Analysis

Five words sum up federal opposition leader Tony Abbott's response to some sharp questions put to him by journalist Leigh Sales in the August 22 episode of ABC TV's 7.30: Liar, liar, pants on fire! If you need a good example of a person with a chronic disposition to lie, this is it. Read the transcript or watch the video, then imagine the same interview — except conducted after Abbott was given a dose of truth serum. Perhaps it would go something like this. * * *

In recent months, Prime Minister Julia Gillard has taken to highlighting the role of state electricity utilities in pushing up power prices. Average power bills have been rising rapidly — 69% over four years in NSW.

Sydney City Greens councillor Irene Doutney is a fighter. She’s a public housing tenant and knows a thing or two about the dispossessed and disadvantaged. She is part of a rich council that sprawls from Millers’ Point in the north and Annandale in the West to Moore Park in the east to St Peters in the south. It also includes the much poorer neighbourhoods of Woolloomooloo, Redfern, Zetland and Rosebery.

The Refugee Action Coalition released the statement below on August 24. * * * The Refugee Action Coalition has welcomed the government’s announcement to immediately increase Australia’s refugee intake to 20,000. But the government could and should have increased the intake without re-opening Nauru. “The bitter pill of violating refugee rights on Nauru is not going to be sweetened by increasing Australia’s overall intake,” said Ian Rintoul, spokesperson for the Refugee Action Coalition.

The Tasmanian Greens have proposed the “biggest reform in the Tasmanian electricity sector since the dams were built", in its response to an expert panel that reviewed the state’s electricity industry earlier this year. About 80% of the Tasmania’s electricity comes from hydro power, owned by Hydro Tasmania. This is sold to Aurora, the only retail company in the state. Another company, Transend, owns the distribution network. All three are government business enterprises.

OK, nobody panic or anything, but it seems another key plank in Gina Rinehart's plot to destroy the Earth has been given the green light. Gina Rinehart's multibillion-dollar Alpha coal mine and rail project in central Queensland has been granted federal government approval, ABC.net.au said on August 23.

The personal saga of WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Julian Assange has been used to overshadow the ground-breaking journalism of WikiLeaks in exposing the secrets of governments and corporations around the world.

In a "stunning victory for civil liberties", the Barnett government has announced that they will introduce legislation to enable police officers to enter private houses without a search warrant and without the permission of the property owner.

Stop CSG Illawarra released the statement below on August 22. * * * The fire last week that consumed 1600 hectares of bush around Bulli Tops, forced the F6 to close, and threatened homes at Darkes Forest also burned right through one of the approved (now lapsed) CSG well sites in the northern Illawarra.

Australian historian Humphrey McQueen gave the speech below at an August 17 pro-WikiLeaks protest outside the British High Commission, Canberra.

Greens candidate for Heffron in the August 25 NSW by-election Mehreen Faruqi gave the speech below at a refugee rights rally in Sydney on August 15. * * * Seeking asylum is a legal and a human right. But our current government and the Coalition are bent upon stripping these rights and protections from vulnerable people who most need them.

Fifteen years of Labor in NSW set in motion changes that severely and negatively affected the well-being of our community. Unfortunately these regressive policies are being pursued even more aggressively by the Barry O’Farrell Coalition government. Labor gave the Coalition the framework for changing planning laws to take away community say in planning decisions, commenced the privatisation of electricity assets and sale of public housing, and approved hundreds of coal seam gas mining licenses including at St Peters in the heart of Heffron.