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Women seeking a termination of their pregnancy during the second trimester, and beyond, may be denied access to Medicare funding if Tasmanian Senator Guy Barnett is successful in his bid to axe funding for abortions after the 14th week of pregnancy. Currently, women seeking an abortion are covered under the Medicare scheme up until 26 weeks of pregnancy.
Information released under freedom of information (FOI) laws shows that NSW Police is keeping detailed documentation about numerous groups and individuals on the political left. Police intelligence assessments have targeted a variety groups, including Mutiny and Greenpeace.
Ross Garnaut’s long-anticipated “Targets and Trajectories” report into Australia’s carbon emissions future signals a wholesale surrender to the corporations desperate to change as little as possible and preserve their profits at any cost. It is a refusal to take the steps necessary to avert the very real dangers that climate change poses to life on the planet.
“There needs to be action in this country. People like yourselves can make it happen”, Palm Island Aboriginal leader Lex Wotton, who is facing a jail sentence of 10 years, told a public meeting at the Queensland University of Technology on September 10.
People in Australia are being urged to pressure the federal parliament to pass a resolution calling on the Japanese government to apologise and provide compensation to the “comfort women” of World War Two.
Speaking at the inaugural Ted Wheelwright Memorial Lecture for the Sydney University Department of Political Economy on September 1, Filipino anti-globalisation activist and academic Walden Bello, founding director of Focus on the Global South, contrasted the recent Beijing Olympics with the US Democrats national convention.
While “Blue Glue” may sound like a new party drug, it’s in fact much more sinister and less fun. According to the company of the same name, Blue Glue is a marvel of innovation, “helping clients create secure environments, manage information and deploy global solutions”, says the Defence Materiel Organisation’s website.
Tibet: A precious Human Life
By Damon Annison
Distributed by Brumby Books, $35 (pb)
Less than a week after declaring that “the soap opera is over” in New South Wales politics, new Premier Nathan Rees had to sack his police minister of three days, Matt Brown, for allegedly drunkenly “mounting the chest” of Wollongong MP Noreen Hay in a “dirty dancing” party in Parliament House during the June budget session of parliament.
More than 100 people marched through the streets on September 13 to demand their right to participate in local council elections. The action, organised by Wollongong Against Corruption, was addressed by Vicki Curran, Paul Matters and Graham Larcombe from WAC, Peter Moran from the Greens, Jess Moore from the Socialist Alliance, plus others.
“We knew we had to have the support of migrant women, of the union, and of the community or we couldn’t win”, Robynne Murphy, from the Jobs for Women campaign (JFWC), told a September 11 forum organised by Green Left Weekly and the Socialist Alliance.