News

  • Protesters delay CRA meeting

    MELBOURNE — Around 150 angry workers, indigenous people and environmentalists delayed CRA's annual general meeting at the Victorian Arts Centre for over an hour on May 22. Representatives from the CFMEU's mining and construction

  • Campaign for justice for indigenous Australians

    By Nigel D'Souza MELBOURNE — The election of the Howard government has had an inauspicious start for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in Australia. The recent attacks against Aboriginal organisations under the rubric of

  • CPSU bans generalise across Canberra

    CANBERRA — Most workplaces in most federal departments have placed bans on the handling of government business and the administration of cuts, bans on doing the work of vacant positions, processing government revenue and the

  • Loose cannons

    Defence of democracy "In extreme situations some rules have to be broken." — Georgy Kuznetsov, dean of the television and radio department of Moscow State University's journalism faculty, justifying media distortion and if necessary

  • University initiative on East Timor

    SYDNEY — The largest ever public education conference on East Timor will be held here June 21-24, sponsored by the University of Sydney (School of Asian Studies), University of New South Wales (Centre for Human Rights) and University of Technology,

  • Building workers to strike

    SYDNEY — Building workers will strike around Australia on May 29, against cuts by the Howard government affecting their wages and those of apprentices and trainees. In a major slug to building workers' pay, Liberal treasurer

  • Victorian government to debate drug law reform

    MELBOURNE — The Victorian state council of the Liberal Party voted overwhelmingly on May 12 against decriminalising marijuana. While the vote is not binding on Liberal MPs, statements by leading parliamentarians, including

  • Fight over hospital closure

    ROSEBERY — A massive, community-based battle has erupted over the threatened closure of the new hospital here on Tasmania's west coast. The state Department of Community and Health Services (DC&HS) announced on May 13 that it

  • Actions condemn uranium mining

    Anti-uranium mining activists around the country held protest actions last week to condemn the Howard government's decision to allow the opening of new uranium mines. From Sydney, Roberto Jorquera reports that more than 1000 people joined a noisy

  • Action at Fairlea Women's Prison

    MELBOURNE — A "wringout" for Fairlea Women's Prison at Fairfield on May 19 was a resounding demonstration of solidarity with the women imprisoned there and against the scheduled replacement of Fairlea by a private prison. The

  • Jason Porter memorial oration

    ADELAIDE — Some 70 people attended the first Jason Porter memorial oration here on May 18. Jason Porter, an activist in Resistance, Community Aid Abroad and Campaign for an Independent East Timor, was killed while travelling through Indonesia in

  • Meeting demands: 'Stop the theft of Telstra!'

    ADELAIDE — One hundred people packed the Pilgrim Church Hall on May 15 for a public meeting organised by the Keep Telstra Public Alliance. The meeting was chaired by Reverend Lee Levitt-Olson, who opened the proceedings by