Gadigal Country/Sydney

EMERGENCY OCCUPY SYDNEY PROTEST AT THE SUPREME COURT Defend our right to protest! The NSW police are taking Occupy Sydney organisers to the Supreme Court on November 4 to try to ban our planned march through the Sydney CBD.

In my spare moments, I have been collecting Christian responses to the Occupy Wall Street movement. A few common themes have emerged.

NSW secondary and primary public school teachers will stop work for two hours on November 2 to consider any salary offer from the state government. Should no fair and reasonable offer be made, the meetings will consider taking a 24-hour strike at the end of November. The NSW Teachers Federation (NSWTF) is demanding Barry O’Farrell’s government begin good faith negotiations immediately. The federation has proposed an offer, but the Liberal state government has failed to respond or begin negotiations for a new salaries award.

Warren Smith, assistant secretary of the Maritime Union of Australia, addressed Occupy Sydney at Martin Place on October 22.

Jess Moore from Stop CSG Illawarra addressed Occupy Sydney at Martin Place on October 22. Moore, who is also a member of the Socialist Alliance, was awared the NSW Nature Conservation Council's Rising Star award for "the most outstanding environmental effort of an individual under 30".

I joined Resistance just over a month ago and when I heard Sydney would join the Occupy Together movement, I wasn’t quite sure what to make of it.

Occupy Sydney protesters joined trade unionists in support of Qantas workers' fight for jobs and decent pay rise at the companies Annual General Meeting on October 28, 2011.

About 40 people gathered on the outskirts of Villawood detention centre for a nighttime vigil on October 26 to commemorate the death of a Tamil refugee detainee who had taken his own life that morning. The gathering included refugee activists, members of the Tamil community and friends of Daya Jayasakara, or “Shooty”, as he was known. Shooty had been in detention for two years after arriving in Australia by boat seeking asylum. He had been granted refugee status several months earlier and was waiting for ASIO security clearance.

9.30pm: The general assembly passed several other proposals (which happened after GLW's laptop had a temporary power emergency). These included: a decision to lodge a schedule one with the police outlinining a march route from Town Hall, to Wynyard Park, to Martin Place, and back to Town Hall. The assembly also agreed on the statement read out earlier that night. Now occupations in Brisbane, Canberra, Perth, Melbourne and Adelaide have a common statement, which will be printed by Fairfax by Friday (so we were told).

The Refugee Action Coalition Sydney released the statement below on October 25.

Occupy Sydney activists organised a protest outside the Qantas shareholders conference on October 28 at the University of New South Wales in support of Qantas workers struggling for decent wages and job security.

Ongoing coverage of Occupy Sydney.