About 500 people marched in Sydney on May 21 to demand equal marriage rights for all couples regardless of sexuality or gender. About 300 marched in Melbourne the same day, and hundreds also took the streets in Brisbane.
Issue 880
News
#SpanishRevolution: Solidarity actions in Sydney, Melbourne and Fremantle.
Dressed mainly in black, with black flags and banners to show the death of democracy in Tasmania, 6000 people took to Launceston’s streets on May 14 to oppose Gunns’ proposed $2.3 billion pulp mill, to be built on the banks of the Tamar River.
After planning an anti-migrant, anti-Muslim rally in 2010 and then failing to show up on the day, the racist Australian Defence League (ADL) staged a rally in Melbourne on May 15.
In a decision handed down on May 16, Fair Work Australia (FWA) acknowledged the gender-based undervaluation of the vital work of social and community sector (SACS) workers. This is a preliminary decision in the historic equal remuneration case led by the Australian Services Union (ASU). The case was launched in March 2010 and followed a successful pay equity case in the Queensland Industrial Relations Commission (QIRC) in 2009.
Green Left Fighting Fund
Analysis
Yes, I am a feminist and I will be joining the Melbourne “SlutWalk” on May 28, and I hope you will too! And, yes, I still cringe every time I mention the infamous word SlutWalk and my desire of wanting to be there, right in the middle of it.
With the federal government blatantly refusing to even utter the words “equal pay”, the need for grassroots initiative and action is vital in achieving these reforms for women workers.
World
The streets of Cairo have been the frontier for a range of demonstrations over the past two weeks. A Day of National Unity between Christians and Muslims was held on May 13.
May 17 at Plaza del Sol in Madrid. People talk about freedom, democracy and the fight on the streets of Spain. Mostly Spanish-language.
When I asked Alfredo, a dairy farmer and president of the Prolesa milk processing co-operative in Tachira state, what food sovereignty meant to him, he said: “Food sovereignty is not only about being able to produce enough food to feed ourselves, it also means getting to a point where we can export food to other countries.
“There are many Joses here, I’m not sure if its my turn or another Jose,” saidJose, a middle-aged man standing on the outer rim of a grupo de trabajo (work group) called at midnight on an adjacent street to Sol, the plaza known as point zero, in the heart of Madrid.
Spanish people have taken to the streets in huge numbers, with public squares occupied by protesters opposed to anti-worker austerity measures and calling for real democracy.
The melting of the Arctic ice cap is the surest sign that dangerous climate change is already upon us. But some of the world’s most powerful governments are not worrying about what to do about it, they’re scrambling to profit from it.
Culture
Nothin’ To Lose Zennith www.zennithboyz.com.au If the Red Hot Chili Peppers had injected themselves with a few litres of truth serum instead of enough smack to kill a blue whale, they could well have ended up sounding like largely Indigenous Australian band Zennith. Both build righteous rap and rock on reggae foundations, but Zennith swap the Chilis' dreamy, stoner poetry for clear-eyed political consciousness.
Blue King Brown are a Melbourne-based roots band whose second album, Worldwize Part 1-North & South, was released last August. An Australia-wide tour to promote the album began in Canberra on May 12 and ends with a show in Sydney at The Metro on June 4. Green Left Weekly's Annie Ross spoke to lead singer and guitarist Natalie Pa'apa'a.