Analysis

One hundred people gathered on March 17 at the Wollongong City Diggers Club to celebrate the life of NSW Public Service Association (PSA) activist Anne Meehan who passed away on March 12 after a long illness.
The federal ALP government, in league with employer organisations and conservative economists, wants workers — in particular the lowest paid and most vulnerable — to pay for the economic downturn.
Biochar production has been the object of considerable research and experimentation in Australia.
On March 20, former federal court judge Marcus Einfeld was sentenced to three years jail, with a non-parole period of two years, for trying to get out of a speeding fine.
Two reviews present the Rudd government with opportunities to readjust the policy settings of post-secondary education and determine its future funding arrangements.
In its latest Report of the Committee of Experts on the Application of Conventions and Recommendations, released in 2009, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) has called on the federal government to suspend the operations of the Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC) and comply with ILO recommendations.
The tiny Indian Ocean nation of the Maldives will become carbon-neutral within 10 years. This was the pledge made by Maldives President Mohamed Nasheed on March 15. The low-lying country will be among the first in the world to be inundated by rising sea levels caused by human-induced climate change. The highest point in the chain of 1200 islands and coral atolls is just 1.8 metres above sea-level.
Climate activists have been campaigning against the government’s so-called Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS) long before the exposure legislation was tabled in parliament on March 10.
The federal ALP government’s Fair Work Bill passed through the Senate on March 20 after intense wheeling and dealing with Family First Senator Steve Fielding and independent Senator Nick Xenophon.
A boat-load of asylum seekers believed to be from Afghanistan has been “intercepted” by the Australian navy and sent to the Christmas Island detention centre.
Soubhi Iskander is a leading member of the Sudanese Australia Human Rights Association, a committee based in Sydney’s west, that campaigns for the rights of Sudanese refugees. SAHRA is also an affiliate of the Socialist Alliance.
On March 11, a 185-metre container ship, the Pacific Adventurer was en route from Newcastle to Indonesia via Brisbane when it lost 31 containers in heavy seas about seven nautical miles east of Cape Moreton.