Gadigal Country/Sydney

Two public education institutions in Sydney’s west — the University of Western Sydney’s (UWS) Blacktown campus and Macquarie Boys High in Parramatta — are set for the chopping block. The UWS board of trustees is trying to close the Nirimba campus at Blacktown in 2009. Additionally, on August 23, NSW education minister John Della Bosca announced the state Labor government’s intention to close Macquarie Boys’ Technology High School in Parramatta by 2009.

On September 26, the NSW Greens called for an independent public inquiry into the actions of the NSW police during the APEC protests earlier in the month. It was voted down by the two major parties, as well as the Christian Democrats and the Shooters Party.

Sydney University students and staff rallied outside Fisher Library on September 6 to protest against plans, announced by vice-chancellor Gavin Brown to open a new ,that will cooperate with the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO), in placing the university “firmly at the forefront of future developments in Australia’s nuclear related research”.

On September 8, Tim Gooden spoke to Maritime Union of Australia (MUA) Sydney branch secretary Warren Smith for the Geelong Trades Hall’s Union Air community radio program. The interview took place at the protest that day against the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit and US President George Bush.

The Socialist Alliance has launched a “climate change roadshow” to promote its radical policy of a 60% reduction in greenhouse emissions by 2020 and a 90% reduction by 2030.

Alex Bainbridge, a prominent organiser of the “Stop Bush” protest during the September APEC summit, will head the Socialist Alliance’s NSW Senate team. Others on the ticket are Susan Price, a National Tertiary Education Union branch activist at the University of New South Wales; environmentalist and feminist doctor Kamala Emanuel; and Wollongong University student and anti-war activist Tim Dobson.

After an inquiry ordered by NSW Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione cleared police of any wrongdoing during the September 8 APEC protest against US President George Bush, Human Rights Monitors have published more than 200 photos of officers who failed to wear visible identification.

As preparation for APEC, the NSW Labor government made a list of every one of its tried and tested methods for suppressing dissent. Then it went away and thought up a few more! It used every measure it felt it could get away with — purchased a new water cannon, increased police powers, emptied jails — in order to intimidate people into not joining the September 8 “Stop Bush” protest.

Despite the media fanfare, the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit, held in Sydney on September 8 and 9, achieved next to nothing in combating global warming.

On September 10, almost all Esselte workers who had struck against an attempt to impose Australian Workplace Agreements (AWAs — individual contracts) went back to work with a union collective agreement. However, David Rojas, the site’s union delegate, has been sacked and barred from the workplace.

On September 11, the Mudgee District Environment Group (MDEG) denounced the NSW Labor government’s approval of the Moolarben coalmine, 40 kilometres north-east of Mudgee on the Goulburn River, as “a reckless act that shows no regard for our environment, viability of our rivers and water resources, cohesion of our rural communities or global warming”.

“Mission accomplished!”, boasted NSW Premier Morris Iemma at the end of one of the most aggressive policing operations in Australia for many years. The last public official to use that phrase was US President George Bush, who had just invaded Iraq. Did Iemma mean to link the thousands of protesters in Sydney with the enemy population of Iraq?