The issue of marriage equality is steadily gaining traction among the Australia population. Seventy-five percent of Australians expect same-sex marriage to be made legal a 2011 Galaxy Poll found.
The same research said 62% of Australians support marriage equality; the number is as high as 80% among younger people. The poll also said 78% of Australians believe there should be a conscience vote in parliament on the issue.
Australia
Former Guantanamo Bay concentration camp detainee David Hicks says if he wins the Queensland Premier's Literary Award he will donate the proceeds to torture victims. “If I win this award, every cent will go to victims of torture,” Hicks told Network Ten TV on August 24.
“I have never been a supporter of terrorism,” Hicks said. “I had no choice but to sign a piece of paper to get out of Guantanamo Bay,” the August 25 Courier-Mail reported.
Wollongong’s city centre experienced something special on August 25: an explosion of art, culture and youth talent.
During Community Voice's public launch of its cultural policy, a crowd of more than 200 people swelled around the mall's amphitheatre.
As young musicians performed, graffiti artists Adam Rizvik and Josh Harris produced an amazing piece in real time that simply said “create art” on stage.
For two hours the mall — not known for its social atmosphere — was filled with beautiful music, inspired speeches, happy people and the smell of spray paint.
Friends of the Earth (FoE) have called on the Victorian Liberal government to “immediately ban any coal seam gas or new coal developments in the state”.
The environmental group says Victoria “faces a wave of exploration licenses for coal seam gas (CSG), coal, and shale gas” and has urged people to write to Premier Ted Baillieu to demand “a thorough investigation into the likely impacts of [the coal and coal seam gas] industry on water resources, farmland and food security, local communities and natural biodiversity."
The Socialist Alliance released the statement below on August 23.
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BlueScope Steel Ltd. announced on August 22 that it would shut two production facilities and shed 1000 jobs as part of a restructure aimed at turning around a $1.05 billion annual loss.
This will mean the shutdown of a blast furnace at Port Kembla in the Illawarra region of New South Wales and closure of its Western Port hot strip mill in Victoria.
The Port Kembla closure will result in 800 job losses, while at least 200 jobs will be cut at Western Port.
The Refugee Action Collective Sydney released the statement below on August 24.
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“A disgraceful incident at Broome hospital today has highlighted the contemptuous attitude of Serco staff to the welfare of asylum seekers they have a duty to care for,” said Ian Rintoul, spokesperson for the Refugee Action Coalition.
Serco officers cancelled medical appointments at Broome hospital for three Afghan asylum seekers for talking to a refugee advocate in the hospital waiting room.
The Last Stand, a new action-based environmental group that has launched a campaign against Australian retail companies profiting from the logging of native forests, released the statement below on August 24.
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Today, almost 50 activists have taken action at four sites across Australia to protest Harvey Norman’s sale of wood products sourced from native forest destruction. Four activists have been arrested.
We are a group of Tamil Refugees awaiting for our status and security to be confirmed in Villawood Detention Centre.
Although we happen to be Tamil, we wish our comments to encompass all the differing ethnic groups that languish in Villawood.
The object of this letter is to thank the growing number of Australians in the community for offering continued support, advice and hope, in our endeavour to make Australia home.
Although held in a prison like environment, we are not criminals.
We all have families that we love and miss very much.
Quarantine staff at Australia's international airports walked off the job for four hours on August 19.
The action was part of a campaign by Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU) members working in the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (DAFF) to win a better enterprise agreement.
The strike caused some delays at the airports, and affected cargo inspections, the release of imported goods and the x-ray screening of international mail.
You’ll never guess which political party sat and watched while the Aboriginal incarceration rate sky-rocketed.
We heard it on the radio. And we saw it on the television. Report after report, and promises delivered by talking politicians.
But while this was occurring, Aboriginal people wallowed inside this nation’s jails and detention centres, their futures cast by a system that jails them at staggeringly disproportionate rates.
It’s a problem that cripples our families, and our communities, and is as complex as it is troubling.
Most of us protesters were across the road from the Sofitel Wentworth luxury hotel in the heart of Sydney’s business district where the $900-a-head NSW Mineral Exploration and Investment Conference was underway on August 18.
Angeline Loh, who works with the Malaysian human rights groups ALIRAN, will join close to a dozen international guest speakers at the World at a Crossroads, Climate Change Social Change Conference, which will be held at the University of Melbourne over September 30 to October 3.
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