Australia

MELBOURNE— On May 29, union and community activists protested against Pacific Brands’ attempt to move machinery out of Australia. The protest was held at Swanston Dock. Pacific Brands, which makes government uniforms, said in February it would sack 1850 workers and move clothing production overseas.

In a time of climate crisis, logic dictates we should be cutting carbon pollution and ending our reliance on burning coal for energy. Yet the opposite is happening in Australia.

Abdul Hekmat, a Hazara refugee from Afghanistan, doesn’t believe that the US-NATO invasion and occupation of his country amounts to a “good” war, and is troubled by the prospect of the Taliban seizing more power.

We all know about the government and big business’s so-called “solutions” to the climate change crisis: “clean” coal, carbon trading schemes, etc. But what are some real world solutions to the climate crisis and what real action is being taken?

There are still about 12.3 million people worldwide who work in some form of bonded or forced labour, according to a May 12 International Labour Organisation (ILO) report.

The NSW Rail, Tram and Bus Union (RTBU) has criticised RailCorp plans to decimate station staff numbers.

The Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) has criticised the fast-tracking of approval for a 3km tunnel under the Ranger uranium mine operated by Energy Resources of Australia.

Two protesters abseiled from the front of parliament house on May 13 in a dramatic protest against the federal government’s policies on climate change.

Members of the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) from five Victorian universities took strike action on May 21.

I am a Sinhalese from the majority community in Sri Lanka, not from the brutalised Tamil community. I have campaigned for five decades for the right of the Tamils to live with equality, dignity and safety in the country of their birth.

Chants of “Hardest working, lowest paid: Bligh and Wilson, be ashamed!” rang out from 4000 teachers at the gates of state parliament on May 19.

Despite some new health spending on infrastructure and research, the recent budget failed to address the growing public health care crisis.