Green Left Weekly's Rachel Evans spoke to Damien Cahill, vice-president of the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) at the University of Sydney about the campaign against staff and other cuts. Cahill is a senior lecturer in the Political Economy department at the university.
What level of cuts to teaching staff is Sydney University trying to make?
Australia
The Socialist Alliance released the statement below on April 20.
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In the space of a few days, 350 Toyota workers, including some who have spent decades working for the company, have been axed in appalling scenes at the Altona plant, west of Melbourne.
Right now, there is an opportunity to slash Australia’s carbon emissions by 5 million tonnes a year in one stroke. The city of Port Augusta in South Australia has all the right conditions to make it Australia’s first baseload renewable energy hub.
The two coal-fired power stations at Port Augusta are getting old. Industry experts say they may be forced to close as soon as 2015.
Over the past few years it appears that debate and conflict about climate policy has dominated Australian politics. But the appearance is different to the reality.
There is no serious debate between the two big parties about climate change. A serious debate would be grounded in the climate science, which says we must move to a zero carbon economy at emergency speed.
The Construction Forestry Mining Energy Union (CFMEU) has demanded that BHP Billiton surrender its lease on the Norwich Park coalmine, near Dysart in Central Queensland. The BHP Mitsubishi Alliance (BMA) combine announced early this month that it would shut down the mine because it was allegedly losing money.
BMA has laid partial blame on the long-running industrial dispute with mineworkers in Queensland for losses at Norwich Park and other mines in the state.
Pay Justice Action released the statement below on April 19.
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Pay Justice Action (PJA), a grassroots activist group campaigning for equal pay, applauds the initiative of the Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) for making insecure work a focus for the whole union movement.
Campaigners against the mining companies’ push to open up the Kimberley region in WA to vast gas and mineral exploitation told a public meeting on April 19 that this was the “Franklin Dam campaign of our time”.
The forum “Saving the Kimberley: Our Land or Gasland?” was organised by Stop Coal Seam Gas, Sydney.
About 240 people attended a forum on “Wikileaks, Assange & defending democracy” on April 19.
Presented in partnership with the WikiLeaks Australian Citizens' Alliance (WACA), the forum argued that conversations about WikiLeaks and its editor-in-chief Julian Assange are about much more than the organisation and the individual behind it. They encompass freedom of speech and the press, whistleblower protection, government transparency, the underlying tenets of our democracy and civil rights.
Supporters of WikiLeaks and Julian Assange protested outside the Sydney Convention Centre on April 20 as Attorney General Nicola Roxon spoke inside at the Commonwealth Regional Law conference.
Earlier, three activists entered the conference venue and chanted slogans in support of Assange outside the room where Roxon was speaking. They continued for about 10 minutes before they were asked to leave.
Tasmania is facing a series of big, interlinked problems. These include:
• a health system in crisis,
• job losses in other public services causing big service inadequacies and unacceptable workloads and stress on frontline staff,
• bleeding of skilled professionals and new graduates to other states,
• the highest unemployment rate in the nation,
• an economic recession, and
• a rising cost of living.
Prime minister Julia Gillard’s April 17 speech on Afghanistan was widely heralded as a change of policy. It is and it isn’t.
It does set out a schedule for a partial withdrawal of troops — thereby bringing Australia belatedly into line with the US drawdown of troops by 2014. But it also affirms that Australia, like the US, will not withdraw all its troops.
All I really want to say is “thank you”. And there is plenty I want to thank you for.
I want to thank you for not cancelling your April 18 evening conversation with Martin Flanagan at the Melbourne Wheeler Centre to discuss your new book Am I black enough for you?
It was a very powerful and moving event to be part of; a reaffirming lesson of the importance of courage, humility and respect.
As we all found out, it was no easy decision for you to go ahead with the event.
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