There's a lot of unease in progressive circles in Western Australia in the wake of Liberal Premier Colin Barnett's landslide reelection win in the March 9 WA state election. The expectation is that many things will get worse before they get better.
The minority Liberal government, dependent on National Party support and buoyed by mining royalties, has been restrained compared to the slash-and-burn of public services rammed through by its counterparts in Queensland and Victoria.
Australia
Venezuela’s socialist president, Hugo Chavez, died on March 5, and if there is one thing we can take away from coverage in the Western mainstream media is there is now one less dictator threatening the free world.
Sure, on the surface, Chavez didn’t really seem like much of a dictator, what with the whole coming to power through free elections and encouraging unprecedented political participation by ordinary citizens thing. But it is just like those serial killers whose neighbours always say seemed so nice until the horrible truth came out.
Over recent weeks, lawyers and campaigners have been racing to the courts to prevent immigration department plans to deport Afghan refugees back to Kabul.
Refugee advocates raised alarm bells on March 5 when four Afghan Hazara refugees who had been living in the community on bridging visas were re-detained after attending scheduled immigration meetings.
The Refugee Action Coalition released the statement below on March 13. The day before, ABC Online said five asylum seekers had escaped the centre, but were returned quickly.
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The Nauru Director of the Department of Immigration has told a meeting of asylum seekers in the Nauru detention camp that their refugee assessments will begin “in about 10 days” [on March 18].
The initial refugee assessments are expected to be finalised in about six months.
About 100 people attended a gathering at the Plaza Latinamericana in central Sydney to farewell Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez, who died on March 5 in Caracas.
The gathering, called at short notice by members of the Latin American community in Sydney, heard several speakers hail the life and achievements of Venezuela's revolutionary leader.
Venezuelan Ambassador to Australia Nelson Davila addressed the crowd by phone from Canberra.
DARWIN — Coca-Cola has forced the Northern Territory government to scrap its 10c deposit recycling scheme.
The scheme was introduced in January last year, but Coca-Cola, Schweppes Australia and Lion Pty Ltd took the NT government to the federal court.
The federal court ruled on March 4 in favour of the beverage companies, which challenged the recycling scheme on the basis that it was “costly and ineffective” and added 10 cents to the retail price.
Coca-Cola said "Australian families do not deserve to be slugged with yet another cost of living increase”.
Prison officers across Western Australia took strike action in an effort to force the state Liberal government to make similar promises to advance wages and working conditions as it did on February 25 to WA nurses.
The WA Prison Officer Union (WAPOU) is demanding a 14% wage rise over three years and measures to alleviate the chronic overcrowding and understaffing in WA prisons.
Mallacoota — love it. If you’ve been there, you do. It’s remote, in the heart of the Croajingolong National Park in East Gippsland. People come and they return, to enjoy unspoilt wilderness and peace, to walk, swim, surf, fish, paddle a canoe.
It’s a place to breathe and see how it used to be. This haven of forest, lakes, birds and native animals, ocean and miles of pure unsullied beaches, dolphins and whales passing by, hasn’t been privatised or resort-ised. It does have the biggest, publicly owned, affordable camping park, which is adjacent to the UNESCO World Biosphere Reserve.
This statement was released by Socialist Alliance on March 8.
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The demands of the first-ever International Women's Day rally in Australia, in 1928, were equal pay for equal work, an eight-hour day for shop assistants, the basic wage for the unemployed and annual holidays on full pay.
A lot has been won through struggle since 1928, yet women in Australia today still have to struggle some of these issues:
The Stop the Intervention Collective Sydney released the statement below on February 28 to promote an anti-racism rally planned for March 21. Details are at the end of the article.
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The Northern Territory intervention has been a disaster — but the government is set to expand “income management” to cover even more people from July this year, including in Bankstown.
About 1500 people took part in a short-notice march to oppose police violence against two young men after the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras parade.
Video footage showing a tall policeman throwing a handcuffed youth to the ground with shocking force and putting his boot on his head. This ignited angry memories of police violence at Sydney’s first-ever Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras in 1978.
Photos by Peter Boyle.
This week on campuses across the country, Resistance members are opening their books and getting back into study. Our “Bachelor of Revolutionary Activism” will be open to anyone who is interested in getting an education in socialist ideas.
Classes will include a discussion on Marxist-feminism. Others will be about how we can save our environment, or how best to support the Palestinian people. It’s a little bit different in each city or campus, but there will be common themes. Everywhere Resistance will be putting forward an alternative vision on how to run the world.
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