The Bring Back the Buses Action Group released the statement below on May 7.
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A quiet street in Melbourne northern suburb Mill Park is to be the scene of an angry protest against the Baillieu government’s recent cuts to bus services.
Rail link bus route 571 and Northlands-Greensborough bus route 563 were axed in a large scale northern suburbs bus restructure, which coincided with the opening of South Morang Station last month. A further six buses were re-routed, many of which now terminate at the new South Morang rail-bus interchange.
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The Ballroom at Melbourne Trades Hall was packed with about 130 people on May 4 for a public forum titled “Protest on Trial”. The event sought to build support for the “Max Brenner 19” — Palestine solidarity activists on trial for taking part in a protest outside a Melbourne Max Brenner chocolate shop last year. Speakers at the forum drew links between the violent attacks on Occupy Melbourne last year and the police repression of peaceful Palestine protesters outside Max Brenner. -
It would not come as a surprise to many activists, but a little of the close relationship between police and commercial interests has been revealed in the trial of 16 activists charged for taking part in a Palestine solidarity protest outside the Max Brenner chocolate shop in QV shopping centre in Melbourne’s CBD. The trial began on May 1 and is scheduled to last for two weeks. -
The Victorian Coalition government has taken to the state with a razor and announced huge cuts in the 2012 budget. These are the biggest cuts since the Jeff Kennett-led Coalition government that ruled Victoria from 1992-1999. Victorian TAFE institutes in particular will be hard hit. The level of cuts was so severe that higher education minister Peter Hall sent a letter to TAFE heads on April 29 indicating that he had considered resigning from the ministry. -
As part of savage budget cuts, the Victorian Coalition government has slashed $300 million over four years of funding for the provider of public technical and further education, the state’s 18 TAFE institutes that teach about 400,000 students a year. Funding per student in 80% of courses has been cut from about $8 per training hour to as low as $1.50 - to a range meant to reflect labour market priorities. Trades apprenticeships, aged care and child care received some small increases. -
The Victorian Liberal government has taken to the state’s public sector with a razor blade and announced huge cuts in the 2012 budget. Victorian TAFE institutes in particular will be hard hit. GippsTAFE chief executive officer Peter Whitely told ABC Radio that his institute faces a loss of 10% of its operating budget. TAFE courses that are not in high demand are expected to be slashed.
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Bring Back the Buses Campaign released the statement below on April 30. * * * Epping bus campaigner Helen Said confronted Dysons Bus Company Metropolitan Services Company Manager Greg Deacon today accusing Dysons of putting Melbourne’s northern suburbs school children at risk when it introduced sweeping changes to local bus services on April 22.
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About 350 members of the Health And Community Services Union (HACSU) attended a state-wide meeting and marched to Parliament House on May 2. The event was held in defiance of the state government’s attempt to shut down the union's campaign against government attacks by using legal processes in Fair Work Australia. The HACSU has been campaigning to defend jobs and ratios in the mental health system that will be slashed under proposed government cuts.
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About 50 supporters of the “Max Brenner 19” — Melbourne Palestine solidarity activists being prosecuted in the wake of a protest in July last year — gathered outside the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court on May 1 to show their support for the defendants at the beginning of their trial. One of the defendants, Jerome Small, read out a statement on behalf of the accused. The statement appears below. * * * -
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Nineteen Palestine solidarity protesters face court on May 1 for their involvement in a protest on July 1 last year in support of Palestine. At the July 1 protest outside a Max Brenner chocolate store, the police ran wild, viciously attacking peaceful protesters. Max Brenner is owned by Israeli conglomerate the Strauss Group, a company that provides “care rations” for the Israeli military forces in occupied Palestine, including the Golani and Givati brigades. -
The Victorian government said last year it would introduce its own version of the Australian Building and Construction Commission if the ABCC was weakened. Now, on April 3 Premier Ted Baillieu and finance minister Robert Clark announced the Implementation Guidelines to the Victorian Code of Practice for the Building and Construction Industry. The guidelines focus on ensuring workers aren’t “forced” to join unions, and that employers are forbidden from agreeing to union demands for over-award or site payments.