonell Cinema, University of Queensland, on February 29. About 70 people attended the launch of the hour-long documentary and applauded director Katrina Channells and co-producer and cinematographer Nik Lachajczak for their fine work.

A rally to oppose the Western Australian government's plans to redevelop the Perth city foreshore attracted about 1000 people on February 26. The Colin Barnett government plan would involve flooding the Esplanade and building large high rise developments on the new water's edge. Speakers at the rally said there was no public consultation about the plan before it was presented, that the plan involves cutting Riverside Drive leaving only one east-west thoroughfare through the city and that the heritage value of the Esplanade will be ruined.

On February 25, prominent Murri community leader Sam Watson launched the campaign for Liam Flenady, the Socialist Alliance candidate for South Brisbane in the March 24 Queensland elections. A crowd of more than 40 people attended a street meeting in Boundary Street, West End in the heart of the inner-city electorate held by Labor Premier Anna Bligh.

“Something is badly amiss when Queensland bushies embrace Green Left Weekly, and the opposite ends of the political fringe, the Greens and Bob Katter’s Australian Party, find a common cause,” began a February 22 editorial in Rupert Murdoch’s The Australian, the only national daily newspaper in this country.

Last year, students of Political Economy at the University of Sydney stood up to threats to merge their department into either a politics or straight economics department. They protested because they believed in the value of learning alternative economics, refused to accept cuts in staff or subjects and believed students have the right to have a say in the institution at which they choose to study.