In a striking piece of political theatre, on November 5 federal workplace ogre Joe Hockey promised to resign from a re-elected Howard ministry if the government changed Work Choices (significantly). “They can run all the scare campaigns they want”, Hockey said, “but the bottom line is if we are making any substantial changes to our laws, then I will resign.”
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The November 2 British Independent reported that US- NATO ally Turkey has started to impose economic sanctions on Iraqi Kurdistan by stopping flights between Istanbul and Irbil, capital of the Kurdistan autonomous region in northern Iraq.
Les Malezer, chair of the UN Global Indigenous Caucus, which was responsible for drafting the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People, spoke to a packed meeting in the Redfern community centre on October 28. Our wealth is that of our Indigenous values: land, culture and spirit, he said. Not in assimilation, not in power, not in dollars, not in telling our people what they should do, or running organisations that do the same. Our wealth is in our lands, territories and resources. And the forced theft of these means that there must be reparation.