5000 state sector nurses crammed into Melbournes Festival Hall and voted unanimously to end their industrial action and accept a four year enterprise bargaining agreement (EBA) at an Australian Nursing Federation (ANF) mass meeting on October 25.
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Guy Pearse the speechwriter for the federal Coalition environment minister from 1997 to 2000 who blew the whistle last year on the Howard governments use of Australias biggest polluters to write its greenhouse gas emissions policy visited Melbourne on October 24 as part of an east-coast speaking tour.
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More than 400 people participated in around 65 workshops and 10 plenary sessions to discuss a myriad of national and international campaigns against imperialism and neoliberalism at the Latin America and Asia Pacific International Solidarity Forum held at Victorian Trades Hall and the RMIT on October 11-14. The participants included 33 activists and leaders from peoples movements and political parties in 20 countries, the most diverse left gathering hosted in Australia for years.
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Victorias nurses are fighting three enemies: the state Labor government, the hospital administrations, and the federal Coalition government.
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Victorian state sector nurses are being threatened with having their pay docked for at least four hours for each day they participate in industrial action over wages and conditions, which began following a mass meeting of more than 3500 Australian Nursing Federation (ANF) members on October 16.
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Victorias nurses are fighting three enemies: the state Labor government, the hospital administrations, and the federal Coalition government.
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On October 3, immigration minister Kevin Andrews justified cutting the number of African refugees accepted into Australia using racism, alleging that African refugees were not adjusting too well to Australian society.
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The committal hearing for three Tamil activists charged under the anti-terror laws began on October 1. Aruran Vinayagamoorthy, Sivarajah Yathavan and Arumugam Rajeevan are accused of raising money for and giving other assistance to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), a group fighting for self-determination for the Tamil people of north-east Sri Lanka, who are oppressed by the racist Sri Lankan government.
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On October 4, the Australian Nursing Federation (ANF) Victoria had its application for a secret ballot to vote on taking industrial action rejected by the Australian Industrial Relations Commission (AIRC). The application was on behalf of almost 30,000 public sector nurses.
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Following a 500-strong vigil in Melbourne on September 27 protesting the Burmese military regime’s repression of pro-democracy protests, 600 people took to the city’s streets the next day in solidarity with Burma’s pro-democracy movement. They marched from Melbourne Town Hall to the claps and cheers of onlookers.
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Maurie Mahoney, Textiles Clothing and Footwear Union (TCFUA) delegate at Wangarattas Bruck Textiles, is being targeted at work with disciplinary action that could result in dismissal, after speaking out against Work Choices laws allowing the company to pay some workers less then the federal governments Fair Pay standards. Bruck management informed Mahoney that he had breached his terms and conditions of employment. He was directed that he must not speak about the matter with anyone other than his wife, who is one of the Bruck workers currently being paid under the Fair Pay standard.
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At least 20,000 Victorian unionists defied the federal governments anti-worker laws and risked fines to show their opposition to Work Choices and the Australian Building and Construction Commission on September 26.