827

Alyawarr elder Richard Downs spoke at the Prescribed Area People’s Alliance (PAPA) meeting in Alice Springs on February 12. Downs is a leader of the walkoff protest against the NT intervention at Ampilatwatja.
A memorial for left-wing musician Alistair Hulett was held on February 14 at Sydney’s Gaelic Club.
Elaine Peckham is a Central Arrernte woman who lives on homelands in the West MacDonnell Ranges. She spoke at the Prescribed Area People’s Alliance meeting in Alice Springs on February 12. The speech below is abridged from text prepared by the Intervention Rollback Action Group rollbacktheintervention.wordpress.com.
NEWCASTLE – Forty-five people attended a fundraiser for the Haitian Emergency Fund on February 10. The Haitian Emergency Fund is a grassroots organisation in Haiti made up of unions, women's groups, and human rights activists. The lively crowd heard Caribbean music and a presentation by Stuart Munckton, an editor of Green Left Weekly.
Bridget Chappell, an Australian solidarity activist, was arrested along with Spanish activist Ariadna Jove Marti in a pre-dawn raid on February 7 in Ramallah, Palestine.
The Sydney Morning Herald-sponsored “Independent Public Inquiry” into Sydney’s public transport released its preliminary report on February 13. The report outlined a 30-year strategy to massively improve Sydney’s public transport infrastructure.
The modern queer rights movement was born on June 28, 1969 in New York City.
“The law is an ass”, said Mr Bumble, in Charles Dickens’ classic, Oliver Twist. And more than 150 people agreed as they rallied yesterday on the same site, six years to the day, where 17-year old Aboriginal boy, TJ Hickey, was impaled on fence in Waterloo.
MELBOURNE — On February 16 a group of peace activists held a vigil outside the Melbourne office of federal finance minister Lindsay Tanner. The protest was the first in a series of monthly vigils aimed at drawing attention to the worsening situation in Afghanistan and to call for the Australian government to bring the troops home.
When the anti-immigration politician Pauline Hanson was asked if she was a xenophobe in a 1996 interview on Sixty Minutes, she famously responded: “please explain”. Now, with the news that she intends to become an immigrant herself, it seems she doesn’t understand the word “hypocrite” either.
Resistance activist Melanie Barnes is standing as a candidate in the upcoming Tasmanian state elections for the Socialist Alliance. She isn’t running to improve her career prospects or income, but because she wants to get an important message out.
MELBOURNE — Eighty people rallied on the morning of February 14 to commemorate the 2004 death of Redfern teenager TJ Hickey and demand an end to Aboriginal deaths in custody. The crowd observed a minute's silence in memory of TJ, who was killed while being chased by police. It also expressed its support for TJ's mother, Gail Hickey, who has lodged a complaint with the United Nations Human Rights Committee.