Now that the Labor government has almost entirely reneged on its 2007 election promise to end Australia’s sickening abuse of refugees, the two big parties are united on an issue they have so vehemently pretended to disagree.
Unhappy with the High Court’s interpretation of the law — that Australia must uphold fundamental human rights when making policies on refugees, and that deporting them to a country that does not have such rights violates the law — the Labor government is cajoling the opposition to agree to water down Australia’s refugee protections.
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Activists rallied in Melbourne to call for greater rights for people with mental illness on September 16.
The rally was called by the Australian Mental Health Human Rights and Law Reform Coalition to condemn abuses in the Victorian mental health system.
The Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AWMU) has launched action in the Federal Court to protect a member who is facing disciplinary action from his employer after he took action to address a serious health and safety issue.
In early August, Jon Zwart, an AMWU delegate and health and safety representative at Visy Coburg, tagged (took out of service) a forklift whose reverse beeper was not audible.
The Barry O’Farrell Coalition government has promised it will make “New South Wales number one” again. We are assured this will mean improving transport, health and education infrastructure and strengthening the public sector that delivers these services to the people of NSW.
The “horror budget” some media promised was delivered on September 6. This budget does little to improve public services. Instead, the state’s fiscal output rests on strengthening private sector spending.
Students from the University of Wollongong have campaigned over the past three years for the university to switch to 100% renewable energy by 2015.
They have collected more than 3000 signatures from students in support of the plan.
The university administration has instead begun plans to build a trigeneration plant on the campus, which would generate electricity through burning natural gas.
A huge crowd of about 650 people attended a memorial service at the Elder Hall, University of Adelaide on September 9 to farewell Elliott Johnston, the only communist to become a judge in Australia. He died on 25 August, aged 93.
Those paying tribute included representatives from the legal profession, trade unions, the Aboriginal community, the original Communist Party of Australia (CPA) and his son Stewart.
A decade ago most experts would have thought it impossible. But several teams of scientists say the Arctic ice cap had shrunk to its smallest recorded extent, volume and area.
Environmental physicists from the University of Bremen said on September 9 the Arctic ice cap extent was “small as never before”.
About 50 people attended a vigil on the parliament lawns in Hobart on September 16 in support of Ali Alishah, a jailed anti-pulp mill protester.
Alishah was arrested on September 5 at Gunns' proposed pulp mill site in the Tamar Valley in northern Tasmania after locking on to a truck that was entering the site. He has already spent almost two weeks in jail and will likely stay in custody until September 26.
A long-term forest campaigner, Alishah was taking action with the group Code Green, which has been conducting civil disobedience actions at the pulp mill site.
Queensland Murri leader Sam Watson called for a new royal commission into Black deaths in custody at a rally outside state parliament on September 15. “Enough is enough. We need urgent action to end Aboriginal deaths in police watchhouses and prisons,” he said.
He announced a national day of action on Aboriginal deaths in custody on November 19, preceded by a series of actions, including a day of commemoration for John Pat, the Aboriginal youth murdered in custody in Roebourne, WA, in October 1985.
A motion condemning anti-apartheid protests targeting the Max Brenner chain of chocolate and coffee shops was passed by the Australian Senate on September 13.
The motion was moved by Queensland Nationals Senator Ron Boswell and supported by all parties except for the Greens.
Another motion, from Liberal Senator Eric Abetz, “condemning the Australian Greens and their leader for failing to condemn the vile boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel” was defeated.
“The future of the education struggle in Chile is uncertain, but we are very hopeful of the outcome," University of Chile academic Dr Leonora Reyes told a September 15 forum at the Queensland University of Technology. "But for sure, after this cycle of student upsurge, our country will not return to the past.”
The forum was sponsored by Australian Solidarity with Latin America (ASLA), the National Tertiary Education Union (University of Queensland) and the QUT Student Guild and was chaired by Socialist Alternative's Rebecca Barrigos.
Employees at the Department of Human Services (DHS) voted to reject an enterprise agreement proposed by management, which would have covered 42,000 staff. Seventy three percent of those who took part in the ballot voted “no”.
More than 120,000 public servants from agencies such as defence, customs and the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry have now rejected inadequate agreements. Industrial action has occurred in some places.
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