News

#4 Migrant forum supports refugee rights BRISBANE — Strong support for refugee rights was the overwhelming sentiment of a forum sponsored by the Ethnic Communities Council of Queensland in the Brisbane Town Hall on September 30. Election

Strikes hit Sydney Buses SYDNEY — Bus mechanics at NSW government-owned Sydney Buses workshops struck for three hours on June 30, disrupting morning peak-hour services. The strike was over conditions in their latest enterprise bargaining

MELBOURNE — "We gotta get rid of the Howard government", Bill Shorten, the national secretary of the Australia Workers Union, told a mass meeting of 900 AWU and Health Services Union members at the Dallas Brookes Hall on November 4. Stephen

Nicole Hilder, Wollongong On September 24, 200 people attended a feisty meet-the-candidates forum on "family values", held in the Wollongong mall. Referred to by its critics as "the big day out for homophobes", the event was organised by Jeff

DARWIN — Participants in a June 7 protest against the Australian government's theft of East Timor's oil and gas resources. The protest was organised to coincide with the annual South East Asia Australia Offshore Conference. Photo by Kathy

Kathy Newnam, Darwin Opponents of the nuclear industry took their message to the federal parliamentary inquiry into uranium resources when it met in Darwin on October 24. Deceptively calling itself "the inquiry into developing Australia's

SYDNEY — Queer activists protested outside the $100-a-head fundraising dinner held by Fred Nile's Christian Democratic Party on September 13. Nile is leaving his NSW parliamentary seat to contest the Senate in the federal election. Nile has

Dianne Hiles, Sydney The Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission (HREOC) undertook an inquiry during 2002 into children in immigration detention. On May 13, the report, "A Last Resort?", and its recommendations were tabled, very quietly, in

SYDNEY — Members of the Maritime Union of Australia employed at the Glebe Island car terminal refused to go to work on October 14 after hearing of a NSW Labor government plan to fast-track the site's closure. With the support of Unions NSW and the

Socialist Alliance's Sue Bull reports from the election campaign trail on September 11. Armed with a one-tonne ute, a two-metre-high billboard, red flags and a megaphone, Socialist Alliance candidates Tim Gooden and Chris Johnson headed off into

Anthony Defraine & Tom Flanagan, Lismore Students and staff held a spirited protest outside the Southern Cross University council meeting on May 21. The council was initially expected to consider increasing HECS charges for 2005. Although a

Abolish profit system, says socialist candidate BRISBANE — "We need a total change in politics. We need a new society, for the millions, not the millionaires", Coral Wynter, the Socialist Alliance candidate for the federal seat of Brisbane, told