Pip Hinman

NSW bushfires

With all hell breaking loose as catastrophic fires ravage parts of New South Wales and Queensland, all Prime Minister Scott Morrison can advise is to pray. It’s a poor excuse from a government that has criminally refused to take action on the climate crisis. 

Moir cartoon

We need to understand Morrison’s attacks on “progressivism” and a “new breed of radical activism” as more than just an attack on our right to protest or the right of investors to decide where to put their cash.

Blocakde IMARC protest in Melbourne on October 30.

Environmentalists are going to have to get a whole lot more radical if Prime Minister Scott Morrison gets his way on proposed new measures targeting anti-mining activism.

Labor’s policy silence has officially been broken with leader Anthony Albanese’s Orwellian vision statement, “Jobs and the Future of Work”, in which he seeks to spells out how Australia can confront the climate crisis and ramp up coal and gas export.

A protest by NT Traditional Owners outside Origin Energy's AGM

Northern Territory Traditional Owners delivered a message to Origin Energy that they do not give permission to frack for shale gas, outside the company's AGM in Sydney on October 16.

On October 7, three Bulgarian judges from the Supreme Court of Cassation decided they would need up to two months to review the Sofia Court of Appeal’s decision to grant Australian citizen Jock Palfreeman parole on September 19.

On October 7, in an unprecedented departure from the rule of law, three judges will review the parole decision handed down to Australian citizen Jock Palfreeman on September 19 in Bulgaria.

Palfreeman has served 11 of a 20 year sentence and, under Bulgarian law, prisoners who serve half their sentence can be paroled. Currently, Palfreeman is being held illegally in an immigration prison.

After 10 weeks of protected strike action, Construction, Forestry, Maritime, Mining and Energy Union (CFMMEU) members and hazardous waste removal company Gbar have reached an agreement for a better enterprise agreement.

An abortion rights rally outside NSW parliament on July 31.

Abortion has finally been decriminalised in New South Wales, after decades of campaigning and nearly 40 hours of parliamentary “debate” that generated widespread anguish around what should be a basic health matter.

“The student strikes have been phenomenal — surreal at times,” Sydney high school student Chloe Russell-Alexander told Green Left Weekly reflecting on the huge Climate Strike that saw more than 300,000 people walk out of school or work across Australia on September 20. “That reflects education, cooperation and social cohesion on a massive scale. It means that we mean business.”

Australian anti-fascist campaigner Jock Palfreeman’s parole is being challenged by Bulgarian authorities and his lawyer has said he urgently needs to leave the country.

350.org co-founder Bill McKibben estimates that on September 20, about 4 million people took part in roughly 2500 Climate Strikes in more than 163 countries on seven continents. That is a phenomenal success for an emerging school student-led protest movement that only started last year.