A lively protest took place outside federal MP for Wakefield Nick Champion's office in Adelaide’s Northern Suburbs on May 20.
The protest was organised by Stop Income Management in Playford (SIMPla) and Single Parents Action Group (SPAG).
SIMPla was founded last year in response to the introduction of income management in Playford.
SPAG began in response to the Julia Gillard government cutting single parents' income by moving them off the single parent benefit to the lower Newstart allowance.
Australia
I had to spend some time in waiting rooms for medical checkups recently. It was an opportunity to glance through glossy magazines.
In its latest issue, National Geographic magazine has an article entitled “Is Australia the Face of Climate Change to Come?”. It said that after a major spike in extreme weather over the past few years, scientists were looking at “the lucky country” as a “bellwether for the Earth's changing climate”.
It may not be so lucky for us but I guess being a bellwether is useful.
The Socialist Alliance released this statement on May 23.
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Ford's announcement that it will close its last vehicle manufacturing plants in Australia — in Geelong and Broadmeadows — destroying 1200 jobs is "totally despicable", said Sue Bull, the Socialist Alliance candidate for Corio, "especially as this giant multinational has collected huge public subsidies year after year supposedly to save jobs".
The Socialist Alliance estimated in 2010 that its key policies for social justice and environmental sustainability would cost a minimum of $81-140 billion a year. Any budget devised by a party focused on putting people and the planet before profits would look significantly different to the “safe” yet largely austere budget the federal Labor government released last week.
It was almost a simple formality. Rejecting any attempt by the Greens to introduce rudimentary protections, the Australian Senate voted on May 16 to excise the entire country from the migration zone.
It will most likely be given approval by the lower house soon. If implemented, it will mean that for all asylum seekers who arrive by boat, Australia -- and by proxy the Refugee Convention -- will legally not exist.
The gulf between the science and the politics of climate change has never been wider. Consider the Arctic ice cap, which has lost half its volume in the five years from 2005. Experts say the Arctic ice cap is now in a “death spiral”. The region is warming two to four times faster than the global average.
The Australian ran an article on May 2 that claimed “the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement has been caught on camera admitting ‘there isn't really any connection’ between Australian Max Brenner chocolate shops and Israel”. Below is a response by Palestine solidarity campaigner Patrick Harrison, who was quoted in the article. It was submitted to the Australian but not published. *** When I visited Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories in 2011 to take part in environmental volunteer projects, apartheid was plain to see.
What do a conservative leader and a radical feminist have in common? More than we would have guessed, it seems.
Recently an Islamic group held an event at the University of Melbourne. The seating was arranged according to gender, as is common with such events. A reporter from the Australian newspaper decided to go along and search for controversies; the promise of discussing jihad at the event must have lured the newspaper into seeing an easy opportunity to vilify Muslims.
This has become a lucrative industry nowadays.
Staff and students from universities around Australia held demonstrations on May 14 to protest the Gillard government’s $2.3 billion cuts to higher education.
The National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) called a 24-hour strike which coincided with a student strike called by the National Union of Students. Students were encouraged to skip class for the day and join picket lines and rallies.
The first School of Rebellion, held in association with Marxism 2013 over the Easter weekend in Melbourne, drew about 30 kids for a weekend of thinking, talking, making noise, art, music, poetry, mess and friends.
It was declared “awesome” by a random sample of kids, teachers and parents and the program will definitely be back, bigger and better, for Marxism 2014.
"Why are Sri Lankan Tamils seeking refuge in Australia? And why are we keeping them locked up?" was the theme of a forum on May 8, sponsored by the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies (CPCS) and the Sydney Peace Foundation. About 30 people attended the meeting held at the University of Sydney.
Brami Jegan from the Sri Lanka Human Rights Project told the audience that up to 100,000 Tamils were massacred by the Sri Lankan military at the end of the 28-year civil war between the Sri Lankan government and the Tamil Tiger guerrilla forces in 2009.
About 20 people gathered outside the Department of Immigration offices in Sydney on May 10 to demand freedom for a Tamil refugee named Ranjini and freedom for all refugees with negative ASIO assessments.
Another protest was held outside Villawood detention centre on the same day.
A statement by the Refugee Action Collective said: "The Sydney actions are part of national protests to coincide with the one-year anniversary of the detention of Ranjini and her two children in Melbourne. Ranjini has since had her third child, Paari, born in detention in January 2013.
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