The Victorian Labor Party has gone on a propaganda offensive against the Greens, accusing them of selling out on nuclear issues and taking away Victorians right to protest against nuclear reactors. Large posters have been put up and pamphlets will be sent to households in the four lower-house seats where the Greens pose the most direct challenge to the ALP.
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Australias highest-paid boss, Macquarie Bank chief executive officer Allan Moss, has pocketed a 57% pay rise, now taking home more than double an average workers yearly wage for one day at the office. In a day, he earns more than most workers get in a year.
May 27 marks the 40th anniversary of the overwhelming victory of the 1967 referendum, in which almost 91% of the Australian people voted to give the federal government the constitutional power to override the brutal, degrading racist laws of the states under which Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders were tormented. The federal government now had the power to make specific laws in respect to the Indigenous people. The Australian people had sent a clear signal that it was time for Canberra to make laws, introduce programs and provide the necessary resources to end the racial oppression of Indigenous Australians.
The 1967 referendum on Aboriginal rights in which more than 90% voted in favour of including Aboriginal people in the census and giving the federal government the power to override racist state laws and legislate for Aboriginal people has enormous importance for Aboriginal people and our struggle, Queensland Indigenous leader Sam Watson told Green Left Weekly.
Some 250 people heard from Terry Hicks, father of former Guantanamo Bay detainee David Hicks, at a May 19 public meeting organised by the Stop the War Coalition. The meeting was also addressed by academic Tim Anderson, Omar Merhi (brother of one of the Muslim men being held in Barwon Prison accused of being terrorists) and STWCs Anna Samson. Responding to a suggestion at a media conference before the meeting that one of Australias most notorious criminals would soon be coming home from Guantanamo, Terry Hicks commented that one of Australias most notorious criminals would soon be dis-elected.
On May 17, a candlelight vigil was held in in Taylor Square to mark International Day Against Homophobia. The vigil was organised by the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer (LGBTQ) Network of Amnesty International and Community Action Against Homophobia (CAAH) and called for the immediate release of Ali Humayun, a gay refugee from Pakistan who has been held in the Villawood immigration detention centre for more than two years.
A report released on May 14 by the Federation of Community Legal Centres of Victoria, accused police of using excessive and unwarranted force against protesters and bystanders during the November 17-19 G20 summit in Melbourne of international finance ministers.
The Original Australians
By Josephine Flood
Allen and Unwin, 2006
306 pages, $39.95
By Josephine Flood
Allen and Unwin, 2006
306 pages, $39.95
If watching the ABC TV’s drama Bastard Boys is the only information that you have about the Maritime Union of Australia lockout of 1998, then you would probably conclude that the dispute was won by the brilliant tactical skills of Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) secretary Greg Combet and former Maritime Union of Australia (MUA) national secretary John Coombes, and the legal talents of union lawyers.
A new vaccine against the human papilloma virus (HPV), a sexually transmitted disease that causes most incidents of cervical cancer, is being opposed by religious conservatives in the US who claim it will encourage promiscuity in young women. According to Newscientist.com, half of all sexually active women in the US between the ages of 18 and 22 are infected with HPV and some of these cases go on to develop into cancer later in life. After successful trials of the vaccine, the US Centers for Disease Control and Protection recommended vaccination of all 11-12 year-olds. But so far only Virginia has passed a law requiring vaccination and West Virginia, Kentucky, Mississippi and New Mexico have rejected the program. In Texas, the Senate overturned the governors order for the program to be introduced in that state.
On May 7, New Matilda published an article by Antony Loewenstein, titled “Cuba: Paradise Left” in which he reports on his impressions of Cuba. Loewenstein describes Cuba as a “police state” with “no freedom of speech”. (See < http://newmatilda.com/home/articledetail.asp?ArticleID=2229&CaA HREF="mailto:tegoryID=">.) He takes issue with Australian left academic, Tim Anderson whom, he said, “ought to know better” for arguing that Cuba has more democracy than the US, (see
In 1974 hundreds of people crowded into a room in the Carlton Pram Factory and hatched a plan to build a media outlet that would tell the stories of those neglected, marginalised and ignored by the mainstream media of the day. Two years later 3CR began transmitting the voices of trade unions, the working class, the Indigenous community, youth and students, people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds, peace and social justice activists, greenies, socialists, anarchists, lovers of jazz and nostalgia music, feminists, queers and people with disabilities.
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