News

  • PSU Challenge in SA

    PSU Challenge in SA The position of assistant branch secretary of the Public Sector Union in South Australia is being contested by the PSU Challenge, the first time this position has been contested for some time. Barry Cockram,

  • Agency bargaining limps towards its grave in HSH

    Phil Shannon CANBERRA — Members of the Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU) employed in the Commonwealth Department of Human Services & Health (HSH) have completed a series of meetings on the lack of progress in achieving an agency

  • Circus protest

    Circus protestADELAIDE — About 100 animal rights supporters braved the rain and wind at Bonython Park on October 1 to protest against the use of animals in circuses. Animal Liberation used the occasion of the

  • Boat people: Bolkus moves the goal posts again

    Minister for immigration Nick Bolkus is considering legislation that would legalise the illegal detention of asylum seekers between 1989 and 1992. The bill would retrospectively deny compensation to around 350 potential

  • Chipping away the forest's future

    Chipping away the forest's futureTimber giant Boral's export woodchipping licence was renewed on October 11. The licence allows Boral to export a further 500,000 tonnes of woodchips from native forests in NSW.

  • Bigots invited into Tasmanian high schools

    Bigots invited into Tasmanian high schoolsHOBART — Tas-Alert, an anti-gay group campaigning against gay law reform in this state, has been allowed space to display its message on secondary school

  • Loose cannons

    Remember them? "The trouble is, the interest in Afghanistan has waned." — A UN official on the civil war that has raged in Afghanistan among US-backed "freedom fighters" since they overthrew a leftist government two and a half years ago.

  • Keep an eye out for

    Theatre performances in Canberra and Hobart are well worth seeing if you get the chance. In Canberra, at the National Festival of Australian Theatre, October 18-22, the Burnie, Tasmania, youth theatre group Rip

  • Bougainville nurse describes suffering

    Bougainville nurse describes sufferingWOLLONGONG — Ruby Mirenka, deputy matron of the Arawa General Hospital in Bougainville, addressed a lively meeting here on October 12. Her visit was designed to raise

  • Amnesty campaign on Indonesian human rights

    Indonesia's government has killed, tortured and jailed its opponents at will for almost three decades, under the guise of fighting communism and instability. Amnesty International has launched a worldwide campaign which

  • Rallies focus on Australian complicity in Timor

    Hundreds of people rallied in capital cities on October 14-15 to protest against Australian government and business complicity in the 19-year Indonesian occupation of East Timor. Activists highlighted the fact

  • Colin O'Brien

    Colin O'Brien Colin O'Brien died in early September. Colin had been an apprentice chef and a member of Resistance and the Socialist Workers Party in Sydney in the early 1980s. He worked in Europe for a number of years before