Analysis

The NSW Registry of Births Deaths and Marriages has refused to change a transsexual man’s documents unless he undergoes life-threatening surgery.

“How long must we stay like this, don’t they realise our hardship?”, a Tamil detainee in the Christmas Island detention centre asked when he called Green Left Weekly on April 8.

The following is abridged from an April 7 press release on behalf of Alyawarr walk-off spokesperson Richard Downs and senior Pitjantjatjara elder Murray George.

Albert Einstein defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. It has taken capitalism about 250 years to generate enough waste and pollution to press dangerously against nature’s limits. With such a damning record, there should be no grounds to expect a different outcome in the future.

The federal Labor government announced a moratorium on processing claims for asylum for people coming from Sri Lanka or Afghanistan on April 9.

On Saturday April 3, a fully laden bulk carrier ran aground on Douglas Shoal off Rockhampton, Queensland, producing an oil spill threatening the Great Barrier Reef. The Shen Neng 1, carrying about 65,000 tonnes of coal to China, leaked about two tonnes of oil onto the reef before being contained.

Australian PM Kevin Rudd’s appointment of Tony Burke as population minister continues the Australian tradition of playing political football with immigration. His appointment came after Treasury estimates predicted that Australia’s population will grow from 22 million to 36 million by 2050.

The current federal inquiry into the over-representation of Indigenous youth and young people in the criminal justice system, which began in late March, has brought attention to issues surrounding incarceration in Australian jails and detention centres.

A recent investigation has found that nearly 55% of stories in the mainstream media are driven by public relations, or corporate spin. Spinning the Media was a joint investigation by Crikey.com and the Australian Centre for Independent Journalism, headed by Wendy Bacon, based at the University of Technology, Sydney (UTS).

Australian climate activists will join thousands of other people at the World People's Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth in Cochabamba, Bolivia over April 19-22.

On March 10, 2009, three days after Mardi Gras, 34-year-old Veronica Baxter was arrested by Redfern police. She was charged with six counts of supplying a prohibited drug and held on remand at the all-male NSW Silverwater Metropolitan Reception and Remand Centre.

Professional engineers at Qantas, members of the Association of Professional Engineers, Scientists and Managers, Australia (APESMA), remain locked in combat with the airline after almost a year of negotiations over a new work agreement.