“RIP to the 2976 American people that lost their lives on 9/11 and RIP to the 48,644 Afghan and 1,690,903 Iraqi people that paid the ultimate price for a crime they did not commit. And the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who experience this everyday. Your 9/11 is their 24/7.”
The above quote that flashed across the social media last week captured a reflection of many people about the terrible collective punishment still inflicted on innocent people right across the Middle East and beyond for the September 11, 2001, terror attacks in the US.
Australia
Indoor and outdoor sex work is currently decriminalised in New South Wales. This may soon change with the proposed introduction of a brothel licensing scheme. The licensing scheme will take brothel regulation out of the hands of local councils and will give police powers to regulate brothels.
Its website says UniLife is the University of South Australia's (UniSA) “democratic organisation run by students”. But new changes to UniLife’s rules mean student members are no longer entitled to know what their representatives do.
This is the result of sweeping amendments to the UniLife constitution passed by student referendum on September 3. UniLife said the changes were designed to allow it to “operate in compliance with relevant Commonwealth legislation”.
About 40 activists from the Refugee Action Collective Victoria and other refugee rights groups protested outside the Melbourne offices of Thai Airways on September 14. Thai Airways were used in the July 25 deportation of a Tamil refugee back to Sri Lanka. He underwent a 16-hour interrogation on arrival, after which he told a press conference that he withdrew his past allegations of torture at the hands of the Sri Lankan regime.
The results September 8 NSW local government elections have not been finalised yet, but results showed a 7% swing to the Liberals across the state. Many more Liberal councillors will take office than were elected in 2008.
The ALP suffered a statewide 6% swing against it and the Greens vote dropped 1%.
The Liberals picked up the most positions in former ALP strongholds in Sydney's west.
Refugee advocates rallied in Sydney and Melbourne in a snap response to the first group of 40 refugees flown to Nauru to be held indefinitely on September 14.
Protesters in Sydney rallied outside the department of immigration offices and heard Maritime Union of Australia (MUA) Sydney branch secretary Paul McAleer pledge to “stand side by side in solidarity” with refugees.
Pointing to swings of 10-20% in parts of western Sydney to Liberal candidates standing in the September 8 local council elections, media commentators are claiming traditional working class areas have deserted Labor and rejected the Greens, instead choosing to shift rightwards.
The Sydney Morning Herald headlined its September 10 edition: “Change in the air as Libs take over Labor strongholds.”
More than 600 unionists and supporters rallied in Cairns’ City Place as part of the statewide day of action against the Campbell Newman government’s budget cuts on September 12.
Larger groups of teachers, United Voice members, Ergon electricians, state public servants in purple Together Union T-shirts, and others, flanked contingents of ambulance officers and firefighters in uniform. The mood was sombre and intense, with people standing still and listening more quietly than usual to the speakers.
The Indigenous Social Justice Association released the statement below on September 14.
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Several sovereign Aboriginal nations are considering giving Julian Assange refuge and sanctuary in their nations.
It was argued that as Julian is an Australian citizen he should be allowed to seek sanctuary in one of the sovereign Aboriginal nations in the lands known as Australia.
The Coalition New South Wales government released its Strategic Regional Land Use Policy on September 11. The public was told the policy would protect land and water from the impacts of mining and coal seam gas (CSG) development.
Instead it is a policy to develop CSG and mineral mining in the state — despite well-evidenced risks and enormous community opposition — and breaks a slew of promises made to the people of NSW.
Stop CSG Illawarra is preparing for another mass, community action on October 21. They plan to form a human sign at Bulli Showground that says “Protect H2O, Stop CSG”. The sign is part of Lock The Gate's national week of action.
The Australian government has bowed to public pressure and banned the supertrawler from operating in Australian waters for two years. During this time more scientific research will be completed into the effects the supertrawler would have on local fish stocks.
The supertrawler, known as the Margiris before changing its name to the Abel Tasman, is the world's second-largest trawler and would have been the largest ship ever to fish in Australian waters. The 142-metre-long ship had a quota of 18,000 tonnes, which it would have caught with its 300-metre-long net.
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