Naarm/Melbourne

I asked Simon, a homeless man in Melbourne who has organised protests around housing, “If you had three wishes what would they be?” “A roof over my head, a feed every day and someone to love me who I can love back. As simple as that”, he said. “There's not much more to life when you break it down. There are too many people who get carried away with money, worrying about their next dollar. I live with nothing and supposedly I haven't got a long time left to live, so there's not much more you need.”

There is something rotten in the state of Victoria. The legacy of secrecy in government reached a high point under Jeff Kennett’s Coalition state government in the 1990s. It continued under the Bracks Labor government and the current John Brumby Labor government. The main reason for this was widespread privatisation and the policy of funding infrastructure projects through public-private partnerships (PPPs) — a policy begun by the Kennett government and continued by Labor.

Almost 600 people poured into the town hall in Melbourne’s north-eastern suburb of Ivanhoe on October 6 to discuss the Victorian Labor government’s proposal to build a freeway across the Banyule Flats and the Yarra Corridor. The government intends to build the North-East Link to join the Western Ring Road to the Eastlink tollway. The lack of public transport in the area was shown by the fact that the only way most people could get to the meeting was by driving, causing a small traffic jam outside.

On October 10, the international day of climate action, climate activists will converge on Hazelwood, Australia’s dirtiest power station. Each year, Hazelwood burns 17 million tonnes of brown coal and consumes 27 million litres of water (the equivalent of using one month’s worth of Melbourne’s water supply every day). It accounts for 15% of Victoria’s emissions and 3% of Australia’s emissions.

Twenty people attended a September 28 Indigenous Social Justice Association (ISJA) meeting to hear Bruce Campbell, from the WA Deaths in Custody Watch Committe, discuss the campaign for justice for Mr Ward. On Invasion Day (January 26) 2008, Mr Ward, a respected Aboriginal elder, was arrested and died of heat stroke in the back of a prison van the next day while being taken 360km in 42°C heat.

On October 10, climate activists will converge on the Hazelwood power station in the Latrobe Valley in eastern Victoria. They will use mirrors to try to create Victoria's “first solar thermal power” station at the Hazelwood gate, to show solar is a viable alternative. Shaun Murray from campaign group Switch off Hazelwood told Green Left Weekly: “Hazelwood is the most carbon-intensive power station in Australia relative to its output, and has been an ongoing target by climate campaigners.”

Susan Balog is a single mother and student who works in the retail industry for three hours, or sometimes four, on Sundays. Following Labor’s award modernisation process, she suddenly found herself worse off. Last week, she represented herself in Fair Work Australia and became the first worker to successfully get a “take home pay order” against her employer.

Workers at Megabolt in Melbourne’s northern suburb of Campbelfield have not had a pay rise for 10 years. This is despite working for a company that makes bolts for the rapidly expanding mining industry. The company’s production has increased by 25% in the past two years, but this hasn’t been reflected in wages. Australian Manufacturing Workers Union delegate Zelko Cimboro told Green Left Weekly that 75% of the workforce survives on the minimum wage of $15.04 an hour or $15.63 an hour.

Palestinian-Iraqi refugees are some of the forgotten victims of the Iraq war. In 1948, Palestinians were forced to flee from Palestine and became refugees. According to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), around 34,000 Palestinian refugees were living in Iraq when the United States and its allies invaded in 2003. After the invasion, many Palestinians faced harassment, threats of deportation, death threats, abuse by the media, arbitrary detention, torture and murder.

Adam Bandt, the MP elect for the seat of Melbourne (long considered a “safe Labor seat”), and the Greens' first House of Representatives member to be elected in a general election has been very busy since August 21. He says he left the triumphant Greens' election night party at 11pm thinking that he would have to do some media the next day so should get a good night's sleep. He woke up the next morning and after a couple of hours having coffee and reading the paper, the situation sunk in.

The fight is on at Bluescope Steel, in Western Port Hastings, where 86 maintenance workers from the Australian Manufacturing Workers’ Union (AMWU) are holding their picket lines in the face of scab labour. The workers are under attack from their employer Silcar and Bluescope Steel, which contracts its plant maintenance to Silcar. The steel manufacturing plant employs around 1400 people full-time and produces more than a million tonnes of steel products a year.

Thirty students, parents, teachers and FairWear activists met at Brunswick South West Primary School on August 16 to celebrate and highlight that school’s commitment to ethical uniforms. Students at Brunswick South West Primary School joined with FairWear supporters to praise their school community for ensuring that the uniforms they wear are made fairly and ethically.