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Over the past week, residents in Ashfield, Leichhardt and Haberfield have sprung into action in attempts to stop geotechnical drilling by tenderers for the WestConnex tollway. About 200 drill sites have been identified along the proposed route of WestConnex, between Concord and Rockdale. Drilling for stages 1 and 2 of the project has been underway since mid-September, but residents have been kept in the dark about when and where drilling will happen.
Socialist Alliance contingent at Reclaim the Night, Sydney 2014

The annual Reclaim the Night rally was held in Sydney on October 31. Hundreds rallied in Hyde Park to protest against gendered violence, rising Islamophobia and the closures of women’s refuges.

About 50 people rallied outside the Mint Bistro in Macquarie Street on October 28, carrying placards and black balloons marked CO2, to protest against Whitehaven Coal’s annual general meeting being held inside. The protesters accused the company of ignoring the wishes of communities living near mining projects in the Leard National Forest and at Maules Creek in northern NSW.
"We talked about the real issues that the ALP couldn't face up to and received a good hearing from local people," Steve O'Brien, Socialist Alliance candidate for the Newcastle byelection on October 25, told Green Left Weekly. The byelection followed the forced resignation of Liberal MPs for the state seats of Newcastle and Charlestown, who were implicated in corruption scandals.
It is ominous. As the federal government's joke climate change “Direct Action Plan” passed the Senate with the support of coal baron Clive Palmer and his Palmer United Party, the first heatwave of an early Australian summer had just smashed new temperature records for the hottest day in October. The Bureau of Meteorology said October 25 was Australia’s warmest October day on record, kept since 1910. Average maximums across the nation reached 36 degrees Celsius.
When the idea that the US Congress should establish the House Un-American Activities Committee was first proposed in 1934, the un-American activity that was to be investigated was the racist propaganda from fascist Germany that was being spread by organisations such as the Ku Klux Klan.
Representatives from more than 30 countries across the Americas met in Havana on October 29 to discuss a regional plan of action to combat Ebola. The specialists and government representatives were invited by the anti-imperialist Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA) bloc to exchange experiences and create prevention strategies to address the Ebola virus. ALBA was formed in 2004 by Cuba and Venezuela to promote pro-people regional integration and now has eight nations.
At Geelong's Walk Together rally on October 25, Labor's shadow immigration minister Richard Marles told the crowd Labor would “welcome” refugees. Despite trying to appeal to the crowd's message of acceptance and tolerance, Marles was heckled by members of Rural Australians for Refugees and the Socialist Alliance. Unionists from the Geelong Trades Hall stood up front and turned their backs on him while he spoke.
Susan Price, the Socialist Alliance candidate for Summer Hill in the NSW state election next year, released this statement on October 30. *** Socialist Alliance candidate calls on West Ward residents to reject the racist Australia First Party (AFP) on November 15 in the Marrickville Council by-election. Susan Price, the Socialist Alliance candidate for Summer Hill in the NSW state election next March, was horrified to receive election material in her Dulwich Hill letterbox from the Australia First Party's Jim Saleam over the weekend.
A fierce debate over women’s participation in video game culture has erupted online. Known as “GamerGate”, it is a battle over power and sexism in video games. Women now represent nearly half of those who play video games, and the traditional gamer identity is being challenged. The problem of sexism in video games is part of a wider problem of misogyny in society, and in the same way misogyny is being confronted in parliament or at universities, it is also being confronted in gaming.
Prime Minister Tony Abbott has called for “a mature debate” on whether to raise the GST — and, make no mistake, he'll shirtfront any economic girlie-men who try to stop it.
The passing of former Labor Prime Minister Gough Whitlam at the age of 98 on October 21 provoked a wave of emotion from the community, both young and old. At a time when the federal government is trying to smash the remnants of the progressive reforms initiated during the Whitlam government — in office from December 1972 to November 1975 — the Whitlam era seems like a period from another political universe.