Soon after Australian government adviser Professor Ross Garnaut presented his draft climate change review on July 4, world leaders gathered in a Japanese mountain resort for an expanded version of the annual G8 summit meeting.
Analysis
In November 2006, the G20 — the finance ministers from the 20 biggest economies — plus representatives from the World Bank, met in Melbourne. They were met with protests.
Venezuela has won Miss Universe again. Meanwhile, my friend in Bolivia wrote on her blog that day, “I don’t know if anyone as big as me deserves to be alive”.
On July 3 a funeral was held for Bruce Trevorrow, who passed away peacefully on June 20 after being admitted to intensive care in Sale, south-western Victoria, and suffering a heart attack from which he did not recover. He was surrounded by family members and his wife Veronica.
The fact that the NSW Labor governments World Youth Day laws which would have made annoying Catholic pilgrims during WYD activities a crime punishable by fines of up to $5500 was a failed attempt to silence criticisms of the Catholic Church was brought home when WYD organiser Bishop Anthony Fisher effectively dismissed criticism of the churchs handling of cases of child sexual abuse by clergy.
Whatever the final detail of the federal governments carbon emissions trading scheme the framework of which is contained in the green paper released by climate change minister Penny Wong on July 16 theres one thing we can be sure of: it wont be of much use in cutting Australias carbon emissions.
Right at the beginning of his draft report on climate change, Professor Ross Garnaut points out that global warming cant be beaten unless an international prisoners dilemma gets resolved.
The campaign to stop the damming of the Franklin River in Tasmania’s south-west wilderness resulted in a historic victory for the environment movement in 1983. More than 1000 people came together on July 1 to mark the 25th anniversary of this victory in a night of celebration at the Grand Chancellor’s Federation Ballroom.
What’s the difference between a liberation movement and a terrorist organisation?
On May 5, Victorian Premier John Brumby announced that a deal had been struck with the Australian Education Union that would end the unions 16-month-long industrial campaign. Victorian state school teachers had campaigned to secure better working conditions and pay rises and to reduce contract teaching.
The Rudd government has asked the Productivity Commission to examine the economic, productive and social benefits of introducing a national paid maternity leave scheme. The Commission has heard submissions from a range of unions, business and community groups, and is due to release its report in February, 2009.
PM Kevin Rudd’s “education revolution”, a sad misuse of the word “revolution”, continues to starve public schools of funds. Meanwhile, wealthy private schools are given so much federal money they don’t know what to with it other than bank it or build Olympic-sized gymnasiums.
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