These are exciting times for Resistance, Emma Clancy, a member of the socialist youth organisations national executive, told Green Left Weekly. In the past year we have gone from strength to strength. Clancy is helping to organise the 2007 national conference of Resistance, which will be held at Sydneys Glebe Town Hall from July 5 to 8. The conference will involve in-depth strategic discussions about all of the protest movements in Australia.
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On May 31, the nine Sydney men who were arrested in raids on their homes in November 2005, and who have been incarcerated in Goulburn maximum security prison since, finally faced a hearing in the Supreme Court. The nine men pleaded not guilty to the charge of conspiring to organise a terrorist act under the Howard government’s so-called anti-terror laws.
On May 31, 300 people packed the Wesley Uniting Church in Melbourne’s CBD for a public meeting organised by the LinkUp Melbourne campaign for the city’s train and tram systems to be put back under public ownership when the contracts with the current private operators expires in November.
On May 30, the crown prosecutors opened their argument in the trial of Bryan Law, Jim Dowling, Adele Goldie and Donna Mulhearn from Christians Against All Terrorism (CAAT) in the Alice Springs courthouse. The “Pine Gap Four” were charged under the Defence (Special Undertakings) Act 1952.
May 31 marked the first day of a court challenge launched by the Wilderness Society (TWS) against the federal government, which TWS claims has broken its own environmental laws. According to TWS, federal environment minister Malcolm Turnbull acted illegally by allowing a proposed billion-dollar Gunns Ltd pulp mill in Tasmania’s Tamar Valley to escape proper assessment by the independent Resource Planning and Development Commission.
Therese Rein has done very nicely under the Coalition government — particularly since its 1996 decision to privatise the Commonwealth Employment Service and set up a private Job Network to steamroll the unemployed into often underpaid and unrewarding jobs. From humble beginnings in Brisbane in 1989, Rein has built up an international employment business with an annual turnover of $175 million. She should be a poster child for the benefits of the Coalition’s privatisation drive for business, except that she is also the wife of federal Labor leader Kevin Rudd.
The good news this week is that the Green Left Weekly Fighting Fund has reached a third of the way to its $250,000 target for 2007!
Rest in peace,
carbon profits,
bathed in blood.
Before you drown us
in your flood,
we will rise
to bury you.
Tremble in fear,
carbon merchants,
profiteers.
You refuse to lift Earth's shroud,
your carbon mushroom cloud.
A people's fire
The following is an abridged version of the Beyond Zero Emissions stationary energy plan for the state of Victoria. It is reprinted with permission from MATTHEW WRIGHT of Beyond Zero Emissions, a non-profit, volunteer-run campaign set up under Sustainable Energy Future Inc. The full version can be read at http://www.beyondzeroemissions.org.
On the evening of June 1, international shipping company Canada Steamship Lines (CSL) announced it was backing down after a tense four-day stand-off with Port Kembla members of the Maritime Union of Australia. Garry Keane, Port Kembla MUA branch secretary, reported to jubilant wharfies and community supporters that CSL had agreed to let “shore-based labour” unload the bulk carrier Capo Noli.
The Weird Mob 2: The Italian Invasion
June 4 to 9, Parliament House of NSW and Chauvel Cinema, Paddington
http://www.theweirdmob.com, 0406 135 607 or info@theweirdmob.com
June 4 to 9, Parliament House of NSW and Chauvel Cinema, Paddington
http://www.theweirdmob.com, 0406 135 607 or info@theweirdmob.com
The Kyoto Protocol calls for rich countries to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 5.2% compared to 1990 levels. Britain, South Australia and Victoria have gone for a 60% reduction by 2050, and California proposes a cut of 80%.
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