To win the battle to stop climate change, climate activists in Queensland have an important part to play. The Queensland ALP government is a strong backer of Australia’s biggest polluters.
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If the rhetoric of the National Health and Hospitals Reform Commission’s report on Australia’s health system is taken at face value, health care in Australia will get an impressive overhaul courtesy of the federal government.
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More than 200 council workers and their supporters joined sacked council workers Mick Van Beek and Peter Anderson in Johnston Park, Geelong on the morning of July 28.
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“We've had the gun at our head.” This is what William Tilmouth, Tangentyere Council CEO, said in response to Aboriginal affairs minister Jenny Macklin's triumphant July 29 announcement that the council had agreed to lease Alice Springs town camps to the federal government for 40 years in exchange for $135 million in housing upgrades
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Former Queensland Labor cabinet minister Gordon Nuttall was sentenced to seven years jail on July 17. He was found guilty of corruptly receiving secret payments from two Queensland businessmen.
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Canice Lynch was sacked from his job at the West Gate Bridge strengthening project on July 24. Lynch was the Construction Forestry Mining Energy Union (CFMEU) shop steward at the site.
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“If you are still in the Labor Party today, you should be ashamed of yourself”, 71-year-old Aboriginal activist Pat Eatock called out to delegates entering the stage-managed proceedings of the first day of the ALP national conference.
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Five Filipino workers holding 457 visas, who were employed at a Fletcher International abattoir near Albany, were made redundant and given 10 weeks’ entitlement pay on June 2.
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Construction giant John Holland was the first employer to lodge an application with Labor’s new Fair Work Australia industrial umpire. It asked FWA to rule on which union has coverage at its controversial West Gate Bridge site in Melbourne.
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We’ve heard it all before — especially those of us who can remember the rhetoric of the Hawke and Keating governments. A little pain now and everything will be much better for everyone in the long run.
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The national ALP Conference was held in Sydney from July 30 to August 1. Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s speech on the opening day of the conference was full of congratulatory remarks about the greatness of his party and the way the ALP federal government had handled the economic crisis.
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I met Eddie Spearritt in the Philharmonic pub, overlooking Liverpool. It was a few years after 96 Liverpool football fans were crushed to death at Hillsborough Stadium, Sheffield, on April 15, 1989. Eddie’s 14-year-old son, Adam, died in his arms.