Australia’s ability to remain a signatory to the UN refugee convention would be put in serious doubt if the government succeeded in weakening protection for refugees in the migration act, prominent human rights lawyer Julian Burnside QC told Green Left Weekly.
“The judgement was clear that the arrangement that had been made with Malaysia has been made legally invalid,” he said.
“The question is whether the government thinks having signed the convention limits the range within they can change the act.
Australia
These days, there aren’t many victories against attacks on working-class people by neoliberal governments and greedy, ruthless corporations.
This makes the victory in the campaign to save Melbourne’s only Aboriginal school, the Ballerrt Mooroop College in Melbourne’s northern suburb of Glenroy, especially important.
Late on September 12, the state education minister Martin Dixon sent an email to campaigners saying that he had agreed to the compromise plan that had been negotiated between the Ballerrt Mooroop College and the Glenroy Specialist School for disabled children (GSS).
About 50 people attended a vigil on the parliament lawns in Hobart on September 16 in support of Ali Alishah, a jailed anti-pulp mill protester.
Alishah was arrested on September 5 at Gunns' proposed pulp mill site in the Tamar Valley in northern Tasmania after locking on to a truck that was entering the site. He has already spent almost two weeks in jail and will likely stay in custody until September 26.
A long-term forest campaigner, Alishah was taking action with the group Code Green, which has been conducting civil disobedience actions at the pulp mill site.
Now that the Labor government has almost entirely reneged on its 2007 election promise to end Australia’s sickening abuse of refugees, the two big parties are united on an issue they have so vehemently pretended to disagree.
Unhappy with the High Court’s interpretation of the law — that Australia must uphold fundamental human rights when making policies on refugees, and that deporting them to a country that does not have such rights violates the law — the Labor government is cajoling the opposition to agree to water down Australia’s refugee protections.
Some years ago I and many others, fought and demonstrated against the toxic verbal bile that was mouthed then by what was seen by most Australians to be a fringe party.
Their disgusting rantings only proved them to be an ultra-racist party. Some politicians agreed with them, some used them politically whilst the rest whimpered and whispered in case they lost votes.
As time passes, the reasons the public might have for trusting chemical company Orica and the NSW environment minister Robyn Parker are evaporating.
On the night of August 8, highly toxic hexavalent chromium leaked from Orica’s Kooragang Island plant and blew over the Newcastle suburb of Stockton.
Orica notified the NSW environment department at 10.45am the next morning. Orica representatives began doorknocking residents in Stockton on August 10. Parker says she was not told of the accident until that night.
Jeff McMullen, a prominent journalist and Aboriginal rights advocate, gave the address below at the Sydney launch of Walk With Us: Aboriginal Elders Call Out to Australian People to Walk with them in their Quest for Justice at Gleebooks, Sydney, on September 1.
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The welcome to country from Aunty Millie [Ingram] and the elders’ statement goes to the heart of the issue: that we walk in an Aboriginal land.
Toro Energy has submitted an application to build Western Australia’s first uranium mine, at Wiluna, the start of WA’s iconic Canning Stock Route.
The debate over the proposed mine has far-reaching ramifications. The construction of WA’s first uranium mine is likely to be the “thin edge of the wedge”, whereas a strong show of public opposition can significantly increase the likelihood of keeping WA uranium-free.
That, in turn, is important in the context of the national debate over uranium mining.
Activists rallied in Melbourne to call for greater rights for people with mental illness on September 16.
The rally was called by the Australian Mental Health Human Rights and Law Reform Coalition to condemn abuses in the Victorian mental health system.
The Barry O’Farrell Coalition government has promised it will make “New South Wales number one” again. We are assured this will mean improving transport, health and education infrastructure and strengthening the public sector that delivers these services to the people of NSW.
The “horror budget” some media promised was delivered on September 6. This budget does little to improve public services. Instead, the state’s fiscal output rests on strengthening private sector spending.
The Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AWMU) has launched action in the Federal Court to protect a member who is facing disciplinary action from his employer after he took action to address a serious health and safety issue.
In early August, Jon Zwart, an AMWU delegate and health and safety representative at Visy Coburg, tagged (took out of service) a forklift whose reverse beeper was not audible.
Almost 20 years after its last attempt, American fast food giant McDonald’s has again set its eyes on the quaint communities of the Dandenong Ranges.
Determined to ensure the ranges do not miss out on its heavenly presence, this time McDonald’s hopes to establish a new fast food outlet in the village of Tecoma. It is even promising to remain open 24/7 for those desperate to fix their nightly Chicken McNugget cravings.
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