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.
On May 12, 60 people marked the anniversary of the deaths in 1981 of 10 Irish republican hunger strikers in the H-Blocks of Long Kesh prison in Northern Ireland, who were fighting for their right to be recognised and treated as political prisoners. The commemoration, held at the Gaelic Club, was organised by the Sydney Cairde (Friends of) Sinn Fein group.
Survival International reported on May 15 that Brazilian Indians were angered when Pope Benedict XVI, during his recent visit to Brazil, claimed that their ancestors had been silently longing to become Christians when Brazil was colonised five centuries ago. According to the BBC, the Pope also claimed that the imposition of Christianity on the region had not involved an alienation of the pre-Colombian cultures. Jecinaldo Satere Mawe, from the Amazonian Satere Mawe tribe, said the Popes comments were arrogant and disrespectful. The Catholic Churchs Indian advocacy group in Brazil called the Popes statement wrong and indefensible. Brazils indigenous population is today less than 7% of what it was in 1500, and of 1000 distinct tribes, only around 220 remain. For more information visit < http://www.survival-A HREF="mailto:international.org"><international.org>.
The shambles of the Airline Partners Australia (APA) private equity takeover attempt for Qantas demonstrates the greed and rapaciousness of this rotten capitalist system. All parties involved in the grubby business have shown up the irrationality of capitalism.
Since the ALP national conference in April, the big companies have had the ear of the Liberal and Labor parties about what sort of changes should be made to Australia’s industrial relations laws. The voice of workers and their unions have not been heard.
Less than two days after its launch, more than 100 people had signed an online pledge to take part in peaceful direct action against the construction of a third coal export terminal at Newcastles port. The pledge notes that the terminal would increase Newcastles coal exports by 66 million tonnes per annum, producing 160 million tonnes of greenhouse pollution.
On May 2, at the Barrick Gold shareholder meeting in Toronto, Protest Barrick which includes aboriginal communities from Australia, the US, Latin America and Asia served the company an eviction notice. The previous day, writer and film-maker Naomi Klein opened a film night in Toronto, at which films from Chile, Nevada, the US and Australia were screened. Shareholders at the meeting were given leaflets by representatives of Australias Wiradjuri people and Nevadas Western Shoshone explaining the cyanide contamination of their land and depletion of water supplies as a result of Barricks operations. Some protesters used proxy ballots to argue their case inside the meeting. Lake Cowal, the sacred heartland of the Wiradjuri, is being desecrated by Barricks cyanide leaching gold mine. Access to the lake for traditional ceremonies has been restricted because of the mine. Wiradjuri traditional owner Neville Chappy Williams, who announced the serving of the eviction notice to the meeting, was later approached by some shareholders who said they were now considering selling their shares.
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