The Construction Forestry Mining Energy Union (CFMEU) has demanded that BHP Billiton surrender its lease on the Norwich Park coalmine, near Dysart in Central Queensland. The BHP Mitsubishi Alliance (BMA) combine announced early this month that it would shut down the mine because it was allegedly losing money.
BMA has laid partial blame on the long-running industrial dispute with mineworkers in Queensland for losses at Norwich Park and other mines in the state.
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About 50 people attended an April 17 rally in King George Square to mark a global day of action against military spending. The rally, organised by Just Peace Brisbane, called for Australian military funding to be radically cut back in the upcoming federal budget. “If the world cut military spending by just one-half of 1%, we could save the lives of 6 million children," Peter Arndt, from the Catholic Justice and Peace Commission, told the audience. -
”No new coal! Save the Great Barrier Reef!" was the main theme of the rally held outside Queensland parliament on World Heritage Day, April 18. Six Degrees and Greenpeace Brisbane called the rally, which attracted about 50 people. The rally came after the April 12 announcement by deputy premier Jeff Seeney that Gladstone harbour, which is facing environmental destruction due to coal industry development, might be removed from World Heritage listing. -
About 80 activists and artists gathered outside the Queensland Government Executive Building on April 13 to voice their discontent over the axing of the Premier's Literary Awards. The picket was called by Socialist Alliance candidate for the seat of South Brisbane in the April 28 by-election, Liam Flenady, and Hannah Reardon-Smith, both of who are also artists. “Scrapping the Premier’s Literary Awards in the name of budget savings makes no sense,” Reardon-Smith said. “The $244,000 saved amounts to a mere 0.00028% of what we’re told by Campbell Newman is our state’s $85 billion debt. -
Coalmine workers employed by the BHP Billiton Mitsubishi Alliance (BMA) in central Queensland's Bowen Basin are standing firm in the face of escalating attacks by their employer. In the latest round, BHP has announced the closure of its Norwich Park coalmine, south-east of Dysart. The move is clearly aimed at putting pressure on the mineworkers to settle their longstanding industrial dispute. -
Liam Flenady has been endorsed as the Socialist Alliance’s candidate in the April by-election for the South Brisbane seat of former ALP Queensland premier Anna Bligh. Flenady released the statement below on April 11. * * * Within two weeks of taking office, Premier Campbell Newman and his Liberal National Party (LNP) government show signs of returning to the bad old days of the Joh Bjelke-Petersen regime. -
The Queensland ALP “snatched disaster from the jaws of defeat,” socialist activist Gary MacLennan told a public forum at the Activist Centre here on April 3. The forum, sponsored by Green Left Weekly, discussed the Liberal National Party’s (LNP) rise to power in Queensland, the crisis in the ALP and what this meant for the labour movement. MacLennan said: “When the Queensland people said no to the [Anna] Bligh Labor government, they were not saying yes to an LNP government.
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The day after the Queensland election was a very dark day for the state. The unprecedented swing to the Liberal National Party (LNP) will mean huge cuts to the public sector and brutal attacks on unions. It will mean increased environmental degradation and unnecessary, destructive development. It will mean dangerous coal seam gas will spread further across the state and coal production will rise even though Australia is already the biggest exporter in the world. It will mean the ruin of Gladstone harbour due to dredging carried out to benefit the fossil fuel industry. -
After gaining a huge majority in the Queensland parliament, the new Liberal National Party (LNP) government is preparing its assault on unions, the public service and the environment. Newly elected Premier Campbell Newman wasted no time in showing his intentions to escalate the neoliberal offensive, already started by the defeated Anna Bligh Labor government. He began by appointing leading Liberal Party honchos to key bureaucratic jobs in the administration. -
The Socialist Alliance (SA) pushed ahead with its campaign to put socialist politics before the Queensland electorate, as the ALP government faced annihilation in the state election held on March 24. Although everyone knew the government was unpopular, the sheer size of the Liberal National Party (LNP) win took all commentators by surprise. The election result has left Labor with only seven or eight seats compared with the LNP’s probable 78. The Bligh ALP government suffered a record two-party swing away of 15%. -
A lively picket was held outside Arrow Energy’s main Brisbane office on Albert Street on March 23. Called by Socialist Alliance candidate for South Brisbane, Liam Flenady, the picket protested the recent revelations that BNG, a subsidiary of Arrow Energy, has a permit for coal seam gas (CSG) exploration in the western suburbs of Brisbane, including the suburbs Pullenvale, Karara Downs and Moggill.
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Liam Flenady, the Socialist Alliance candidate for the seat of South Brisbane, released the statement below on March 21. * * * The Socialist Alliance declares its full support for the Sovereign Embassy Brisbane, established by the Murri community in Musgrave Park, South Brisbane, on March 13.