KATOOMBA — David Bradbury’s latest anti-nuclear documentary, Hard Rain, attracted more than 40 people to a screening in the Blue Mountains on May 28. Bradbury’s film thoroughly debunks the many myths now being pushed hard by big business and the major parties, and documents how immensely dangerous and destructive to human beings and the natural environment both uranium mining and nuclear power are. The film prompted a wide-ranging discussion about alternatives to nuclear power and solutions to global warming. The event was organised by the Socialist Alliance and Green Left Weekly.
712
More than 55 people met at the University of Technology, Sydney on May 28 discuss the upcoming Stop Bush! demonstrations, which will be held during the September APEC summit in Sydney. The meeting was a promising sign that people believe APEC is an important opportunity to build the campaigns that can challenge Prime Minister John Howard and US President George Bushs neoliberal agenda.
KURANDA More than 100 people took part in a march and festival to mark Recognition Day on May 27. The march was organised by the Kuranda Womens Group. Speakers at the festival opening included Judi Enoch, secretary of the Ngoonbi Cooperative Society, Terry OShane and other local Indigenous activists and elders. They highlighted the need to be conscious of Indigenous peoples history of struggle and the sharp attacks on their rights and living conditions in the decade the Howard government has been in power.
A June 1 student conference held at Sydney University resolved to make George Bush’s visit to Australia and the September APEC summit in Sydney a focus for the anti-war and environment campaigns on campus.
On May 30, an Australia-Venezuela Solidarity Network forum heard from Adam Leeman and Federico Fuentes, two participants in this years May Day brigade to revolutionary Venezuela.
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.
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.
On May 28, 30 people picketed an administration building at the Queensland University of Technology s Gardens Point campus to support Dr Gary MacLennan, a long-time radical activist and academic at QUT, who was facing disciplinary charges over his criticism of a PhD film project mocking disabled people.
On May 12, 400 people from the NSW mid-north coast packed the Kempsey Anglican Hall for a public meeting organised by the Macleay Nuclear Free Alliance (MNFA). With the theme Nuclear power not the answer to climate change, the afternoon forum had as its featured speakers anti-nuclear campaigner Dr Helen Caldicott and NSW Greens MP John Kaye.
More than 400 people protested against Prime Minister John Howard’s anti-union government outside Bathurst’s Carrington restaurant on May 25. Howard was in town to address a fundraiser, part of a desperate attempt to save Liberal MP for Macquarie Kerry Bartlett from likely defeat at the federal election.
- Page 1
- Next page