Gadigal Country/Sydney

Unions are increasingly concerned over Airline Partners Australia’s (APA) proposed $11.1 billion takeover bid for Qantas. The buy-out, by the Macquarie Bank-led private equity consortium, has yet to be formally submitted, though the Qantas board of directors has unanimously agreed to the $5.60 a share bid.

The refusal by Tristar Steering and Suspension to pay a dying employee his work entitlements after he applied for a voluntary redundancy is just the latest in a long fight the company’s workers have waged to secure their rightful entitlements. Another 30 longstanding Tristar workers are still awaiting their own entitlements.

Greens MP Lee Rhiannon slammed the police operation at the Big Day Out, saying that the use of sniffer dogs against recreational drug users had put people’s health in danger.

When the NSW police minister condemned magistrate Pat O’Shane two weeks ago for throwing out a case involving spitting at traffic cops, her response was: “There is an election coming up”. The same answer could well be given for the bipartisan barrage of Muslim-bashing from senior NSW politicians in the countdown to the March state election.

The NSW Labor government has launched a broadside attack against Aboriginal magistrate Pat O’Shane in the lead-up to the March 24 state elections.

The third anniversary of the death of Aboriginal teenager TJ Hickey will be on February 14. TJ was impaled on a metal fence while being chased by Redfern police. Had police followed proper medical practices, it is likely that TJ would have survived.

The Stop Bush Coalition (SBC) is organising a rally at the Sydney Town Hall for 10am, September 8, to protest US war criminal George Bush’s visit to Sydney during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit.

On January 11, SX News reported that the gay magazine had been barred from being provided to detainees at Sydney’s Villawood immigration detention centre.

Several thousand people rallied at Sydney Town Hall before marching to the US Consulate on December 9 to call for the immediate return of Guantanamo Bay prisoner David Hicks. The action marked the fifth anniversary of Hicks’ capture by the US military. Speakers at the rally included NSW Greens Senator Kerry Nettle, former Guantanamo detainee Mamdouh Habib, CFMEU state secretary Andrew Ferguson, and Raul Bassi from Justice for Hicks and Habib and the Stop the War Coalition. Nettle said that the chances are good of getting Hicks home before the next federal election.

The decision this month by Bankstown City Council, in Sydney’s western suburbs, to cancel the venue for the January 27 Khilafah Conference “speaks volumes of the empty rhetoric surrounding the supposed noble epitomes of western liberal democracy”, said Wassim Doureihi, spokesperson for Hizb ut-Tahrir Australia, in a January 10 media statement.

December 14 marked the 100th day since the unfair dismissal of Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) construction division delegate Barry Hemsworth from his job at Botany Cranes. The managers used the federal government’s new anti-union laws to sack Hemsworth for the purported crime of “insubordination” — in fact because he was defending the occupational health and safety standards at the company.

The 2007 Socialist Summer School was a great success. Sponsored by Resistance and the Democratic Socialist Perspective (DSP), both affiliates of the Socialist Alliance, the event was held at Sydney University’s Women’s College from January 4-7. Some 210 people attended the four days of talks, workshops, meetings and social events.