Naarm/Melbourne

About 200 people rallied on June 26 demanding people charged under section 501 of the Migration Act 1958 be freed and allowed to stay in Australia. More than 190 people, mostly New Zealanders, have been ripped away from their families and put in prison on Christmas Island, 380 kilometres south of Java and 2650 kilometres north-west of Perth, pending deportation. The numbers are set to increase.

Members of the Bendigo Street housing protest rallied in Melbourne on June 26 to demand affordable public housing and condemn the privatisation of public housing. Victoria is facing a housing crisis, with more than 25,000 people homeless and 32,000 people on the waiting list for public housing. There are an estimated 80,000 empty homes, including many compulsorily acquired by the government to build the East West Link that now remain empty.

On June 26, Hundreds of people rallied against racism in Melbourne on June 26. Far-right groups True Blue Crew and United Patriot Front organised an Australian National Flag Solidarity Walk at Parliament House in Melbourne that attracted about 50 people. In response Campaign Against Racism and Fascism organised a counter-rally also at Parliament House, which was attended by 200 to 300 protesters, easily outnumbering the far right. The counter-rally occupied the space between police lines and prevented the United Patriots and True Blue Crew from rallying outside Parliament.

The United Firefighters Union (UFU) has produced a TV advertisement responding to a scare campaign against a new enterprise agreement for firefighters employed by Victoria's Country Fire Authority (CFA). Anti-union forces claim the agreement will damage the CFA and undermine its ability to fight fires.

On June 25 a vigil was held outside the State Library of Victoria in Melbourne to pay tribute to the Mexican teachers who were murdered by police during protests organised by the CNTE teachers' union in Oaxaca last week.

On June 10, 50 Carlton and United Breweries workers were told, without prior notice, that they were terminated. The workers were then “invited” to reapply for their jobs with a company called Catalyst Recruitment, which is in the Programmed/Skilled Group. The invitation to apply for a job came with no guarantees; would be on individual contracts; would be covered by a non-union EBA; and offered worse conditions with a 65% pay cut.

About 20 protesters demonstrated in front of the Melbourne Department of Immigration and Border Protection (DIBP) on June 6 over allegations of asylum seeker mistreatment. Police presence was described by observers as extremely heavy, ranging from two dozen to fifty officers.

Kumaravadivel Guruparan, a law lecturer at Jaffna University, told a meeting in Melbourne on June 12 that the pervasive oppression of Tamils in Sri Lanka is leading to the "normalisation of abnormalcy". Guruparan was delivering the annual Eliezer memorial lecture, in honour of Professor C J Eliezer, a noted mathematical physicist and campaigner for Tamil rights.

Protesters locked themselves in a cage outside the Department of Immigration at 7am on June 6 to protest against the mandatory and indefinite detention of people seeking asylum. Spokesperson for the group, Our Backyard, Melanie Brown said: “We are occupying this department today because of the government's policy to imprison innocent people and deny them basic rights, both offshore and right here in our backyard.”

Sitting safely inside the head of a pale, grey telebot, slowly gyrating in an attempt to be innocuous; it turned to face the audience, introducing itself as Edward Snowden — the Worlds Most Wanted Man.

Thirty students representing 25 postgraduate organisations met at the Council of Postgraduate Association (CAPA) Special Council Meeting to discuss issues faced by postgraduate students in a corporatised university setting. CAPA is the peak, not-for-profit body that represents 320,000-plus postgraduate students, through its 33 postgraduate affiliates and the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Postgraduate Association (NATSIPA).

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews formally apologised on May 24 in state parliament for a past law that treated people as criminals for being gay. "It is never too late to put things right," Andrews said. "It is never too late to say sorry and mean it. "There was a time in our history when we turned thousands of young men into criminals ... this was profoundly wrong. "It is the first responsibility of a government to keep people safe. But the Government didn't keep LGBTI people safe. The Government invalidated their humanity and cast them into a nightmare.”