Following the election of the new federal Labor government, ACT Chief Minister Jon Stanhope announced that a third attempt would be made to introduce same-sex civil unions in the ACT. Legislation currently before the ACT Legislative Assembly will be voted on early next year.
Analysis
Kevin Rudd is a prime minister in a big hurry. Only a fortnight has passed since the Howard government was thrown into the dustbin, and the new Labor cabinet is already scurrying about its work.
On November 16, NSW deputy coroner Dorelle Pinch ruled that five journalists from Australias Seven and Ten commercial TV networks who died in the East Timorese town of Balibo on October 16, 1975, were not killed by crossfire (which is what Australian authorities have previously maintained) but were deliberately murdered by invading Indonesian forces, on orders from above in what Pinch ruled to be a war crime.
Despite opposition from farmers and consumers, big-business biotech companies scored a major victory on November 27 when both the New South Wales and Victorian governments gave the green light to the commercial cultivation of genetically modified food crops. This opens the gate for pro-GM groups to lobby other states which have not yet agreed to commercial production of GM crops.
Kevin Rudds election provides an opportunity for Australia and Aboriginal people to repair the damage caused by the Howard years. Rudds intention to apologise to the Stolen Generations already indicates a positive change of national policy towards Aboriginal people and should he remove the NT emergency laws, Aboriginal reconciliation will be further enhanced.
Now that Labor has decisively won the federal election, it is urgent that Australian troops be withdrawn from Iraq as soon as possible, Jim McIlroy, the Socialist Alliance candidate for Kevin Rudds seat of Griffith, said after the announcement that Labor had defeated the Howard government. McIlroy also called for an end to Australian support for the war in Afghanistan. All Australian forces should be brought home by Christmas.
Its time for a new page to be written in our nations history Prime Minister-elect Kevin Rudd, November 24.
The first negotiations between the state government and Victorian teachers following a 10,000 strong November 21 stop-work meeting bore no fruit according to a November 30 press release by the Australian Education Unions (AEU) Victorian branch.
The November 24 rout of the Howard government owed much to the work of the organised labour movement. Of the marginal Coalition seats targeted by the Your Rights at Work (YRAW) campaign, 20 of 24 have fallen to Labor (including John Howards own seat of Bennelong); the other four remain in doubt. Most of those who voted for Labor did so believing that Labor would abolish Work Choices, as promised by Kevin Rudd on October 14, the official start to the election campaign. Yet Labors industrial relations policy Forward with Fairness promises only minimal changes, replacing the Coalitions legislation with Work Choices Lite.
Prime Minister-elect Kevin Rudds phone call with US President George Bush on November 25, the day after the election, was a reminder about the incoming Labor governments commitment to the Australia-US military alliance. The government may have changed, but Canberras commitment to Australias participation in foreign wars and occupations hasnt.
The November 24 electoral victory of the ALP was based largely upon public opposition to the Howard Coalition government’s Work Choices laws. But in the Northern Territory, opposition among Aborigines to PM John Howard’s “emergency intervention” into their communities was a major factor in boosting support for Labor.
Bernie Banton, the widely-recognised face of the legal and political campaign to achieve compensation for the many sufferers of asbestos-related conditions, which they contracted after working for the James Hardie company, died on November 27, at the age of 61.
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