nipaluna/Hobart

A snap protest at Parliament House attracted 250 people on June 27 against the federal government’s plan to send police and military into Indigenous communities in the Northern Territory. Speakers included Greens Senator Bob Brown, who labelled the plan a “concocted pre-election strategy by a government who for 11 years has done nothing for Aboriginal people”. Sara Maynard from the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre suggested that protesters’ anger be directed toward the Tasmanian premier and parliament for going along with the plan, while Aboriginal activist Jimmy Everett pointed out that PM John Howard is fighting one injustice with more injustice. Susan Austin from the Socialist Alliance spoke about the “Justice for Mulrunji” campaign and said more deaths in custody would be likely under Howard’s racist plan.

The Tasmanian state Labor government has rejected a claim by public sector nurses to bring their pay and conditions in line with their mainland counterparts.

Tasmanians from all walks of life are up in arms about Gunns’ proposal to build one of the largest pulp mills in the world in the Tamar Valley, near Launceston.

Global warming, workers’ rights and opposition to the Iraq war are key campaigns this year, a Socialist Alliance state conference on May 19 decided.

May 31 marked the first day of a court challenge launched by the Wilderness Society (TWS) against the federal government, which TWS claims has broken its own environmental laws. According to TWS, federal environment minister Malcolm Turnbull acted illegally by allowing a proposed billion-dollar Gunns Ltd pulp mill in Tasmania’s Tamar Valley to escape proper assessment by the independent Resource Planning and Development Commission.

Two hundred young people attended a protest on May 19 to demand that the US military prison in Guantanamo Bay be closed. The action, organised by the combined schools Amnesty International group, heard from a range of speakers, including high school students, ALP state MP Lisa Sing and Greens state MP Nick McKim.

The Wilderness Society (TWS) has taken Malcolm Turnbull, the federal environment minister, and logging giant Gunns Ltd to court in an attempt to stop a pulp mill being built in Tasmania’s Tamar Valley.

HOBART — Thirty people greeted foreign minister Alexander Downer on May 11 with chants and fliers critiquing Australia foreign policy in Iraq. The lecture hosted by the University of Tasmania was about “diplomacy”. The demonstration was organised by the Hobart Peace Coalition and protesters explained that war is not diplomacy and that the occupation of Iraq must end.

Tasmanian Labor Premier Paul Lennon’s Pulp Mill Assessment Bill, which fast-tracks approval of timber giant Gunns Ltd’s proposed $1.5 billion Tamar Valley pulp mill, was passed by the Legislative Council, the state parliament’s upper house, on March 29. Seven days earlier the bill had been passed by the lower house.

HOBART — The Howard government has promised to spend $200 million on an international fund to halve the rate of deforestation in Indonesia and the Asia Pacific as part of Australia’s contribution to stopping climate change. However the government hasn’t mentioned putting an end to the 20,000 hectares of native forest that are clear-felled and burned each year in Tasmania. Greens leader Bob Brown highlighted this hypocrisy on March 30.

On March 22, some 1500 protesters on Parliament Lawns denounced Tasmanian Labor Premier Paul Lennon’s push to fast-track the building of a $1.5 billion pulp mill in Bell Bay, in northern Tasmania’s Tamar Valley.

Tasmanian logging giant Gunns Ltd announced suddenly on March 14 that it was withdrawing its proposal to build a $2 billion pulp mill at Bell Bay in northern Tasmania from the independent Resource Planning and Development Commission (RPDC) and called on Labor Premier Paul Lennon’s government to legislate to approve the project.