On August 6, Victoria University of Technology (VUT) hosted a seminar, “Pacific Islands Migration and Labour Mobility: Issues and Responses”, which discussed the potential for an unskilled guest worker scheme for Pacific Island workers. Some Pacific nations have called for such program to help alleviate high rates of unemployment.
Analysis
There can be no peace, and certainly no peace with coexistence, in Sri Lanka divided or undivided until there is an apology from the Sinhalese to the Tamils for all the atrocities unleashed on them, not just in 1983, but all the way back to 1956, and increasingly so today.
Internationally, as in Australia, governments forced to promise climate change action have generally promoted market-based carbon abatement schemes, mostly of the cap and trade variety. But can we trade our way out of our climate difficulties? Can market mechanisms deal with a problem of such scale and urgency?
The following call for a national week of protest action, beginning September 21, was issued by the July 5 Climate Emergency Rally organising committee in Melbourne, and endorsed by the August 2 Climate Justice seminar.
As near as we can tell looking at the historical record, theres been ice in the Arctic in the summer for at least 16 million years, Don Perovich, a geophysicist with the US armys Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory, told the August 4 Four Corners program. Arctic ice melt over this years northern summer has been at record levels, leaving the amount of ice remaining alarmingly low.
Hydrologists such as professors Peter Cullen, Richard Kingsford and Derek Eamus, speaking at public forums in NSW earlier this year, warned that Australians are extracting water from stressed rivers and artesian systems faster than it is being replenished.
The following call to action has been issued by the Adelaide-based Stop the War Fair committee.
A flurry of public meetings followed the federal governments green paper on carbon emissions trading. I attended two quite different information sessions in Sydney.
Refugee activists have welcomed the July 29 announcement by federal immigration minister Chris Evans to significantly dismantle Australia’s policy of mandatorily detaining refugees. They noted, however, that while the changes represent an important victory for the movement for refugee rights, the struggle is not yet over.
Former PM John Howard’s blandly named Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC) remains under PM Kevin Rudd. It is prosecuting Victorian vice-president of the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU), Noel Washington, who faces six months’ jail for not answering questions about a union meeting.
Millions of Australian workers have faced the worst losses in their superannuation since 1992. Super funds have shown losses of on average 6.4% for the last financial year, with some showing losses as high as 15%, putting workers retirement funds in jeopardy.
The export of coal is an important issue for climate campaigners to consider. Australia exports more carbon dioxide in the form of coal than its entire domestic emissions of the gas.
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