Magan-djin/Brisbane

My cows can’t swim!”, protested one farmer’s sign, with a marker to indicate just how high the water would rise. “Act now or be dammed!”, advised another, echoing the overall theme of the 500-strong Save the Mary River rally on September 6 at the Traveston Crossing bridge in south-east Queensland.

Ambre Energy’s proposed coal-to-oil project at Felton, a farming community 30 kilometres from Toowoomba, would be a disaster for the local community and environment, according to the newly formed Friends of Felton group.

“Construction unions across Australia are running the Rights On Site campaign against the union-bashing ABCC [Australian Building and Construction Commission].

“Archbishop [John] Bathersby must have solved all Brisbane problems of homelessness, of abuse, of refugees … if he wants to focus on such idiotic matters”, a St Mary’s parishioner told a 500-strong packed gathering at the South Brisbane church on August 25 in response to the archbishop’s threat to shut the popular, progressive parish down.

A busload of “Save the Mary River” activists from Brisbane will join an expected 1000-plus protesters to form a human chain at the location of the planned Traveston Dam on the Mary River on September 6. The rally will be part of GetUp’s climate torch relay, in support of actions to address climate change.

The Queensland branch of the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union has called statewide stop-work actions and rallies on September 12, the day Victorian CFMEU official Noel Washington faces an initial hearing in Geelong over charges brought by the Australian Building and Construction Commission.

“Abolish the ABCC! Support rights of building workers!” was the message on protesters’ placards outside PM Kevin Rudd’s electorate office in Morningside on August 8.

From indigenous rights to liberation theology, Brisbane’s third Latin American Film Festival will showcase inspiring films.

“If only 0.3% of the world’s current nuclear armaments were used, it would create a nuclear winter, and the end of humanity on this planet”, Dr Marianne Hanson, senior lecturer in international relations at the University of Queensland, told the Brisbane Hiroshima Day rally on August 3. The rally attracted 100 people.

“We have escalated this dispute because the members are angry that no real progress has been made on our agreement after five months”, Peter Simpson, Queensland assistant secretary of the Electrical Trades Union, told Green Left Weekly on July 18.

Raul Molina — a former Guatemalan National Revolutionary Unity (URNG) candidate for mayor of Guatemala City, an academic and a refugee advocate now resident in the US — addressed a public meeting on July 4.

“The world is facing twin disasters in the near future: the coming economic meltdown of the international capitalist system, and the looming climate change crisis”, Jim McIlroy told a Green Left Weekly forum on July 15.