Analysis

Australian historian Humphrey McQueen gave the speech below at an August 17 pro-WikiLeaks protest outside the British High Commission, Canberra.

Stop CSG Illawarra released the statement below on August 22. * * * The fire last week that consumed 1600 hectares of bush around Bulli Tops, forced the F6 to close, and threatened homes at Darkes Forest also burned right through one of the approved (now lapsed) CSG well sites in the northern Illawarra.

The Union of South American States (UNASUR) threw its support behind Ecuador in its diplomatic dispute with Britain over Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, after a meeting of UNASUR foreign ministers yesterday in Guayaquil, Ecuador. UNASUR unites 12 South American nations (Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Guyana, Ecuador, Uruguay, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname and Venezuela). On August 16, Ecuador granted Assange diplomatic asylum in its London embassy due to fears his human rights could be violated if extradited to Sweden to face sexual assault charges.

Fifteen years of Labor in NSW set in motion changes that severely and negatively affected the well-being of our community. Unfortunately these regressive policies are being pursued even more aggressively by the Barry O’Farrell Coalition government. Labor gave the Coalition the framework for changing planning laws to take away community say in planning decisions, commenced the privatisation of electricity assets and sale of public housing, and approved hundreds of coal seam gas mining licenses including at St Peters in the heart of Heffron.

Greens candidate for Heffron in the August 25 NSW by-election Mehreen Faruqi gave the speech below at a refugee rights rally in Sydney on August 15. * * * Seeking asylum is a legal and a human right. But our current government and the Coalition are bent upon stripping these rights and protections from vulnerable people who most need them.

Former diplomat Tony Kevin gives a very different view to the political and media commentary about 'evil people smugglers'. He says the main danger to the lives of refugees is not those who assist desperate people fleeing war and persecution, but government border protection policies that prioritise political spin over saving lives.

Carolus Wimmer is a widely respected Venezuelan political scientist, educator and writer, lecturer and columnist nationally and internationally. Elected to the Latin American Parliament in 2005 he served as Vice-President from 2008 to 2011.

Within a week of the government-appointed Houston panel’s recommendation that Australia return to the “Pacific solution” for asylum seekers, the toxic atmosphere of John Howard's “children overboard” era resurged powerfully in Australian politics. On the same day the Houston report recommended indefinite refugee detention on Nauru and Manus Island for all asylum seekers arriving by boat, 67 asylum seekers taken aboard the Singapore-bound MV Parsifal were the subject of a tense stand-off at sea.

In the lead up to its first budget next month, Queensland’s Liberal National Party (LNP) government has intensified its slash-and-burn approach to public and community services. In its first 100 days in office, it axed 7000 public service jobs. Premier Campbell Newman says a further 13,000 job cuts are to come. Newman has wielded his axe indiscriminately. School cleaners, teachers’ aides, child safety, paramedics, firefighters, local courts, QBuild tradesmen and apprentices are all in the firing line.

In the lead up to the September 8 council elections across NSW, candidates in the City of Sydney have been finalised and several candidates forums have already been held.

Congratulations to Tony Abbott on becoming prime minister. We all know how just badly he wanted this job, and he didn't even have to sell his arse. Or worse, support nominal action on climate change. His rise to the nation's top office was marked on August 15, when his government passed his asylum seeker policies, with the opposition — Adam Bandt and Andrew Wilkie — voting against.

The government of Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa gave Julia Gillard's Australian government a lesson in dignity on August 16 when, facing British threats to raid its London embassy, it granted asylum to WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Julian Assange.