Rodney Augustine is from the Nyulnyu and Jabirrjabirr people. He is a spokesperson for the “Walmadan Country is Calling” group and is a member of the “Keep the Kimberley” group, both based in Melbourne.
He will speak at the Climate Change Social Change activist conference in Melbourne, over September 30 to October 3.
Australia
The “Say No to Government’s Income Management: Not in Bankstown, Not Anywhere” campaign coalition released the petition below in August.
To sign the petition, visit www.sayno2gim.info.
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To the honourable president and members of the senate in parliament assembled:
We the undersigned are opposed to the federal government’s income management system, which quarantines between 50% to 70% of Centrelink payments so they can only be used to buy “priority items” at government-approved stores.
Nicole Watson, a research fellow at the University of Technology Sydney’s Jumbunna Indigenous House of Learning, 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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At the outset I would like to pay my respects to the traditional owners of the land, the Gadigal people.
One hundred and twenty people packed out Gleebooks in Sydney on September 1 for the launch of Walk with Us — the latest book from the Aboriginal solidarity group Concerned Australians.
The book documents the detrimental impact of the Northern Territory intervention on Aboriginal people and features a call out from Aboriginal elders to Australians, asking them to walk with them in their quest for justice.
When Liberal leader Tony Abbott promised in the last federal election campaign that the notorious anti-worker “Work Choices” laws of the former Howard Liberal-National government were “dead, buried and cremated” very few people believed him.
Will NSW’s Liberal-National state government follow its Victorian colleagues and block the development of wind energy in the state?
Victorian Premier Ted Baillieu announced new planning laws on August 29 that ban wind farms from large areas of the state. The laws put so many hurdles in the way of new wind developments that most wind companies are now talking of abandoning further developments in the state.
Chanting “shame Barry, shame”, 35,000 people from dozens of unions and their supporters rallied in Sydney’s Domain on September 8 to oppose savage cuts to public services and job conditions.
Contingents of teachers, nurses, firefighters, police, rail and bus workers, and public sector workers swelled the ranks of the protest, the largest union rally in the state in 20 years.
The rally, held just two days after the O’Farrell government handed down its budget, was almost double the size predicted by Unions NSW.
Fundamentalist Christian street preachers faced stiff opposition from activists who rallied against their public sermons in Adelaide’s Rundle Mall on September 2.
Members of the right-wing religious group found themselves surrounded by a large crowd of activists who rallied for more than five hours.
The rally’s theme was “love not hate”.
The rally aimed to show solidarity for those who have received verbal abuse and suffered violence, particularly homosexual youths often targeted by the fringe Christians.
About 160 people gathered at The Gap State High School on September 8 for a community forum on the potential impacts of the coal seam gas industry.
Gubbi Gubbi elder Nurdon Serico gave a welcome to country, saying he had seen what mining can do to country and community, and highlighting that this industry will lead to the destruction of sacred Aboriginal sites as well as farming land.
Community Action Against Homophobia released the statement below on September 9.
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In August, Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young wrote an opinion piece in The Age arguing that “the fight for marriage equality should be above party politics, which is a vital reason to give members of parliament a conscience vote on the matter”.
The Construction Forestry Mining Energy Union (CFMEU) has slammed the Queensland Labor government over its decision to approve a 100% fly-in, fly-out workforce for the Caval Ridge coalmine near Moranbah, central Queensland.
The union has about 10,000 members in the state’s coalmines. It said it would fight the Bligh government's decision in the lead up to the Queensland election, due early next year.
“We will ensure our members and the communities they live in are not left behind,” said CFMEU state secretary Jim Valery, the September 7 Courier Mail reported.
Sixty people rallied outside Western Australia’s Parliament House on September 8 in a protest organised by the homeless rights supporters. The rally called on the Barnett Liberal government to provide proper funding to the state’s homeless people and support and shelter all year round.
The state government has set aside $112,500 for temporary accommodation and meals for homeless people during the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in late October.
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