Analysis

The Northern Territory women’s policy minister, Alison Anderson, told a gathering at the Wheeler Centre in Melbourne that “domestic violence has reached a crisis point”, the ABC reported on April 4.

The National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) at the University of Sydney is involved in an industrial battle with the administration over pay, conditions and casualisation. As part of this campaign, the union held a 24-hour strike on March 6. Staff and students held pickets outside all campus entrances, and the university was largely shut down for the day. The multiple picket lines converged on the main entrance to the university for a midday rally, which attracted hundreds of staff and supporters. There were many speakers including unionists, student representatives and the Greens.

A landmark ruling in Sydney on February 15 gave the biotechnology industry an unprecedented right to make huge profits from genetic testing. The case involved the breast cancer genes BRCA 1 and BRCA 2 and the right of US biotechnology company Myriad Genetics to have exclusive licence to a patent over their use in research. Federal Court Justice John Nicholas had ruled that a private company can continue to hold a patent over an isolated gene, in this case, the BRCA gene. The BRCA gene is responsible for repairing or removing defective DNA cells.

Having tried absolutely everything they could think of to win the support of voters besides push good polices in favour of working people, there was really nothing for Labor's parliamentary caucus to do except launch yet another leadership spill on March 21. It might have been a farce that will help worsen Labor's defeat in September, but it did reveal one startling fact: Simon Crean is still in parliament. I know, right?

The abortive leadership spill in the Labor party on March 22 was yet another demonstration of its total political bankruptcy. Kevin Rudd's leadership ambitions may now be in the dustbin of history but Prime Minister Julia Gillard has won a pyrrhic victory. The public watched this gross display of principle-free power play in disgust. It seemed to make a government led by Liberal leader Tony Abbott a virtual certainty.

Northern Territory Chief Minister Terry Mills was replaced by Adam Giles in a sudden leadership coup on March 13, while Mills was in Japan on a trade mission. This shift has led to backdowns from the Country Liberal Party (CLP) on some regressive policies but could pave the way for more attacks in the future. Crikey’s Bob Gosford predicted the spill on March 5 and wrote a detailed account of it.

Over the past year, we have seen a huge rise in activity around women’s rights in Australia and other parts of the world. Attention has turned to a range of horrific individual tragedies as well as broader issues, including sexual assault and violence against women, the disparity in income between men and women, and a debate about misogyny. Although the idea that feminism is no longer relevant still dominates, women know through experience that sexism is rife. They are learning to organise together and taking to the streets in large numbers to demand change.

Do oil spills make good economic sense? A witness called by Canadian firm Enbridge Inc— which wants approval to build a $6.5 billion pipeline linking Alberta’s tar sands with the Pacific coast — told a recent hearing in British Columbia that the answer is yes.

When coal seam gas company Metgasco announced on March 13 it had suspended its operations in northern NSW after a long community campaign against it, it was just the latest in a series of setbacks for the CSG industry. It followed the suspension of an AGL project in Campbelltown in western Sydney after community protests. Another company, Arrow Energy, has withdrawn from NSW and wants to transfer its licence to Dart Energy so it can focus on expanding in central Queensland.

There are at least two truisms in Aboriginal affairs. The first is that the more things change, the more they stay the same. I’ll come back to that one. The second is that the road through Aboriginal affairs, while often paved with good intentions, is sometimes paved with bad ones. I’m going to assume that when Minister for Indigenous Affairs, Jenny Macklin held a gun to the head of Alice Springs town campers and told them that unless they signed over their land for 40 years it would be compulsorily acquired, that her intentions were good.

Wong-goo-tt-oo elder Wilfred Hicks explains why the Burrup Peninsula is important and why it should be saved with World Heritage listing.

I have always found tests and exams, whether the NAPLAN or Victorian Certificate of Education, very problematic. For one thing, it only tests English and numeracy, as if other subjects are not important and do not contribute to numeracy and literacy skills. For several years, educators have known that there are different learning styles and techniques. Some people have one dominant learning style, others use different styles in different situations, and styles are not fixed.