A week before the Queensland election more than 500 people rallied against premier Campbell Newman and the Liberal National Party on January 24.
Speakers included Indigenous activist Sam Watson, Secretary of the Electrical Trades Union Peter Simpson, Debbie Kilroy from Sisters Inside, Drew Hutton from Lock The Gate Alliance and Greens candidate Jonathan Sri.
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In a dramatic turn of events, the NSW government has suspended AGL’s licence to operate its Waukivory Pilot Project to mine coal seam gas (CSG) in Gloucester, pending the result of an investigation launched on January 28.
The suspension came just a day after AGL said it was "voluntarily" suspending work at the site after it had detected banned carcinogenic benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and xylene (BTEX) chemicals in flowback water from two of the four wells and an above-ground storage tank.
The 15th solidarity brigade from the Australia-Venezuela Solidarity Network (AVSN) joined a long tradition of international brigades to visit Venezuela since 1998, and enjoyed a packed itinerary during its visit from December 2 to 13.
Planetary boundaries are those considered crucial to maintaining an environment in which humanity can safely exist.
Nobel Prize-winning atmospheric chemist Paul Crutzen, US climatologist James Hansen and Johan Rockstrom from the Stockholm Resilience Centre, developed an analysis of nine of these boundaries some years ago.
Alongside climate change, they include ocean acidification, ozone depletion, fresh water use, change in land use, biodiversity loss, chemical pollution, atmospheric aerosol loading and the nitrogen and phosphorous cycles.
Vigils were held in Melbourne and Sydney for Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran on January 29. The two are facing the death penalty after having been convicted of drug smuggling in Indonesia.
Chris Peterson gave this speech to the Melbourne vigil.
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I would like to thank everyone who came out on this cold windy night. We are continuing a movement. We no longer have the death penalty in Australia because people came out on cold evenings for justice.
More than 500 people held political parties contesting the Queensland elections to account over the protection of the Great Barrier Reef at a public forum at Brisbane City Hall on January 22.
The forum was was organised by the Australian Marine Conservation Society (AMCS), Queensland Conservation Council, the Wilderness Society, Greenpeace, Australian Youth Climate Coalition and GetUp. It was chaired by Professor Ian Lowe.
The workers of International Flavours & Fragrances began occupying their building on January 27 as part of an ongoing strike.
The Dandenong Leader reported workers "were locked out today after negotiations for a new workplace agreement stalled. About 60 workers were stranded by indefinite lockout by management early this morning. Negotiations have been ongoing since June, after contention arose over management’s proposal of a 55 cent an hour wage increase if workers forfeited one of their two paid ten minute breaks.
"Today was the best Invasion Day protest that I have ever been to," Socialist Alliance councillor Sue Bolton told Green Left on January 26. "There was a real feeling of Aboriginal Pride and Resistance. The crowd was bigger today too."
The protest began with a smoking ceremony near Parliament House and then a rally on the Parliament Steps.
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Melbourne's annual Pride March recognises and celebrates Victoria's gay, lesbian, bisexual, intersex and transgender community. This year it celebrates its 20th anniversary. Join more than 100 groups in a march down Fitzroy Street in St Kilda on February 1.
"The Abbott government's humiliating backdown on its proposed $20 GP rebate cut, further deepens the government's general political crisis," Susan Price, Socialist Alliance candidate for the seat of Summer Hill in the March 28 NSW state election, said on January 22.
"The fact that the government was forced by a public outcry from doctors and the community to drop its plan to slash the Medicare rebate paid for GP consultations of less than 10 minutes is a major win for the movement to defend Medicare over the past 12 months," she said.
On January 21, hundreds of people rallied in Melbourne in support of the ongoing hunger strike on Manus Island.
Katie Roberston, a social justice lawyer said "What is going on in Australia when people in New York are rallying against our human rights abuses. Our government does not respect human rights in relation to refugees and it is getting worse everyday. The Immigration Minister can bring these people back to Australia but he chooses not to."
There is one message refugees in the Manus Island detention centre want Australia to hear: we need help.
In a letter written on January 20, a group of asylum seekers taking part in a mass hunger strike wrote: “In here alarms are ringing but heartless politicians are still indifferent.”
They said they were writing “from the heart of Manus” as the hunger strike entered its “ninth day and it will continue”.
“We will continue our push until we reach our ultimate goal, which is freedom.”
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