For many months now, major party politicians and the big business media have sung paeans to the Lucky Country’s luckiest mining bonanza yet, riding the coat-tails of the rapid industrialisation of China and India.
Federal treasurer Wayne Swan told the National Press Club on March 5: “Asia’s enormous appetite for our mineral commodities drives an investment pipeline in the resources sector worth $456 billion.
Australia
Healesville-based group, MyEnvironment, has lost a court case it mounted against government body VicForests over the logging of Victoria’s central highlands areas that include habitat for the endangered Leadbeater’s Possum.
Justice Robert Osborn handed down his decision in the Supreme Court on March 14. He refused to order a stop to logging in three forest coupes at Toolangi, including the Gun Barrel coupe that was the scene of blockades and protests in late 2011.
Aboriginal rights protesters gathered outside the Northern Territory tourism bureau in Sydney on March 21 to protest the death in custody of 28-year-old Aboriginal man Terrence Briscoe, and to condemn the “Stronger Futures” bill that will extend the NT intervention.
Deaths in custody campaigner Ray Jackson told the rally: “When Terrence died in a police cell, the family were first told it was a heart attack. Then it was respiratory. Then it was asphyxiation. How do you asphyxiate? When police jump all over you, forcing your breath out.
"This is a bittersweet victory for nurses and midwives after an unprecedented industrial marathon with the Baillieu Government to protect patient care and secure a fair pay rise.” — Lisa Fitzpatrick, State Secretary, Australian Nursing Federation (Victoria).
The Australian Nursing Federation (ANF) of Victoria has had a good win. At a time when the employers are on the march, the Victorian ANF ran a campaign that involved two periods of industrial action, including bed closures, elective surgery cancellations and four hour rolling stoppages twice a day.
Australian Treasurer Wayne Swan said on March 20 that his government’s Minerals Resource Rent Tax (MRRT) was “central to the government’s plan to spread the benefits of the mining boom to more Australians for generations to come”.
Lauding the tax, which had passed through parliament the day before, he said the MRRT was about “ensuring all Australians share in the benefits of the mining boom, not just a fortunate few”.
This is what the Nyoongar Tent Embassy looked like before the police invaded. This photo was taken on Thursday March 22, about one hour before the police arrived.
This video tells the story of the police invasion of the Nyoongar Tent Embassy on Thurs March 22.
Members of Occupy Melbourne took Melbourne Council to court on March 20 over its attacks on the movement last year.
Occupy Melbourne said: “Hearings commence today at the Federal Court as part of the legal challenge against the City of Melbourne’s response to the peaceful Occupy Melbourne protests held throughout the city since October 2011.
The Queensland Floods Commission of Inquiry presented its final report on March 16 into the January 2011 flood that submerged parts of suburban Brisbane. There have been very few more expensive exercises in irrelevance than this 658-page report.
Liam Flenady, the Socialist Alliance candidate for the seat of South Brisbane, released the statement below on March 21.
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The Socialist Alliance declares its full support for the Sovereign Embassy Brisbane, established by the Murri community in Musgrave Park, South Brisbane, on March 13.
The Darwin Asylum Seeker Support and Advocacy Network (DASSAN) released the statement below on March 20.
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The Darwin Asylum Seeker Support and Advocacy Network (DASSAN) has been informed that an Iranian man in Darwin’s Northern Immigration Detention Centre (NIDC) swallowed parts of a light bulb today as a form of self harm. The man is detained in the North 2 compound that has seen large numbers of suicide attempts and self-harm incidents this year.
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