In the same week that it approved the huge $1.2 billion Shenhua Watermark coalmine in prime agricultural land on the Liverpool Plains, the Abbott government has directed the Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC) to end all investment in wind farms and small-scale solar projects. These are just the latest salvos in a series of attacks on the renewable energy sector that seek to protect their friends in the coal industry.
1061
Melbourne, July 18: Police pepper spray anti-racists and high five fascists.
The following statement was released by the Melbourne Street Medics' Collective on July 18:
* * *
Australia’s climate policies are a mess, and we cannot just blame Tony Abbott. We are facing a climate emergency and Australia is a significant culprit. The country has very high per capita emissions and is a major coal exporter.
The NSW government made drastic changes to the victims of crime compensation scheme in 2013. One change made was the replacement of lump sum compensation payments with drastically smaller recognition payments, with compensation payments only for direct costs associated with the crime.
Community resistance to the Perth Freight Link, a $1.6 billion freeway project proposed by the state and federal governments for the south-west region of Perth is growing at an explosive pace. The strength and depth of this opposition is now so strong that the issue will almost certainly dominate the next federal and state election campaigns.
Public sector workers strike against the deal, July 15.
In the early hours of July 16, Greek parliament voted to accept the punitive July 12 funding deal put forward by eurozone lenders.
The deal included many harsh austerity measures, including large-scale privatisation, that the SYRIZA-led government of Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras had come to office pledging to oppose.
"The age of entitlement is over".
I'm sure it seemed like a good slogan when it was cooked up, at least to the party room hacks and spin doctors in Tony Abbott’s government. Of course it was only going to be a matter of time before they tripped over their own words: “The age of entitlement is over”.
ARMIDALE
Come to a Women in Black silent vigil for peace. Mourning the victims of violence around the world. Saturday July 25 at 10.30am. Old Courthouse in the Mall.
BRISBANE
Watch a film: Selma. Follows the civil rights movement in the 1960s, with a focus on Martin Luther King Jr. Entry $10/$5 conc. Friday Jul 24 at 6pm. Brisbane Activist Centre, 74b Wickham St, Fortitude Valley. Ph Dom 0431 638 772.
MELBOURNE
Protest outside the ALP conference on Saturday July 25.
Rally for clean energy at 11am. Organised by Getup!
Doctors, nurses and their supporters protested on July 11 and 12 around Australia against the Border Force Act.
The protests, organised by the Medical Association for the Prevention of War and Doctors Against the Border Force Act, were held in Darwin, Broome, Coffs Harbour, Adelaide, Bendigo, Melbourne and Sydney.
Earlier in the week an open letter from 40 current detention centre workers said they would defy the Border Force Act was published.
The demonising of asylum seekers is an elaborate exercise in racist scapegoating designed to distract Australians from the real causes of anxiety and insecurity in their lives. We need to be absolutely uncompromising in our resistance to this toxic agenda.
New strikes have hit Greece as anger flares over the latest deal pushed onto Greece by the Troika of European Commission, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund.
Thousands of public sector workers from the ADEDY union took to the streets on July 15 as part of a general strike calling for the rejection of a raft of new austerity measures being put to the parliament by Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras.
Public submissions to the NSW Planning Assessment Commission (PAC) over July 12 and 13 were overwhelmingly against a fourth coal terminal (T4) to be located at Kooragang Island, near Newcastle.
More than 150 people, including Reef town locals and traditional owners, gathered outside the Brisbane headquarters of Indian mining corporation Adani on July 16.
The Greek Parliament voted in the early hours of July 16 to back the deal agreed to by Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras on the tough economic measures demanded by Greece's creditors.
The vote came despite street protests and strikes -- and in the face of a statement released the day before by the governing SYRIZA party's central committee against the deal.
As part of Peace Convergence 2015, three “Quaker Grannies for Peace” set up a tea table on July 13, blocking the access road to Queensland's Samuel Hill military base, which is being used for the Talisman Sabre military exercises.
They set up a table and chairs and invited soldiers to have tea and cake in order to engage in dialogue with them.
Core texts of the secretive Trade in Services Agreement (TISA) have finally been exposed by WikiLeaks.
The whistleblowing group released the explosive document on July 1, ahead of the a new round of negotiations. The 52 participating countries, including the US, Japan, Australia, Israel and the members of the European Union, are discussing “liberalisation” of laws on financial services, telecommunications and cross-border transfer of workers.
Pages
