About 50 angry policyholders — victims of the huge floods that inundated large parts of Brisbane in January — protested outside the South Bank offices of insurance company CGU on February 18. The noisy protest presented a list of demands to the company, the February 19 Courier Mail said.
Jim McIlroy
About 200 people rallied in Brisbane's King George Square on February 25 to show solidarity with the people of Libya resisting the oppressive regime of Muammar Gaddafi. A banner proclaiming "Free Libya" was fixed to a wall, together with photos of victims of the Libyan military and police.
Placards carried by members of the Libyan community, many of them students, read "Stop using mercenaries to kill our people" and "Please help our country".
The popular uprising which has swept Egypt over the past two weeks, inspired by the revolt which drove the Tunisian dictator from power in mid-January, is the expression of a people’s power movement in the Arab world which has been 40 years in the making.
I have been waiting for this for a long time. I lived in Cairo for six months in the first half of 1967, until the so-called Six Day War forced my family to leave Egypt for Britain.
My father was a meteorological scientist working through the United Nations with the Eqyptian agriculture department for a time.
"As we speak, Egypt is on fire," Arab community activist Omar Mostafa told about 50 people who attended a snap protest rally in support of the recent democracy protests in Egypt at Town Hall Square on January 29.
The recent Queensland and Victorian floods make it clear — Australia needs a comprehensive, national, public insurance scheme, to cover floods, bushfires and other major natural disasters.
The Australian Museum hosted a debate on January 23 on the topic: “Is the 26th of January the most appropriate date to celebrate our national identity?”
Sixty people attended the debate, which pitted historian and educator Nigel Parbury against Brisbane indigenous leader and Socialist Alliance member Sam Watson.
Parbury put the affirmative case and said that Australia Day had changed over the decades to better reflect the country's multicultural community. But he conceded that much more change was needed in future.
The flood disaster that struck three-quarters of Queensland over the past month and then spread to Victoria and Tasmania is the worst overall flood catastrophe in recorded Australian history. It has also inspired a massive outpouring of public sympathy and solidarity.
The disaster has shown in practice the huge potential for ordinary people to mobilise in support of fellow human beings in need of help.
Tens of thousands of Brisbane residents volunteered to help people whose homes had been flooded by the raging Brisbane River, especially over the weekend of January 15-16.
"You can't come in”, Friends of the Earth (FOE) organiser Drew Hutton told mining companies on behalf of a coalition of farming groups from South-West Queensland, outside State Parliament on November 22.
The farmers launched the campaign in opposition to mining companies’ plans for up to 40,000 coal seam gas wells and massive new coal mines on the farming land of the Darling Downs.
"All the laws are weighted in favour of the mining interests and against farmers”, Hutton said.
Mulrunji Doomadgee died in police custody on Palm Island in November 2004. Despite reviewing findings highly critical of police by coroner Brian Hine at the third Coronial Inquest in May, on November 23 the Queensland Criminal Justice Commission (CMC) found there was insufficient evidence to prosecute the officers involved.
— "Queensland is now the world epicentre of pollution of our atmosphere", Greens leader Bob Brown told 200 people at a November 14 meeting sponsored by Friends of the Earth, 6 Degrees, the Wilderness Society and the Queensland Conservation Council.
"We know what is coming if we don't put a stop to the use of fossil fuels. This year is the hottest ever in human existence, and it's only going to get worse if we don't take urgent action to tackle climate change."
"The Venezuelan revolution continues to make progress in the face of constant challenges and some setbacks”, said Coral Wynter, a Latin America solidarity activist recently returned from six months working in Venezuela.
She addressed a November 18 Green Left Weekly forum on the Bolivarian Revolution. Under the leadership of socialist President Hugo Chavez, Venezuela has been transformed over the past 10 years.
"The main issues here at the City Hall site are wages and conditions, and safety," Peter Ong, Electrical Trades Union organiser, told Green Left Weekly on November 17.
He spoke at a picket of 500 construction workers outside City Hall, which is undergoing a $215 million renovation.
"The main contractors, Abigroup, are using a labour hire workforce, at pay rates at least $6 per hour less than other city sites. Last week, the workers attended a meeting out the front, and were arbitrarily sacked by the company.”
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