News

In the wake of the national scandal about the abuse and torture of mainly Aboriginal juveniles in detention in the Northern Territory, the Grandmothers Against Removals (GMAR) organised a march and rally to protest the forced removal of Aboriginal children from their families and communities.

As industrial action by Carlton & United Breweries (CUB) maintenance workers in Abbotsford enters its ninth week support continues to grow. The company is refusing to back down from its decision to sack workers and then offer to rehire them with a 65% pay cut. The dispute started on June 10 when 55 fitters, electricians and maintenance workers were told they would be sacked, only to then be “invited” to re-apply for their jobs through a third-party contractor, Catalyst Recruitment.

The Australian government has once again showed it is a law unto itself. The Papua New Guinea Supreme Court asked it to provide information by August 4 on how it planned to relocate the people in Manus Island detention centre. No one showed up to court. PNG lawyer Ben Lomani, who has represented the refugees and asylum seekers in the Manus Island detention centre throughout the case, sent documents relating to compensation for the men on Manus Island to the Australian High Commission last year. He has still not received a reply.

About 250 people attended a rally on August 4 in solidarity with 55 sacked maintenance workers who had been employed at the Carlton & United Breweries (CUB) plant in Abbotsford. The workers, members of the Electrical Trades Union (ETU) and Australian Manufacturing Workers Union, were sacked on June 10. They were told they could re-apply for their jobs with a new contracting company, but that their pay would be cut by 65%. The rally, held outside the CUB brewery, was attended by members and officials from a wide range of unions.

About 400 people attended a public open-day at the iconic Tarwyn Park property in the beautiful Bylong Valley in the Upper Hunter on July 31. It was the day that Peter Andrews, the 76- year-old founder and expert in Natural Sequence Farming (NSF), relinquished ownership of the property. Korean state-owned mining company KEPCO assumed ownership of the property at midnight on August 1. But Andrews has vowed to stay on to fight for the land's protection.

Veteran gay rights campaigner Rodney Croome has quit as national director of Australian Marriage Equality (AME), which he founded in 2004, to lobby MPs to block the equal marriage plebiscite. Croome said those who believe a plebiscite is inevitable are “lacking political imagination” and declared blocking it could force a free vote in parliament on the issue. He said there was “no split in the movement” but rather “a spectrum of different approaches to a very difficult situation”.

New South Wales Labor MP Noreen Hay, who has held the seat of Wollongong since 2003, is resigning from state parliament effective from September 1.

New at LINKS International Journal of Socialist Renewal. Philippines: the contradictions of Duterte’s regime, Profile of the early communist women’s movement and Poland between social nationalism and the new left.

The Melbourne rally for justice for the children in the Youth Detention Centre occupied the Flinders St intersection, effectively shutting it down and blocking city traffic into the early hours of the morning, when police moved in. Organised by Warriors of the Aboriginal Resistance (WAR) several hundred Aboriginal rights activists gathered for the rally at the State Library on Saturday July 30.

The first round of the campaign to Save Sydney College of the Arts (SCA) has been won by students and staff. Sydney University's Vice Chancellor Michael Spence sent an email to all SCA students on July 28 saying their plan to close the Rozelle campus and merge it with University of NSW was over.

The Queensland government will introduce a container deposit scheme from 2018, which will offer 10 cents for bottles and cans returned to a collection depot or placed in a reverse vending machine. Environment Minister Steven Miles said Queensland had one of the lowest recycling rates in the country. A recent NewsPoll showed 86% of Queenslanders wanted a container deposit scheme. Miles said Queensland was in talks with New South Wales to set up a single Container Deposit Administrator to cover both states.

Mass meetings of members of the United Firefighters Union (UFU) on July 26 voted to endorse in principle two proposed enterprise agreements negotiated with the Victorian state government. One agreement covers workers employed by the Metropolitan Fire Brigade (MFB), while the other covers the Country Fire Authority (CFA). The two agreements provide for pay rises and cover a wide range of other issues including rostering, staffing levels and occupational health and safety.