The following statement was released by the Australian Kurdish Association on December 22.
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About 100 members of the Kurdish community and their supporters rallied in Sydney against the Turkish government's attacks on human rights and for Kurdish freedom on December 18. The rally was held to publicise the recent report on human rights violations in Turkey issued to mark Human Rights Week.
The Victorian government has turned its back on a major commitment to not contract out disability services to the private sector.
The Health and Community Services Union (HACSU) has been left feeling “absolutely betrayed” by the Daniel Andrews' government's decision to break an election promise that declared, “Disability is not for sale”. News of this proposal wasn't so much announced, as discovered in the closing paragraph of an unrelated document.
The Victorian Labor government's decision to privatise Melbourne Port, the last significant public asset in the state, through a 50-year lease has drawn little public opposition.
One reason is that the port is out of sight to most people in Victoria. Another is that the government has tried to soften opposition by offering to remove between 50 and 100 level crossings through the proceeds of the sale.
The administration of the University of Western Australia has announced that the university will be sacking 300 staff in the new year.
The battle to save land and water in north-west NSW's Liverpool Plains, from coal and coal seam gas continues to be fought by Aboriginal communities, farmers, local councils and environmentalists.
People in Tamworth, Moree, Narrabri, Boggabri, Gunnedah, Quirindi and Toomelah are fighting coalmining in the Leard State Forest and the Shenhua Watermark coalmine near Gunnedah. They are battling huge coal seam gas (CSG) projects in the Pilliga and gas projects in Narrabri and Tamworth.
Hundreds of disability workers rallied in Melbourne on December 14 against attempts to privatise the rollout of the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) in Victoria.
In the current world situation — where imperial war and blowback terrorism have fueled a resurgence of racism in West — it is not surprising that Australia's small, far-right, racist Party For Freedom, led by its would-be fuhrer Nick Folkes, has called for a rally to commemorate the racist riot in the Sydney beach suburb of Cronulla ten years ago.
In the context of the anti-Muslim racism spiked by the recent attacks in Paris, the Electrical Trades Union Queensland and Northern Territory (ETU Qld and NT) has produced a video showing that racism is anti-worker and has no place in the Australian community.
When feminist writer Clementine Ford outed one of her online abusers to his employer, it struck a chord with people who have endured similar sexist harassment and abuse: on their blogs, social media, and even dating websites. However, Ford also been criticised and been told she's doing more harm than good, most famously in the widely discussed opinion piece on independent news site New Matilda by Jack Kilbride titled “Why Courageous Clementine Ford Is Not The Answer”.
About 8000 unionists gathered outside the Melbourne Magistrates' Court on December 8 to support Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) officials John Setka and Shaun Reardon, who faced blackmail charges.
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