A string of banks, airlines, car manufacturers and aluminium smelters — all big corporations that have profited for years while extorting billions of dollars in public subsidies — have spat in the face of our society.
They have begun huge sackings of workers, even though Australia supposedly escaped the worst of capitalism’s global economic crisis. The big banks have posted record profits, but they refuse to pass on interest rate cuts to families struggling to keep up with huge home mortgages.
Australia
If you have just begun studying, welcome to university. If you’ve been looking through the pamphlets and advertising material for your campus of choice, you’ve probably been led to believe that university largely revolves around sitting on lawns on nice days laughing with attractive young people.
If you’ve been watching too many American films, you might be expecting wild parties and crazy weekends. Or if you’re academically minded, you might just be expecting to broaden your horizons with new and exotic ideas.
After recent threats to thousands of jobs in the aluminium, car and banking industries, Green Left Weekly spoke to Geelong Trades Hall secretary Tim Gooden about strategies to fight the job cuts.
“Alcoa says 600 jobs are in danger, but there are 3500 more hanging off that,” Gooden told GLW.
“If they close Point Henry [aluminium] smelter, it will hit the rolled products, and then the companies that use the rolled products.
The NSW Socialist Alliance released the statement below on February 18.
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The NSW Socialist Alliance condemns the latest state electoral funding reform bill as a direct attack on democratic rights and collective organising in the state.
On February 14, hundreds of Aboriginal people, many young ones, and non-Aboriginal people gathered at the fence where 17-year-old TJ Hickey was fatally wounded in Waterloo in February 2004. A police vehicle driven by a Redfern officer rammed TJ’s bike.
He was impaled on the fence and died in hospital the next day. There has been a corrupt coronial inquest, and a cover-up by the NSW government and Redfern police, and continuous protests. But eight years later there is still no justice for the young Aboriginal man and his family.
More than 400 people crowded into a lecture theatre at the University of Technology on February 17 to attend a public forum, “Don’t shoot the messenger: WikiLeaks, Assange and Democracy”.
Speakers at the forum included socialist historian Humphrey McQueen, Greens Senator Scott Ludlum, London-based human rights lawyer Jennifer Robinson and Christine Assange, the mother of Julian Assange.
A Nyoongar Tent Embassy was established on Perth’s Heirisson Island on February 12 after the state government proposed to extinguish Nyoongar native title. The protesters made an urgent call for support after Perth City Council made its second threat to close the embassy down on February 17. Many of those taking a leading role in the Embassy are local Aboriginal activists recently returned from the 40-year commemoration of the Aboriginal Tent Embassy in Canberra.
“Plans for a new naval base in Brisbane should be rejected out of hand,” Liam Flenady, Socialist Alliance candidate for the seat of South Brisbane in the upcoming Queensland state elections, said on February 17.
Flenady was responding to a statement in the February 14 South-East Advertiser by a local business leader advocating that a new naval base should be established at the Bulimba Military Barracks, on the banks of the Brisbane River.
Just three chance encounters have led to a Sierra Leonean family’s reunion in Australia.
With a bit more luck the whole family will be reunited this year.
On January 6, 1999, Mary Fonah was a nurse working at a government hospital in Freetown, Sierra Leone. Her husband, a doctor, phoned to say the rebels had reached Freetown. He would shortly collect Mary from the hospital after picking up their children.
At the beginning of the year, Community Action Against Homophobia (CAAH), the Sydney-based grassroots lesbian, gay, bi-sexual, trans and intersex (LGBTI) campaign organisation, elected three new office-bearers.
CAAH initiated national days of action for marriage rights rallies in 2006, has played a key role in equal marriage and queer refugee rights campaigning, and has supported trans and intersex rights struggles and mobilisations.
Twenty-four hours of global action to protest against the ongoing logging of Tasmanian forests took place on February 15. The article below first appeared on the Observer Tree blog on February 16.
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An incredible show of worldwide support led to more than 70 actions across 14 countries in 24 hours calling for an end to the destruction of Tasmania's forests.
Socialist Alliance candidates for the upcoming Queensland state elections, Liam Flenady (South Brisbane), and Mike Crook (Sandgate), organised a rally in Brisbane on February 17 to “protest the rampant greed of the big banks”.
Protesters outside the ANZ Bank state head office in Queen Street held placards, handed out leaflets to passersby and chanted, "No to the big bank rip-off!" and "shame, shame, ANZ!"
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