Simon Butler was a 25-year-old activist who helped organise the mass mobilisations in Sydney in February and March 2003 against the invasion of Iraq. He was also a leader of the socialist youth group Resistance and the student anti-war movement Books Not Bombs, which Resistance initiated.
Australia
When NSW members of parliament from both Labor and Coalition start campaigning against coal seam gas (CSG) — and the federal Labor Party starts musing that it might impose “strict regulations” on state governments to control the industry — you know that the movement against this dirty fossil fuel is starting to pack a punch.
CSG was hardly known two years ago. Today, the thought of it frightens people. Gas companies have poured millions into advertising to reassure people that the industry is safe — but it hasn’t worked.
Lip-stitching and attempted self-immolation are among increasingly extreme acts of self-harm taking place in Australia’s two offshore detention camps in recent weeks.
Hunger strikes, cutting and attempted hangings have already become widespread in the tent city on Nauru. But, on February 19, for the first time since the “dark days” of former prime minister John Howard’s “Pacific solution,” refugees stitched their mouths closed to protest their arbitrary and indefinite detention.
Angry residents from Kemps Creek and surrounding neighbourhoods packed the local sports and bowling club auditorium on February 18 to protest against the state government’s plan to dump radioactive waste in the area.
The NSW Liberal government is proposing to shift 5800 tonnes of soil from an area in Hunters Hill, where a uranium ore processing plant once stood, to the Kemps Creek SITA dump site.
Cancer clusters have been detected in Hunters Hill, which have been linked to the contamination left behind at the former plant site.
The first day of NSW parliament this year was met with a strong protest against the announced shortening of the heavy rail line to Newcastle.
Organised by Save Our Rail, a large contingent boarded the 8:03am express from Newcastle Station. Supporters saw them off, while others hopped on at outer stations.
Leaflets were distributed and petitions were signed as activists explained to the other passengers what the state government was proposing. The media were regularly on the mobile phone to Save Our Rail president Joan Dawson.
Hall Greenland, a respected left-wing activist, writer and journalist in Sydney, is the Greens candidate for the inner-west Sydney seat of Grayndler.
Greens Grayndler candidate Hall Greenland: 'Markets and corporations won't de-carbonise the economy'
Hall Greenland, a respected left-wing activist, writer and journalist in Sydney, is the Greens candidate for the inner-west Sydney seat of Grayndler. Greenland was a Leichhardt councillor for the Labor Party in the 1980s, and served a second term as an independent between 1999 and 2004.
He is president of the Friends of Callan Park, a community group which has waged a long struggle against the privatisation of a vital heritage area.
Greenland is also the author of Red Hot, a biography of one of Australia’s earliest Trotskyists, Nick Origlass.
This statement was released by Stop CSG Illawarra on February 19.
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The NSW government has announced new coal seam gas (CSG) rules, including a ban on CSG development in residential areas and critical industry clusters, such as horse breeders and wine producers. But they also stated this would only apply to new CSG exploration, assessment and production activities, and they have not ruled out drinking water catchments.
This statement was released by the Socialist Alliance Moreland councillor Sue Bolton on February 20.
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Experienced crane driver and union activist Billy Ramsay was killed on the Grocon construction site in central Melbourne on February 18. This news was buried many pages inside the Murdoch-owned Herald Sun daily tabloid.
Figures released by the department of immigration showed the number of refugees held in Australian mainland detention peaked at 10,271 in November last year, the highest since mandatory detention began.
This included housing and alternative places of detention, but not the almost 400 men held on Nauru by that time.
Children made up 1221 of those held in detention as at December, another record high. The last time more than 1000 children were held in detention, the government was forced to allow more than half to be released.
This is an extract from a zine written by Resistance members. You can pick up a copy from a Resistance stall on campus during Orientation week.
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Like any other day, a female student is on her way to campus. As she rides her bike down the main road, a head pops out a moving car window and yells out to her: “Nice legs!” Later that day she receives a text from one of the men in her group assessment task who she barely knows: “Hey beautiful we should definitely have a beer sometime ;)”.
The Darwin Asylum Seeker Support and Advocacy Network (DASSAN) released documents exposing the “appalling” extent of child self-harm in a Darwin detention centre on February 18.
DASSAN obtained the documents via a Freedom of Information request, which took the department of immigration more than nine months to release. They detail 26 cases of self-harm by detained refugees aged 9 to 17 between August 2010 and November 2011.
Spokesperson Fernanda Dahlstrom said the documents “concern one detention centre over a relatively short period of time”.
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