If a casual observer glanced at the results for the mayoral elections in Geelong, they could be forgiven for thinking that they were a victory for apolitical and conservative politics.
The winner, Keith Fagg, comes from a local business family whose name is as close as you could get to landed gentry in Geelong. The next highest pollster’s claim to fame was that she, Stephanie Asher, had worked for BHP Billiton.
All of this in a working class town.
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More than 100 students from the University of Tasmania attended a forum on October 16 to question university administrators over plans to restructure the Faculty of Arts.
It was organised by students of the university in response to disquiet over potential changes to degree structures and curricula.
This came just a week after the faculty dean, Professor Susan Dodds, announced that the existing 10 departments would be amalgamated into three bigger entities.
The two-year negotiations between loggers and environmentalists, which many hoped would end the conflict over Tasmania’s forests, collapsed on October 27.
The Wilderness Society, a key negotiator in the talks, blamed the collapse on the Forest Industries Association of Tasmania (FIAT), which represents logging companies such as Malaysian logging firm Ta Ann and, previously, Gunns Ltd.
The refugees now holding an indefinite hunger strike in the Nauru detention camp released the statement below on November 2, updating the situation and explaining that several have been taken to the medical room and some have lost conciousness.
The first refugees began refusing food on the morning of November 1, and others quickly joined.
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Date:02/11/2012 Time:11:00 pm
Fifteen Asylum seekers became unconscious on second day of Hunger Strike in Nauru Hell.
Till 7 asylum seekers have been become unconscious and taken to the medical rooms.
Since being elected to the Moreland council in Melbourne, I have been asked by several people whether I can make a difference since I will have only one vote on council.
My reply is that socialists on local council or in federal or state parliaments can achieve change only if they use the position to build and support local community and broader campaigns for people’s rights.
At the end of the day, an elected socialist won’t achieve much if they just rely on negotiations with other councillors or politicians.
So if the government's bill excising the entire Australian mainland from the migration zone is passed in parliament, I guess we will all be unAustralian.
That is one insult used by politicians to describe anything they don't like will now lose its force. Forget Aboriginal people protesting on Australia Day, logically there can surely be no more unAustralian act than legally declaring Australia unAustralia.
Sue Bolton, the newly elected socialist councillor in Moreland, is a feminist and socialist fighter.
She's been a tireless campaigner for working people’s rights since the late 1970s, when she first joined the anti-uranium campaign in Toowoomba, Queensland.
The Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal last month approved a deeply unpopular McDonald's restaurant in Tecoma in Melbourne's Dandenong ranges.
Since the approval the local community has organised to reclaim space and created a garden, maintained an around-the-clock protest vigil at the proposed site and gathered thousands of signatures on petitions against the proposal.
Below is a statement from Murrundindi, Headman of Melbourne’s Wurundjeri nation against the development.
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Vodafone Australia said on October 29 it would cut 500 jobs – 10% of its workforce – by the end of November.
Vodafone Australia CEO Bill Morrow said the cuts will make the company "leaner" in an attempt to turn around its performance. Vodafone had a $131 million loss during the first half of this year.
On the morning of October 22, the day after parliamentary elections in the Basque and Galician autonomous communities of the Spanish state, the TV and radio political pundits were struggling to be wise.
Their powers of analysis were not tested so much by the rise of EH Bildu, the Basque left-nationalist coalition — the polls had predicted its 25% vote. The disorienting new phenomenon was result for the Galician Left Alternative (AGE).
Not predicted
Hurricane Sandy was the largest tropical storm to ever hit mainland United States.
Its extent, power and the fact that it formed so late in the hurricane season so far north in the Atlantic ocean can only be understood in light of global warming caused by the burning of fossil fuels.
For many years, scientists have been warning that the rise in water temperature in the oceans would create more powerful storms, and that is what happened in the case of Hurricane Sandy.
Refugees on Nauru have staged several peaceful but desperate protests in recent weeks to call attention to their worsening conditions. Several refugees have attempted suicide.
But allegations have surfaced that staff inside the centre have made attempts to obstruct and interrupt their bid to be heard by the Australian public. One asylum seeker held on Nauru told Green Left Weekly that Salvation Army staff stationed in the centre had torn down protest signs assembled by the detainees.
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