Repower Port Augusta, the historic campaign to have the South Australian town host Australia’s first solar-thermal power station, is gathering momentum, with formal endorsements from several health and union organisations.
The campaign has generated widespread public interest. In Port Augusta itself, a community vote in July resulted in one-third of residents voting for solar over gas. The result was 4053 votes to 43, a remarkable turnout for the voluntary exercise.
939
Compulsory income management has been sharply criticised as unhelpful and demeaning for welfare recipients. But should we oppose all forms of compulsory income management? Or should we make an exception for what is known as child protection income management?
For much of the community and welfare sector this is an awkward dilemma.
It is especially awkward for those campaigning against “trials” of the controversial policy. The “trials” are taking place in Bankstown in New South Wales, Logan and Rockhampton in Queensland, Playford in South Australia and Shepparton in Victoria.
In Port Augusta, two ageing coal-fired power stations are scheduled to retire. We have a choice: either replace them with gas-fired power stations or take the opportunity to switch to renewable energy. Research by Beyond Zero Emissions (BZE) shows that six solar thermal power towers and 90 wind turbines could be built in Port Augusta to generate the same amount of electricity as the current coal stations.
Here are five reasons why solar is better than the gas alternative.
1. Jobs
In response to wide-ranging criticisms of, and growing opposition to, proposed data retention and increased surveillance powers for Australian spy agencies, Attorney-General Nicola Roxon has gone on the offensive.
Liberal Senator Cory Bernardi resigned from his position as Tony Abbott's shadow parliamentary secretary after widespread outrage about his reactionary and bizarre speech on the equal marriage bill which was debated (and defeated 42 votes to 98) in parliament on September 18.
A crowded forum of 200 people organised by the Stockton Community Action Group learned about the serious risks posed by a proposed ammonium nitrate storage facility at nearby Kooragang Island on September 19.
The new facility is proposed by Incitic Pivot and would add 21,500 tonnes of ammonium nitrate to the 9000 tonnes already stored there by rival company Orica.
Nakbah acknowledged
An important judgement was delivered on May 15 by Justice Christine Adamson. The judge stated that the anniversary of the Nakbah (the catastrophe) could not be postponed for another day and compared it with other days that must be commemorated on the exact day when they occur.
Until recent times, the Zionist falsification about what occurred in April 1948, following the massacre of Deir Yassin, was accepted by the ruling class and all their organs of propaganda and government. Ultimately the truth has emerged.
Water workers to strike
Workers at Sydney Water, angered by the axing of more than 300 jobs as well as the undermining of conditions, have voted for rolling strikes into next year.
More than 1000 workers took part in a four hour walkout on September 20, rallying at Parramatta Stadium. They voted to begin the strikes from next month.
Allegations raised by former Guantanamo Bay detainee David Hicks that he was drugged as a form of torture by US staff have been substantiated by documents uncovered in recent legal action in the US.
Detainees were allegedly drugged by US military personnel before interrogation sessions and before they had their charges read to them.
Chicago's teachers have successfully fought off an assault on their union, school children and public education launched by Democratic Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, and even pushed him back in some respects.
The strike and mass mobilisations of the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) ended on September 19 when the teachers went back to work.
The evening before, the elected House of Delegates, which represents teachers throughout the system, voted by 98% to end the strike.
“TAFE cuts are Baillieu's form of class war,” Colin Long told an angry crowd on September 20. “Baillieu started the war, but we will finish it.” The Victorian National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) secretary was speaking to 2000 Victorian TAFE teachers, students and supporters at a rally in Melbourne.
The murder of 34 miners by the South African police, most of them shot in the back, puts paid to the illusion of post-apartheid democracy and illuminates the new worldwide apartheid of which South Africa is both a historic and contemporary model.
In 1894, long before the infamous Afrikaans word foretold “separate development” for the majority people of South Africa, an Englishman, Cecil John Rhodes, oversaw the Glen Grey Act in what was then the Cape Colony.
- Previous page
- Page 2
- Next page