Naarm/Melbourne

In Australia, as in other major capitalist countries, the official response to global warming is to deny or gloss over the utter catastrophe confronting human society and try to carry on with business as usual, making only a few relatively minor adjustments here and there.

A mass anti-Howard rally is being planned for Melbourne in September. The rally will be in opposition to the Howard government’s Work Choices laws as well as other abuses carried out by the government, such as the unjust imprisonment of Dr Mohamed Haneef under “anti-terrorism” laws.

On July 26, around 200 angry students and staff from the University of Melbourne (MU) arts faculty and the Victorian College of the Arts (VCA) protested the university’s butchering of its arts courses. The protest was in response to the university’s decision to ram through the “Melbourne Model”, an elitist, US-style graduate system aimed at reducing student/staff numbers and subject choices, which would create a two-tiered education system.

Sixty people held a colourful protest on the steps of the Victorian state parliament on July 18, as part of a long-running campaign to have the Tullamarine toxic waste dump closed and the site cleaned up. The dump, which is operated by the Cleanaway corporation, is located adjacent to Tullamarine airport. It is within 1.5 kilometres of the suburb of Westmeadows and is close to other residential areas.

Yappera Children’s Services Co-operative, an Indigenous childcare and pre-school centre in Thornbury, faces closure due to the state and federal governments’ refusal to provide the $150,000 required for essential plumbing repairs.

Two Tamil men, Sivarajah Yathavan and Aruran Vinayagamoorthy, who were arrested in Melbourne in May under the “anti-terrorism” laws, were granted bail by Justice Bernard Bongiorno on July 17.

The 10th national Labour History Conference on June 4-6 delved into the labour movement’s past, but also featured interesting debates about present-day concerns.

In last month’s elections in the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU), the Workers’ Rights team took all positions against a ticket led by an alliance between the union’s print and vehicle divisions. Some Workers’ Rights candidates received over 80% of the vote. In the Victorian branch, where most positions were strongly contested, 40% of members voted.

On June 25, Russell Miles, a proud member of the International Socialist Tendency and widely-loved community activist, ended his life.

Electrical Trades Union Victorian secretary and union militant Dean Mighell was forced to resign from the ALP after a tape recording of an internal union meeting became public. Labor leader Kevin Rudd and his industrial relations spokesperson Julia Gillard slammed Mighell as a union “thug” for swearing about bosses and talking up a pattern-bargaining agreement in which ETU members received a particularly good deal. Green Left Weekly’s Sue Bolton spoke to Mighell about Labor under Rudd, its backflips on IR and how the unions can defend workers’ rights.

On June 6, 120 people attended a public meeting, organised by Peace Convergence Melbourne, against Talisman Sabre 2007. Involving 14,000 US and 12,000 Australian troops, Talisman Sabre will be the largest joint military training exercise in Australia’s history. Areas in central Queensland and the Northern Territory (including the Great Barrier Reef and Indigenous heritage sites) will be centre stage.

Activists marked World Environment Day (WED) — June 5 — with a protest in Bourke Street Mall that highlighted corporate plunder of the planet.