Australian Bureau of Statistics figures released on February 18 showed that retail sales increased by 0.8% (seasonally adjusted) in the December quarter.
Analysis
The key United Nations report used as the basis for climate change policies in many countries, including Australia, seriously underestimated the dangers of global warming, one of its leading compilers has warned.
Socialist Alliance national co-convener Dick Nichols interviewed two climate action summit participants, Paul Petit from the South Australian Climate Emergency Action Network (CLEAN) and Giovanni Ebono from the New South Wales North Coast Climate Action Network.
Green Left Weekly’s Simon Butler asked a number of activists present at Australia’s Climate Action Summit why they attended and why they thought it was so important.
The heatwave across south-eastern Australia in recent weeks has given a hint of what we can expect as global temperatures continue to rise: black-outs, fatalities and transport chaos as privatised infrastructure fails.
Two weeks ago, federal environment minister Peter Garrett announced he will give the go ahead to the expansion of an open cut mine that will divert the McArthur River in the Northern Territory six kilometres off course.
On February 3, the federal government launched its second economic stimulus package of $42 billion, to be spent on special grants to individuals, businesses and schools.
“Rudd is dangling the carrot of hope before us and it is a lie”, said Les Coe at the Aboriginal convergence in Canberra on February 3, at which 500 people protested the continuation of racist Howard-era policies by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.
The news, on February 3, that South African dock workers in Durban had decided not to unload an Israeli ship due in on February 8 was welcomed by the Maritime Union of Australia (MUA), a section of which wants the union to join the international campaign of sanctions against apartheid Israel.
In the last month, Australian mine workers and mining communities have been rocked by layoffs and mine closures as mining companies have moved to reduce production in response to collapsing commodities prices.
On January 27, a day before heading off to the exclusive Swiss ski-resort of Davos for the World Economic Forum, deputy PM Julia Gillard met with representatives of charities and social service providers to discuss improving government support for the unemployed.
In December 2008, Green Left Weekly’s Emma Murphy and Peter Robson spoke to William Tilmouth about mandatory welfare quarantining — a feature of the federal government’s Northern Territory intervention — and its impacts on the Aboriginal town camps in Alice Springs. Tilmouth is the executive director of Tangentyere Council, the umbrella service delivery agency for the town camp Aboriginal housing associations.
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