Gadigal Country/Sydney

Five hundred women marched in Sydney on March 7 to celebrate International Women's Day. Speakers demanded six months' paid maternity leave for all women; free, safe abortion on demand and free, quality child care. Other speakers urged women to fight

While two student unions have recently passed motions in solidarity with Palestinians, ALP students withheld quorum at a Sydney university Student Representative Council meeting set to vote on a similar motion on February 18.

As the NSW Legislative Council inquiry into the privatisation of NSW prisons began on February 23, more than 200 prison officers went on strike at Goulburn Correctional Centre on February 25, in protest at the plan to privatise Parklea and Cessnock jails.

Such is the outrage caused by Israel’s latest attack on Gaza in December-January that even some local governments in New South Wales have passed, or are considering, motions condemning the attack and calling on the Australian government to ban the sale of any military material to Israel.

One hundred people marched through Redfern on February 14 to mark the fifth anniversary of the death of a young local Aboriginal man, TJ Hickey. Hickey was impaled on a fence, allegedly as a result of a police vehicle chasing him and ramming his

— In late following the riots on Palm Island after death in custody of Mulrunji Doomadgee in 2004. Wotton was charged under anti-rioting legislation. Sydney's inner-west Film Fanatics has made an appeal to Queensland's governor Penelope Wensley

The unfolding Latin American revolution and the call by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to build “socialism of the 21st century” will be big features of the “World at a Crossroads” conference to be held in Sydney over the Easter weekend.

Palestine solidarity activists in Sydney have launched a campaign targeting Max Brenner Chocolates, a 100% Israeli-owned company belonging to the Strauss Group, as part of the growing international boycott Israel movement.

The Sydney branch of the Maritime Union of Australia (MUA) and its supporters have rallied each day at Circular Quay since February 10.

Sydney residents of the lower north shore and inner city are increasingly “electing” to drive to work “despite living a relatively short bus ride from the heart of the city”, a report in the February 10 Sydney Morning Herald concluded.

The news, on February 3, that South African dock workers in Durban had decided not to unload an Israeli ship due in on February 8 was welcomed by the Maritime Union of Australia (MUA), a section of which wants the union to join the international campaign of sanctions against apartheid Israel.

Greens NSW MLC John Kaye has highlighted the massive inequity in school funding, citing the submission by Sydney Grammar School — one of Australia’s wealthiest schools — of plans to build a new $23.5 million assembly hall.