Australia

You know, unless asylum seekers somehow managed to sneak into this country and made it all the way to Geelong to pose as Alcoa executives to announce yet another plant closure at the cost of nearly a thousand more jobs, then I really think this nation has some bigger goddamn problems than boats carrying refugees asking for help.

The federal Coalition government is conducting a review of Australia's Renewable Energy Target (RET), which aims to have 20% of Australia’s energy produced from renewables by 2020.

It’s impossible to ignore any longer just how cruel and irrational the government’s war on refugees has become after violent attacks in the Manus Island detention centre left one dead and scores injured.

The Socialist Alliance released this statement February 19. *** Over the weekend of February 15-16, the socialist youth organisation Resistance merged into the Socialist Alliance of which it was previously an affiliate. Members of the Socialist Alliance aged 26 and under are now part of a new youth wing called “Resistance: Young Socialist Alliance”.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott recently toured drought stricken areas of north-west New South Wales and southern Queensland, promising that his government was close to finalising subsidies to farmers affected by the drought.

Calls to boycott the Sydney Biennale unless it cuts ties with major sponsor Transfield — which holds government contracts to provide welfare services in immigration detention centres on Nauru and Manus Island — have been gaining momentum. A group of high-profile artists involved in the Biennale have written to the festival’s board of directors, calling on them to withdraw from the funding agreement with Transfield.

About 700 people attended a public forum called “We are one, but we are many: Working towards a humane refugee policy” hosted by the Combined Refugee Action Group (CRAG) in Geelong on February 18.

About 150 people rallied outside the home of Sheila Oakley in the Brisbane suburb of Logan on February 15.

In the first issue of Green Left Weekly for this year, we announced the campaign to raise $100,000 in pledges for GLW by its 1000th issue, due March 12.  Congratulation messages for Green Left Weekly, 1000th issue celebration details, and more here.

As approaches its 1000th issue, more than 20 years after it first hit the streets, we will be looking back at some of the campaigns it has covered and its role as an alternative source of news. This week we look at climate change. *** When Green Left Weekly first hit the streets in 1991, the hole in the ozone layer over Antarctica was the biggest climate-related worry for most people. Twenty-three years later, most people accept that climate change is, to quote Kevin Rudd, the biggest moral challenge of our generation.

"February 14 is celebrated as a day of of love by many people, but for us it is a day of grief" said one of the Aboriginal speakers at the start of the rally and march to mark the 10th anniversary of the killing of Aboriginal youth TJ Hickey in a police pursuit in Redfern. The protest began at the spot in where TJ was impaled on a fence after being thrown off his bicycle. The Hickey family, including mother Gail, where out in force. "Its been 10 long years but I am not giving up the fight," she said. Photos below by Peter Boyle

At a major speech in parliament on February 12, Prime Minister Tony Abbott said the government was “serious about Aboriginal policy … no less serious than it is about stopping the boats”. He pledged to close the gap between Indigenous and non-indigenous outcomes in health, education and employment.