Across Australia communities have come out and participated in Walk Together events to welcome refugees.
Issue 858
News
March for refugee and asylum seeker rights held in Sydney on October 23 to mark the ninth anniversary of the sinking of a boat, code-named the SIEV X, full of asylum seekers on its way from Indonesia to Australia on October 19, 2001.
Greens federal parliamentary leader Senator Bob Brown spoke in the parliamentary debate on the Australian military intervention in Afghanistan on October 25.
The Illawarra's peak union body, the South Coast Labour Council (SCLC), has called on the Australian government to pull troops out of Afghanistan and pursue an independent foreign policy.
One hundred people gathered in Brisbane’s King George Square on October 22 to commemorate the tragedy of the SIEV X, an Indonesian fishing boat bound for Australia, which sank on October 19, 2001, drowning 353 asylum seekers — 146 of them children.
Green Left Fighting Fund
Analysis
The federal Labor government has announced plans to move some children and families out of refugee detention, but will not change its policy of locking up unaccompanied children who arrive in Australia by boat.
On October 19, at exactly 3.30pm, the Lib-Lab politicians suddenly went from smirk to sombre as the Afghanistan “debate” finally started — nine years too late. It was a farce.
Below are excerpts from the October 20 speech in the federal House of Representatives — part of the debate on the war in Afghanistan — by Greens member for Melbourne, Adam Bandt.
World
In a daring and audacious move, Matt McCarten, General Secretary of the Unite Union, announced his candidacy in the Mana By Election in Wellington earlier today.
Malalai Joya, now 32, was the youngest woman elected to the Afghan Parliament in 2005. A feminist activist who has defied the Taliban, Joya is also an outspoken opponent of the US/NATO occupation of Afghanistan.
About 15,000 New Zealand workers joined the “Fairness at Work” National Day of Action on October 20, highlighting growing opposition to the government's proposed employment law changes, said the country’s largest private sector union, the Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union (EPMU).
Culture
Sydney’s inner-west played host to the inaugural Live Red Art event. The festival of radical art drew a crowd of more than 400 people to the Addison Road Community Centre in Marrickville on October 17.