The Bring Back the Buses Action Group released the statement below on May 7.
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A quiet street in Melbourne northern suburb Mill Park is to be the scene of an angry protest against the Baillieu government’s recent cuts to bus services.
Rail link bus route 571 and Northlands-Greensborough bus route 563 were axed in a large scale northern suburbs bus restructure, which coincided with the opening of South Morang Station last month. A further six buses were re-routed, many of which now terminate at the new South Morang rail-bus interchange.
Australia
It used to be that when you got a job, it was a job you could count on. Over the past 30 years, that's been changing. More and more workers feel insecure in their job. The National Union of Workers' campaign aims to reverse this trend.
Western Saharan human rights campaigner Malak Amidane is touring Australia in May to raise awareness of the brutal occupation of her homeland.
Like all wars, the “price war” between the two big supermarket chains — Woolworths and Coles — has its casualties. It is in the countryside and ordinary households that the toll is being counted, not in the profits of the two giant corporations.
Socialist Alliance gay and lesbian rights spokesperson Rachel Evans spoke in Sydney on April 24 at a rally calling to free accused WikiLeaks’ source Private Bradley Manning from prison in the US, where he is being held in solitary confinement. The protest was part of an international day of protest for Manning, who faces a court martial and possible life in prison if convicted. Evans’ speech is below.
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For weeks, Labor Prime Minister Julia Gillard and treasurer Wayne Swan have focused on one thing: using the coming federal budget to prove that they are “good economic managers”.
But good managers for who?
The Labor government is determined to deliver a surplus and cut public debt at the cost of more public sector jobs, services and cuts even to the meagre welfare support for single parents.
It can seem like there is nothing but bad news in this country sometimes. Corporations are shedding jobs, governments are slashing spending and Essendon went down to Collingwood by one fucking point on ANZAC Day.
So, it gives me great pleasure to be able to welcome a positive step to finally bring some honesty into the bastard world of Australian politics.
Yes, billionaire mining magnate Clive Palmer has announced he will seek Liberal National Party pre-selection to challenge Treasurer Wayne Swan for the Queensland seat of Lilley.
As part of savage budget cuts, the Victorian Coalition government has slashed $300 million over four years of funding for the provider of public technical and further education, the state’s 18 TAFE institutes that teach about 400,000 students a year.
Funding per student in 80% of courses has been cut from about $8 per training hour to as low as $1.50 - to a range meant to reflect labour market priorities.
Trades apprenticeships, aged care and child care received some small increases.
The Victorian Coalition government has taken to the state with a razor and announced huge cuts in the 2012 budget. These are the biggest cuts since the Jeff Kennett-led Coalition government that ruled Victoria from 1992-1999.
Victorian TAFE institutes in particular will be hard hit. The level of cuts was so severe that higher education minister Peter Hall sent a letter to TAFE heads on April 29 indicating that he had considered resigning from the ministry.
Jackie Kriz, an Australian Nurses Federation delegate from Geelong, will be the special guest speaker at Sydney’s annual Green Left Weekly May Day dinner, where she will share her experiences of the Victorian nurses’ remarkable victorious campaign and some of the lessons we can learn from it.
It would not come as a surprise to many activists, but a little of the close relationship between police and commercial interests has been revealed in the trial of 16 activists charged for taking part in a Palestine solidarity protest outside the Max Brenner chocolate shop in QV shopping centre in Melbourne’s CBD. The trial began on May 1 and is scheduled to last for two weeks.
The Ballroom at Melbourne Trades Hall was packed with about 130 people on May 4 for a public forum titled “Protest on Trial”. The event sought to build support for the “Max Brenner 19” — Palestine solidarity activists on trial for taking part in a protest outside a Melbourne Max Brenner chocolate shop last year.
Speakers at the forum drew links between the violent attacks on Occupy Melbourne last year and the police repression of peaceful Palestine protesters outside Max Brenner.
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