The 50th anniversary of the 1957 Palm Island strike was marked by a “very emotional” commemoration on June 15, Indigenous activist Gracelyn Smallwood told Green Left Weekly. She said up to 4000 people took part. Among the activities, relatives of the seven men and their families who were handcuffed, chained and removed at gunpoint from the island spoke about the violation of their human rights. The strike was triggered by a system that meant every Indigenous person on Palm Island had to work for 30 hours per week while being paid only in rations.
714
From June 1-3 in Port Dickson, the Socialist Party of Malaysia (PSM) held its ninth congress. It was the partys largest so far. The PSMs plans for the coming year include trying to win at least one seat in the coming election, holding a public forum on Venezuela, redesigning the partys website, producing more socialist booklets and holding a national forum on 50 years of Malaysian independence and left politics. The party also resolved to hold an international conference in 2008. A resolution adopted by the conference condemned authorities refusal to nationally register the PSM as a party as an anti-socialist political conspiracy. Solidarity messages were received from a range of socialist organisations, including Australias Democratic Socialist Perspective.
Disability support worker Joanne Ball will appear before a local court on June 22 on charges of obstruction and interferring with a police officer during the February protest against the visit to Sydney by US Vice-President Dick Cheney.
Electrical Trades Union Victorian secretary and union militant Dean Mighell was forced to resign from the ALP after a tape recording of an internal union meeting became public. Labor leader Kevin Rudd and his industrial relations spokesperson Julia Gillard slammed Mighell as a union “thug” for swearing about bosses and talking up a pattern-bargaining agreement in which ETU members received a particularly good deal. Green Left Weekly’s Sue Bolton spoke to Mighell about Labor under Rudd, its backflips on IR and how the unions can defend workers’ rights.
On June 16, a group of human rights campaigners and former political prisoners in Chile rallied at the Cowper Wharf in Woolloomooloo to protest the arrival of the Chilean Navy training ship Esmeralda. The ship served as a floating torture prison for political prisoners under General Augusto Pinochet’s 1973-90 military regime.
LAUNCESTON — On June 16, 11,000 people joined a rally organised by The Wilderness Society against Gunns’ proposed pulp mill in the West Tamar Valley. The crowd gathered at City Park and was addressed by Gardening Australia’s Peter Cundall, Geoff Law from TWS and Greens Senate candidate Andrew Wilkie, who condemned the plans to pollute the Tamar’s air and water with a kraft-chlorine pulp mill that will feed on Tasmania’s old-growth forests. Cundall warned Paul Lennon’s state Labor government and Gunns that “this is democracy in action” and “we are never going to stop fighting”. Protesters marched to Civic Square chanting “No pulp mill”.
On June 19, a Federal Court judge refused to throw out a case aimed at obtaining millions of dollars worth of severance pay for workers employed by car parts manufacturer Tristar Suspension and Steering Pty Ltd.
OK, I admit this idea to boost the Green Left Weekly Fighting Fund was inspired (to be honest, stolen) from the recent adventures of one Canape Crusader from Kirribilli: we get 225 people to donate $8000 each to the Green Left Weekly Fighting Fund and, in return, I have them over to my place for drinks and canapes. That should raise enough money to make this column redundant for seven years!
About 150 people crowded into the function room of the Lanyon Valley Rugby Union Club in Canberra on June 13 to celebrate the life of Koru Peter Nusa, who died suddenly at home on June 4. At the same time, family and friends gathered for a service in Papua New Guinea.
Chants of, Hey Brisbane, listen up; the cleaners are standing up! and Caruso workers´ rights, worth fighting for! rang through the Brisbane CBD on June 15, as 60 cleaners, members of the Liquor Hospitality and Miscellaneous Union, marched from the LHMU office to the offices of Caruso Cleaning.
Pages
