The inaugural Tropical Pride Festival was held at Cairns Tanks Art Centre on September 16. The night before the festival, for the first time a gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender (GLBT) contingent consisting of 50 people marched in the festivals Cairns Parade of Lights, watched by some 10,000 people.
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In this centre of the tourism industry, a new opportunity is emerging to organise the recreational diving industry. The catalyst for this has been the refusal by Brooke OMara to continue to work under a $3 per hour training contract. Many work under similar contracts in the industry.
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The gay and lesbian community in Cairns is planning the inaugural Tropical Pride Festival, to be launched on September 16 at the Tanks Arts Centre from noon, with music from 5-9pm.
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An Indigenous man died in custody in Queensland on June 26. The death came a week after police officer Chris Hurley was found not guilty of the assault and manslaughter of Indigenous man Mulrunji on Palm Island in 2004.
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@9point non = CAIRNS The Times Up campaign, seeking to throw out the Howard government and its anti-worker laws, held a rally and public meeting on March 5. More than 80 people protested at the office of federal Liberal MP Warren Entsch, while that evening 30 people heard from Andrew Dettmer, state secretary of the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union; Michael Ravbar, the state secretary of the construction division of the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union; and Peter Simpson, assistant state secretary of the Electrical Trades Union.
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On February 24, 200 people rallied at the Esplanade Lagoon despite tropical rain to oppose a proposed resort and housing complex at False Cape on the coast south of the city. Until now, this side of Trinity Bay has provided Cairns with a natural setting visible from its centre.
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Twenty-five people rallied in Anzac Park on January 24 to call for the return to Australia of Guantanamo Bay prisoner David Hicks, during a visit by federal attorney-general Philip Ruddock.
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More than 2000 people are expected to rally in Cairns on November 30 against Work Choices, according to the Cairns Provincial Council of the Queensland Council of Unions. This would be the largest such demonstration yet in far-north Queensland.
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On November 9, Nicole Watson, an academic from the Jumbunna Centre of the University of Technology, Sydney, condemned the culture of police violence against Indigenous people in Queensland. She was addressing a public meeting at James Cook University attended by 100 people.