Australia

”No new coal! Save the Great Barrier Reef!" was the main theme of the rally held outside Queensland parliament on World Heritage Day, April 18. Six Degrees and Greenpeace Brisbane called the rally, which attracted about 50 people. The rally came after the April 12 announcement by deputy premier Jeff Seeney that Gladstone harbour, which is facing environmental destruction due to coal industry development, might be removed from World Heritage listing.

Quit Coal crashes a Mantle Mining general meeting on April 16. One activist made it into the meeting to ask Mantle's directors how they justify trying to destroy Bacchus Marsh farmland for coal exports. The results are admittedly excruciatingly awkward to watch, but must-see viewing.

All I really want to say is “thank you”. And there is plenty I want to thank you for. I want to thank you for not cancelling your April 18 evening conversation with Martin Flanagan at the Melbourne Wheeler Centre to discuss your new book Am I black enough for you? It was a very powerful and moving event to be part of; a reaffirming lesson of the importance of courage, humility and respect. As we all found out, it was no easy decision for you to go ahead with the event.

Hundreds of committed citizens of Keerrong and The Channon form a human map of our roads and creeks. The legal system and governments have failed us. Now we're taking a stand. We won't let gas miners contaminate our water, air and land with toxic chemicals.

So it has been reported that Clive “Stop Taxing Me” Palmer's main private company, Mineralogy, hasn't paid tax for three years. He really is pulling out all stops to be the best cardboard cutout evil capitalist he can. You have to wonder what he'll do next. My guess is call a press conference to announce he's established a paramilitary organisation of Nazi kittens dedicated to wiping out what's left of Australia's native fauna.
About 80 activists and artists gathered outside the Queensland Government Executive Building on April 13 to voice their discontent over the axing of the Premier's Literary Awards. The picket was called by Socialist Alliance candidate for the seat of South Brisbane in the April 28 by-election, Liam Flenady, and Hannah Reardon-Smith, both of who are also artists. “Scrapping the Premier’s Literary Awards in the name of budget savings makes no sense,” Reardon-Smith said. “The $244,000 saved amounts to a mere 0.00028% of what we’re told by Campbell Newman is our state’s $85 billion debt.
There is a lot to celebrate in the legacy of retiring Greens leader Senator Bob Brown. Above all, he has been central to holding together the most successful new electoral party project in Australia that sits significantly to the left of the traditional parties of government, Labor and Liberal-National. The Greens won 1.7 million votes out of 13 million voters in the last federal election.
So far this year we've raised $36,811 for the Green Left Weekly Fighting Fund. This is a good effort, but well short of our running target. To reach our 2012 target of $250,000 we need to have raised about $80,000 by the end of this month.
The decision by the organisers of the three-day Marxism 2012 to invite a broader range of international speakers and allow other socialist groups to set up stalls at its three-day Marxism 2012 conference in Melbourne over the Easter long weekend was a welcome and positive step. The conference is organised each year by Socialist Alternative and its sister organisation, the International Socialist Organisation of Aotearoa/New Zealand.
The nuclear industry has been responsible for some of the crudest racism in Australia's history. This racism dates from the British nuclear bomb tests in the 1950s but it can still be seen today. The British government conducted 12 nuclear bomb tests in Australia in the 1950s, most of them at Maralinga in South Australia. Permission was not sought from affected Aboriginal groups such as the Pitjantjatjara, Yankunytjatjara, Tjarutja and Kokatha. Thousands of people were adversely affected and the impact on Aboriginal people was particularly profound.
Uncle Kevin Buzzacott

Whatever BHP Billiton wants to expand operations at its huge Olympic Dam copper, gold and uranium mine, Australian authorities are almost frantic to give it. Clear violations of environment laws are not even being allowed to stand in the way.

Activist Marlene Carrasco says some organisations visit refugees in Sydney’s Villawood detention centre in the same way they might make a trip to the zoo. “You know, [some of the big NGOs], they just come in, say hello, then the zoo visit’s over and they leave,” Carrasco told Green Left Weekly outside Villawood on a gloomy Easter Sunday. The 42-year-old Muslim woman makes the short trip to Villawood every Sunday from Merrylands, the western Sydney suburb to which she migrated in the 1970s. She said visitors needed to do more than just visit refugees — and she should know.