The Victorian Coalition government has taken to the state with a razor and announced huge cuts in the 2012 budget. These are the biggest cuts since the Jeff Kennett-led Coalition government that ruled Victoria from 1992-1999.
Victorian TAFE institutes in particular will be hard hit. The level of cuts was so severe that higher education minister Peter Hall sent a letter to TAFE heads on April 29 indicating that he had considered resigning from the ministry.
Analysis
Jackie Kriz, an Australian Nurses Federation delegate from Geelong, will be the special guest speaker at Sydney’s annual Green Left Weekly May Day dinner, where she will share her experiences of the Victorian nurses’ remarkable victorious campaign and some of the lessons we can learn from it.
In his excellent discussion piece in the lead up to the recent Climate Action Summit in Sydney, climate activist David Spratt concluded: “The problem is now so big, and the scale and urgency of the solutions required so great, that it is impossible to talk about them within the current public policy frame.
“The business and political spheres have horizons too narrow and too limited in time to be able to deal with the challenges and complexities of global warming.”
Twiggy could dodge tax for five more years
Billionaire Australian mining tycoon Andrew Forrest boasted on May 3 that he may pay nothing in tax for the first five years of the federal Labor government’s new Mining Resources Rent Tax (MRRT), which comes into effect in July.
The Victorian Liberal government has taken to the state’s public sector with a razor blade and announced huge cuts in the 2012 budget.
Victorian TAFE institutes in particular will be hard hit. GippsTAFE chief executive officer Peter Whitely told ABC Radio that his institute faces a loss of 10% of its operating budget. TAFE courses that are not in high demand are expected to be slashed.
Historians will look back at this year’s two parliamentary inquiries into marriage equality as the beginning of the end of the religious right’s disproportionate influence on Australian politics.
On April 13, the Senate marriage equality inquiry announced it had received 75,000 submissions with 44,000 or almost 60% in favour.
About 50 supporters of the “Max Brenner 19” — Melbourne Palestine solidarity activists being prosecuted in the wake of a protest in July last year — gathered outside the Melbourne Magistrates’ Court on May 1 to show their support for the defendants at the beginning of their trial.
One of the defendants, Jerome Small, read out a statement on behalf of the accused. The statement appears below.
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A case of the unspeakable, to paraphrase Oscar Wilde, in pursuit of the unsinkable? It is actually rather fitting that the multi-billionaire mining “magnate” Clive Palmer should be drawn to the idea of recreating the ghastly Titanic experience.
Sydney’s May 1 rally, called by the NSW Farmers Federation to “Protect our Land and Water” from coal seam gas (CSG) and irresponsible mining, represented an incredible diversity and unity from communities across NSW. Organisers said 8000-10,000 people took to the streets, making it easily the biggest action to stop CSG to date in Australia.
The Yolngu Nations Assembly, which represents 8000 Aboriginal people in the western, central and east Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory, released the statement below on May 2.
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To the Leaders of the Australian federal and Northern Territory parliaments:
1. The Yolŋu Nations reject the Stronger Futures Bill (and those associated) and call on the Senate to discard these bills in full. We have clearly informed you that we do not support the legislation.
On the eve of Julian Assange's 500th day under house arrest, Kaz from the WikiLeaks Australian Citizens Alliance sat down with Australian Lawyers Alliance President Greg Barns to talk about Julian Assange, Wikileaks and the state of our democracy.
The Medical Association for Prevention of War released the statement below on May 1.
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The Medical Association for Prevention of War has released a statement (reproduced below) signed by 45 medical doctors calling on uranium mining company Toro Energy to stop promoting the view that low-level radiation is beneficial to human health.
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