Families struggling on low incomes and the environment will benefit from an innovative crowdfunding campaign to install solar hot water systems made by the Earthworker Cooperative in homes. The campaign is supported by organisations such as the Father Bob Maguire Foundation, Aboriginal Housing Victoria and Common Equity NSW.
The first installation of a solar system funded by the "Give Tanks" campaign took place on January 12 in a home managed by Aboriginal Housing Victoria.
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A History Man’s Past & Other People’s Stories: A Shared Memoir. Part One: Other People’s Wars
By John Tognolini
2015, 160 pages
pb $24, ebook $5
Order the book
In the past few years, private investors backed by corporate interests such as global banks, financial firms, hedge funds and food giants have bought a huge amount of farmland across the global South.

Resistance members are currently taking part in a tour of Malaysia with the Socialist Party of Malaysia (PSM).
The tour has visited Buntong where the PSM has set up an after-school care program for children from poor families who work long shifts.
They also travelled to Pusing, a 100-year-old tin mining town where many farmers are engaged in a struggle for land rights against developers.
The Northern Territory has the highest rate of youth detention in the country. The detention rate of young people is six times the national average and 97% of those detained in the juvenile justice system are Aboriginal youth.
There have been a number of reports and investigations in the past two years into the treatment of Aboriginal youth while held in custody. They show quite clearly that by deliberate design and policy Aboriginal youth in are treated in a barbarous, inhumane and illegal way.
Waterfront workers at Hutchison Ports terminals in Sydney and Brisbane are "back in the gate now," and "normal work is proceeding" Maritime Union of Australia (MUA) Sydney branch assistant secretary Joe Deakin told Green Left Weekly on January 20. Settlement of the long-running dispute which began on August 6 last year was finally achieved in December.
2015 the hottest year on record
Last year smashed the record for the hottest year since reporting began in 1850, according to the first full-year figures from the world’s three principal temperature estimates.
A memorial was held on January 20 for two First Nations freedom fighters, Tunnerminnerwait and Maulboyheener.
They were executed in 1842, the first two people executed in Victoria. Their deaths form part of the genocide that accompanied the dispossession of the First Nations people.
The gathering marched to lay flowers at the Victoria Markets north wall carpark, where their remains and those of 9000 others lie in an unmarked grave.
The second-largest company in Ireland, CRH, has divested from Israel after coming under sustained pressure from Palestine solidarity activists.
CRH held 25% of the shares in Mashav, owner of Israel's top cement manufacturer Nesher. In 2004, it admitted that “in all probability” Nesher cement was used in the construction of Israel's wall in the West Bank. Nesher cement has also been used in constructing Israeli settlements in the West Bank and in the light rail network serving Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem.
Right-wing racist Andrew Bolt's television show The Bolt Report has been axed by Channel Ten, according The Australian.
Ten reportedly charged News Corp about $2 million a year for using its facilities to produce and broadcast the Sunday morning political discussion program. The program was not included in Ten's lineup for 2016.
Feminist, resident activist, popular educator, councillor, public transport campaigner, mother, academic, environmentalist and true democrat, Margaret Henry, who passed away late last year in Newcastle, had many sides to her wonderful life.
Every year from around Christmas through to February, Argentina is wrapped in a summer trance. The usual, frenzied pitch of city centres is muffled as if by vast blankets of cotton and sticky heat. Families find reprieve from work by travelling to the coast and mountains, visiting distant family and towns in the interior.
This lull often translates into a dialling-down of class struggle. There are fewer and smaller mobilisations, strikes and political activism.
Captain Arthur Phillip took formal possession of the colony of New South Wales and raised the flag for the first time in Sydney Cove on January 26, 1788.
In the early 1880s the day was known as “First Landing”, “Anniversary Day” or “Foundation Day”. In 1946 the Commonwealth and state governments agreed to unify the celebrations on January 26 and call it “Australia Day”.

Tasmania is in the grip of an energy crisis as drought reduces output from its hydro-electric dams and the undersea power cable — which had been providing up to 40% of its power needs from Victoria — is shut down.
Basslink is planning a major operation to repair its undersea power cable, which was shut down after a fault was discovered about 100 kilometres off the Tasmanian coast.
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