On May 17, a candlelight vigil was held in in Taylor Square to mark International Day Against Homophobia. The vigil was organised by the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer (LGBTQ) Network of Amnesty International and Community Action Against Homophobia (CAAH) and called for the immediate release of Ali Humayun, a gay refugee from Pakistan who has been held in the Villawood immigration detention centre for more than two years.
Issue 710
News
The Victorian Labor Party has gone on a propaganda offensive against the Greens, accusing them of selling out on nuclear issues and taking away Victorians right to protest against nuclear reactors. Large posters have been put up and pamphlets will be sent to households in the four lower-house seats where the Greens pose the most direct challenge to the ALP.
At its May 15 meeting, Geelong Trades Hall Council passed a motion declaring that GTHC is opposed to any laws that fetter and/or criminalise union activity and workers rights under International Labour Organisation conventions to organise and take action to advance or defend our economic and social conditions. To this end we call on the Victorian Trades Hall Council to organise a mass delegates meeting to discuss how we can best help the ACTU [Australian Council of Trade Unions] defend its own industrial relations policy and thus the rights of all workers.
The presence of heavily armed SAS troops could complement extraordinary powers for NSW police during the September 7-9 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Sydney, which will be attended by 21 international leaders including US President George Bush.
Holding placards stating “Save the pool” and “Uniting Care doesn’t care”, hydrotherapy patients, many of them elderly people and in wheelchairs, gathered outside Uniting Care Health in Rosalie on May 17 to oppose the proposed closure of the Wesley Hydrotherapy Centre.
On May 12, federal opposition leader Kevin Rudd chartered a private plane to fly to Western Australia to meet with BHP, Rio Tinto and Woodside bosses. The meeting followed two weeks of the mining bosses arguing that Labor’s promise to abolish AWAs (individual contracts), confirmed at its April national conference, would harm the resources boom and lower productivity in the mining sector.
On May 12, 60 people marked the anniversary of the deaths in 1981 of 10 Irish republican hunger strikers in the H-Blocks of Long Kesh prison in Northern Ireland, who were fighting for their right to be recognised and treated as political prisoners. The commemoration, held at the Gaelic Club, was organised by the Sydney Cairde (Friends of) Sinn Fein group.
A group of construction workers in Somerton have proved that it is possible to get off an individual contract (Australian Workplace Agreement AWA) and onto award rates and an enterprise agreement.
Less than two days after its launch, more than 100 people had signed an online pledge to take part in peaceful direct action against the construction of a third coal export terminal at Newcastles port. The pledge notes that the terminal would increase Newcastles coal exports by 66 million tonnes per annum, producing 160 million tonnes of greenhouse pollution.
Activists from climate-action groups, environment collectives at the University of Queensland and Griffith University, Friends of the Earth, the Queensland Nuclear Free Alliance, Resistance and the Socialist Alliance are coming together to organise a Stop Global Warming rally in the week of World Environment Day (June 5).
The Wilderness Society (TWS) has taken Malcolm Turnbull, the federal environment minister, and logging giant Gunns Ltd to court in an attempt to stop a pulp mill being built in Tasmanias Tamar Valley.
The Queensland University of Technology says it has yet to decide the future of its humanities and human services school. The comments came after a meeting of QUT academic board, outside which 100 students rallied for almost four hours on May 16 before pursuing an agitated QUT vice-chancellor Peter Coaldrake across campus.
On May 29, an unpredictable drama will begin. Attorney-General Philip Ruddock will try to overcome a series of embarrassing blunders by the entire Australian chain of command at the joint Australia-US Pine Gap spy base in the Northern Territory, and four activists will face trial in Alice Springs for entering a prohibited site.
A report released on May 14 by the Federation of Community Legal Centres of Victoria, accused police of using excessive and unwarranted force against protesters and bystanders during the November 17-19 G20 summit in Melbourne of international finance ministers.
On May 2, protesters at Chullora blockaded trucks transporting cyanide to Barrick goldmine at Lake Cowal in central western NSW. Protest organiser Graeme Dunstan said the action was a success, with no cyanide-laden trucks getting past on the day.
Analysis
May 27 marks the 40th anniversary of the overwhelming victory of the 1967 referendum, in which almost 91% of the Australian people voted to give the federal government the constitutional power to override the brutal, degrading racist laws of the states under which Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders were tormented. The federal government now had the power to make specific laws in respect to the Indigenous people. The Australian people had sent a clear signal that it was time for Canberra to make laws, introduce programs and provide the necessary resources to end the racial oppression of Indigenous Australians.
The 1967 referendum on Aboriginal rights in which more than 90% voted in favour of including Aboriginal people in the census and giving the federal government the power to override racist state laws and legislate for Aboriginal people has enormous importance for Aboriginal people and our struggle, Queensland Indigenous leader Sam Watson told Green Left Weekly.
A report released on May 14 by the Federation of Community Legal Centres of Victoria, accused police of using excessive and unwarranted force against protesters and bystanders during the November 17-19 G20 summit in Melbourne of international finance ministers.
As Green Left Weekly goes to print David Hicks is on his way back to Australia — to Yalata prison in South Australia. But Lady Justice is sailing off in the other direction.
On May 7, the Melbourne Magistrates Court denied bail to two men arrested under “anti-terror” laws for raising funds for tsunami relief in the Tamil areas of Sri Lanka.
A young woman working in a juice bar is fired and rehired at a casual rate significantly less than her former wage. She is forced to sign an AWA (Australian Workplace Agreement — individual contract) to get her job back. A young man, aged 13, is fired after retaliating against his manager who assaulted him in a South Australian fast food business.
The shambles of the Airline Partners Australia (APA) private equity takeover attempt for Qantas demonstrates the greed and rapaciousness of this rotten capitalist system. All parties involved in the grubby business have shown up the irrationality of capitalism.
On May 29, an unpredictable drama will begin. Attorney-General Philip Ruddock will try to overcome a series of embarrassing blunders by the entire Australian chain of command at the joint Australia-US Pine Gap spy base in the Northern Territory, and four activists will face trial in Alice Springs for entering a prohibited site.
The shambles of the Airline Partners Australia (APA) private equity takeover attempt for Qantas demonstrates the greed and rapaciousness of this rotten capitalist system. All parties involved in the grubby business have shown up the irrationality of capitalism.
The following letter was sent by Green Left Weekly on May 16 to the editor of the Australia/Israel Review, the journal of the Australia/Israel and Jewish Affairs Council.
On May 7, New Matilda published an article by Antony Loewenstein, titled “Cuba: paradise left”, in which he reports on his impressions of Cuba. Loewenstein describes Cuba as a “police state” with “no freedom of speech”. He takes issue with Australian academic, Tim Anderson whom, he wrote, “ought to know better” for arguing that Cuba has more democracy than the US, (see http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=5609). Below is Anderson’s reply to Loewenstein’s article.
If watching the ABC TV’s drama Bastard Boys is the only information that you have about the Maritime Union of Australia lockout of 1998, then you would probably conclude that the dispute was won by the brilliant tactical skills of Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) secretary Greg Combet and former Maritime Union of Australia (MUA) national secretary John Coombes, and the legal talents of union lawyers.
On May 7, New Matilda published an article by Antony Loewenstein, titled “Cuba: Paradise Left” in which he reports on his impressions of Cuba. Loewenstein describes Cuba as a “police state” with “no freedom of speech”. (See < http://newmatilda.com/home/articledetail.asp?ArticleID=2229&CaA HREF="mailto:tegoryID=">.) He takes issue with Australian left academic, Tim Anderson whom, he said, “ought to know better” for arguing that Cuba has more democracy than the US, (see
World
Thousands of Palestinians joined rallies on May 15 throughout the Occupied Palestinian Territories to mark the 59th anniversary of al Nakba (The Catastrophe) the establishment of the State of Israel and the consequent expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their homes as renewed fighting took place between Fatah and Hamas.
As of 2004, foreign capital controlled 76.6% of Chinese industry, a study produced by academics from Beijings Communication University has found. The findings of the report, which was released in March, are consistent with a November 2006 report by the Development Research Centre of the State Council, Chinas cabinet.
Caroras streets are much like other Latin American cities bustling commerce on every corner, traffic, noise, people going about their daily routine. But there is something that distinguishes Carora and the Municipality of Pedro Leon Torres from any other municipality Ive visited in Latin America, and in particular, any other in Venezuela. The city is on a path to democratise and transform its entire governance system, from the bottom up led by the current Mayor Julio Chavez (no relation to President Hugo Chavez).
In the early hours of March 13, the National Liberation Party of Unity (Papernas) regional office in Palu, Central Sulawesi, was attacked by around 30 men. Three Papernas members were hospitalised.
On October 6, 1976, two bombs ripped through Cubana Flight 455 mid-flight from Barbados to Cuba. All of the 73 civilians onboard, including Cuba’s national youth fencing team and 11 Guyanese medical students, were killed. Until the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, this was the worst terrorist attack in the Western Hemisphere. On April 19, the mastermind behind this mass murder, Luis Posada Carriles, was released on bail from prison in the US, where he was being held since 2005 for violating immigration law, and allowed to return to his luxury penthouse in Miami.
On March 8, no-one in Pakistan would have thought a mass movement would erupt in the near future with the potential to overthrow the regime of general Pervez Musharraf. A day later, Musharraf suspended Supreme Court chief justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry, with the illusion that nothing would happen and business would go on as usual.
On March 22, 2006, the Basque organisation ETA (Euskadi Ta Askatasuna — Basque Homeland and Freedom) declared a “permanent ceasefire” after more than 40 years of armed struggle, first under the dictatorship of Franciso Franco and then under his appointed successor, Borbon King Juan Carlos. ETA instead called on Basque society to find its way to self-determination through dialogue.
“The US military surge in Iraq, designed to turn around the course of the war, appears to be failing as senior US officers admit they need yet more troops and new figures show a sharp increase in the victims of death squads in Baghdad”, the May 13 London Observer reported.
A roadside bomb damaged an Australian military vehicle on patrol in southern Iraq’s Dhi Qar province on May 13, according to the Australian defence department. It was the second reported attack on Australian troops in Iraq this month.
Culture
The Original Australians
By Josephine Flood
Allen and Unwin, 2006
306 pages, $39.95
By Josephine Flood
Allen and Unwin, 2006
306 pages, $39.95
In 1974 hundreds of people crowded into a room in the Carlton Pram Factory and hatched a plan to build a media outlet that would tell the stories of those neglected, marginalised and ignored by the mainstream media of the day. Two years later 3CR began transmitting the voices of trade unions, the working class, the Indigenous community, youth and students, people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds, peace and social justice activists, greenies, socialists, anarchists, lovers of jazz and nostalgia music, feminists, queers and people with disabilities.
Vote Yes for Aborigines — While many people believe that the 1967 referendum gave Aborigines the right to vote, it in fact removed two sections of the constitution which discriminated against Aborigines. SBS, Sunday, May 27, 8.30pm.
The Tracker
General
Australias top silk and civil rights advocate Julian Burnside QC has suggested introducing a law that makes it an offence for politicians to lie. I dont know how practical this would be, but imagine if politicians could be forced to tell the truth and fess up like the makers of Ribena?
Letters
Packer protest trial
I have serious doubts about the results of the Packer protest trial ("Charges against Packer protesters dismissed", GLW #707). While I appreciate the support of the NSW Council of Civil Liberties (CCL), and the lawyers who
Resistance!
The Peace Convergence 2007 will be a gathering of activists who oppose the Talisman Sabre war games and the testing of depleted uranium munitions. The long-term dangers of depleted uranium, mainly from weapons, are now a concern throughout the world.