More than 2000 People's Climate Marches were held over the weekend of November 27 to 29. In Australia more than 140,000 people took to the streets to show they care, passionately, about climate change. They are also angry at government inaction, as illustrated by the many homemade placards and props.
These marches were the biggest national anti-government mobilisations for many years. The Melbourne march — a huge 60,000 people — was the biggest street march there since the anti-Work Choices protests of 2005.
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NSW Education Minister Adrian Piccoli announced that Aboriginal languages will be offered as an HSC subject from 2016, a decade after the NSW Indigenous Languages policy was introduced.
Students have been able to take Aboriginal language courses from Kindergarten to Year 10 since 2005, giving teachers time to prepare for teaching the HSC course.
Of the 35 Aboriginal languages in NSW, 19 are currently being offered as language courses across the state.
In our “A World to Win” series, Resistance: Young Socialist Alliance members have expressed their desires for a different future.
From universal basic income, green economies and reproductive rights, we have discussed demands that can change the trajectory of our current world towards somewhere greener, freer and more just.
In this final article of the series, Angus McAllen raises the demand of “Everything for Everyone”, an idea of a society without classes, inequality and poverty.
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Over the past few months, refugees who were once deemed by ASIO to be a threat to national security have been gradually released from indefinite detention. It appears that one of Australia's most internationally criticised immigration detention policies is being quietly abandoned.
The most high-profile victims of this policy, Ranjini and her son, who was born in detention and had never known a day of freedom, were released on November 13.
On November 22, the Australian Greens launched their updated renewable energy plan Renew Australia.
The plan improves on their 2013 Clean Energy Roadmap, which was light on detail, merely calling for the Renewable Energy Target (RET) to be raised to 90% by 2030, more funding for the commercialisation of renewable energy technology and improved coordination and planning of the electricity grid.
ADELAIDE
Join us at the Green Left Weekly end-of-year party. Vegetarian-friendly BBQ lunch. Drinks available. No BYO please. Saturday December 19 at 12pm. Black Forest. For address phone Laura 0402 435 891.
BRISBANE
Come to a forum on Ecosocialism: A planet to save, a world to win. Hosted by Socialist Alliance. Saturday December 12 at 12pm. Brisbane Activist Centre, 74b Wickham St, Fortitude Valley. Ph Angus 0431 935 576.
CANBERRA
“We, the developing countries, are dignified and sovereign nations and victims of a problem that we didn’t cause.”
This statement was made six years ago, the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA) at the Copenhagen Climate Conference.
On November 27 the ABC published documents showing that the Queensland Coordinator General plans to extinguish native title over parts of the proposed Carmichael mining site in the Galilee basin and give the freehold to Adani.
The document said: "The Moray Downs Land acquisition includes the takeover of native title rights and interests of the Wangan and Jagalingou people to allow for the leasehold land to be converted to freehold.
The use of the drug ice in Australia is said to be at “epidemic'' levels. There is nothing new in this claim for both Australia and much of the rest of the world.
Epidemics have accompanied the use and misuse of stimulants since the late-19th century. John Rainford traces that history in the final part of this three-part series.
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The rise in the use of crystal methamphetamine, or ice, shows the self-defeating mechanism of drug prohibition.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull made some very modest announcements at the COP21 climate change conference. He pledged Australia to the final years of the Kyoto protocol, an agreement that is about to lapse, and $800 million to developing nations for climate adaptation. This money is to come from existing foreign aid, which recent budgets have slashed. In contrast, Canada's new Prime Minister Justin Trudeau pledged $2.5 billion.
The dam took just half-an-hour to entomb half the village of Bento Rodrigues in 18 metres of iron-ore tailings, reddish mud and water slurry.
A “mountain tsunami” is how firefighters in Mariana, in Minas Gerais in south-eastern Brazil, described the bursting of mining company Samarco Santarem’s iron-ore tailings dam on November 5.
Marcos de Eufrasio, a 38-year-old stonemason who was cutting rock on that sunny afternoon, said that, from nowhere, he heard a “mighty roar”.
Victoria passed legislation on November 27 creating exclusion zones of 150 metres around abortion clinics.
Victoria decriminalised abortion in 2008. But each month right-wing Christians organised protests that harass women seeking to use clinics that offer abortions.
The legislation makes it an offence to film people without consent or block access to footpaths, roads and vehicles within the zone around GP clinics, hospitals and other health services offering abortions.
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