On April 2, the Queensland industrial relations departments’ Workplace Health and Safety agency issued a breach notice against the state government’s Queensland Health (QH) department for providing unsafe accommodation to nurses working on the Torres Strait islands.
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The Noongar peoples native title claim to an area encompassing metropolitan Perth suffered a setback in a decision of the Federal Court full bench on April 23. The court upheld an appeal by the federal and state governments against a 2006 Federal Court decision that favoured a claim brought by the South West Aboriginal Land and Sea Council (SWALSC).
Privatisation
The Sydney Morning Herald's campaign against state government corruption is missing one notorious breeding ground of corruption — government fire sales of public services, known as privatisation.
The SMH's April 14 article
The April 11-13 Climate Change-Social Change conference ended with the production of a statement that tries to specify the elements of a strategy against global warming that would actually have a chance of success.
The principal of the exclusive Anglican Church Grammar School in Brisbane is attempting to ban same-sex couples from attending the school formal in June. After several senior students had indicated their intention to take partners of the same sex, headmaster Jonathan Hensman came out publicly saying it would not be appropriate.
Since the November federal election, the federal Labor government has moved to re-engineer the federal public service. In early December it re-shuffled portfolios to create new departments including the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR), with deputy prime minister Julia Gillard as its minister.
First came the decision by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on April 9 to re-nationalise the Sidor steel plant, privatised by a pre-Chavez government in 1997, after a long workers’ struggle.
On May 1, International Workers Day, workers and unionists need to reflect on the greatest challenge facing humanity: global warming.
On April 23, up to 600 public school teachers and their supporters rallied outside state education minister Bronwyn Pike’s electoral office, in the final of their four-hour rolling stoppages. The action was part of the current enterprise bargaining agreement (EBA) campaign that commenced on February 26.
On April 2, federal environment minister Peter Garrett approved the third stage of the controversial Gunns pulp mill. Bulldozers have been given the go-ahead at the Tamar Valley site in northern Tasmania.
On April 17, 500 Darwin and Palmerston public school teachers stopped work in protest against the NT government’s latest pay offer. During the April 11 protest rally, the NT branch of the Australian Education Union (AEU) called for a further single day of protest action on April 30.
Aboriginal delegates to the 2020 summit, chaired by PM Kevin Rudd, expressed anger that it failed to agree on a treaty between Black and white Australia. They are also dismayed that there was no clear recommendation to form a new Indigenous representative body to oversee government policy.
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