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Nurses at Victoria's Thomas Embling psychiatric hospital walked off the job for two hours on June 14 because of safety concerns. The Health and Community Services Union said there had been 100 incidents at the hospital in the past three months, including one in which four people were injured. Thomas Embling has 116 beds and most patients are transferred from the prison system or ordered by the courts to undergo psychiatric assessment or care. It has housed some of Victoria's most dangerous psychiatric patients, including Masa Vukotic’s killer Sean Price.

The Refugee Action Collective Queensland protested outside the electoral office of immigration minister Peter Dutton in Strapthine on June 9. The collective presented the minister’s office with a copy of the Australian Women in Support of Women on Nauru report Protection Denied, Abuse Condoned: Women on Nauru at Risk, authored by five prominent Australian women.

AGL's Camden Gas Project, in the Macarthur region of south-west Sydney, has 144 coal seam gas (CSG) wells, of which 96 are currently in production. Twenty of the wells are close to the Nepean River and the upper canal, which carries drinking water from Nepean Dam to Prospect Reservoir. One well is just 40 metres from the river. AGL's CSG mining alongside the Nepean River risks contaminating this water with carcinogenic chemicals and volatile organic compounds.

There's a “huge appetite” for abortion law reform, Greens MLC Dr Mehreen Faruqi told a 150-strong meeting at the Glebe Town Hall on June 6. “We've waited far too long already,” she said. The meeting was organised to launch Faruqi's decriminalisation of abortion bill, which is in its draft stage. The panelists included health professionals Philippa Ramsay and Juliet Richters, health laywer Julie Hamblin and Bethany Sheehan, a founder of My Body My Right, a group campaigning for a safe space outside abortion clinics.

The racists were well and truly outnumbered in Blacktown on June 4 when the community turned out to counter a protest by a far right, racist grouplet who call themselves "Party for Freedom".

Protesters locked themselves in a cage outside the Department of Immigration at 7am on June 6 to protest against the mandatory and indefinite detention of people seeking asylum. Spokesperson for the group, Our Backyard, Melanie Brown said: “We are occupying this department today because of the government's policy to imprison innocent people and deny them basic rights, both offshore and right here in our backyard.”

The Queensland government moved a motion on May 26 that the Health, Communities, Disability Services and Domestic and Family Violence Prevention Committee is to report back to state parliament on the Abortion Law Reform (Woman's Right to Choose) Amendment Bill 2016 by August 26.

The NTEU released this further statement on the suspension of Roz Ward on June 3. * * * Maurice Blackburn has written on behalf of NTEU to La Trobe University Vice Chancellor John Dewar calling for Victorian Safe Schools Coordinator and academic Roz Ward to be reinstated following her suspension earlier this week. In a legal letter sent to the university, employment law expert Josh Bornstein has also encouraged the Vice Chancellor to withdraw all allegations that have been made against Ms Ward relating to a private post she published on her personal Facebook page.

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews formally apologised on May 24 in state parliament for a past law that treated people as criminals for being gay. "It is never too late to put things right," Andrews said. "It is never too late to say sorry and mean it. "There was a time in our history when we turned thousands of young men into criminals ... this was profoundly wrong. "It is the first responsibility of a government to keep people safe. But the Government didn't keep LGBTI people safe. The Government invalidated their humanity and cast them into a nightmare.”

About 80 people rallied outside the Turkish consulate in Melbourne on May 25 to condemn the massacre of Kurds and support the People's Democratic Party (HDP) MPs now facing prosecution by the Recep Tayyip Erdogan government.

Pressure is mounting for the replacement of Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) chief executive Dr Larry Marshall as the crisis deepens over the proposed sackings of hundreds of research scientists from the organisation's climate change and other divisions. Marshall is the controversial former Silicon Valley entrepreneur, appointed head of CSIRO in late 2014.

About 20 people gathered at Sydney Town Hall on May 28 to demand, "No to right-wing coups in Brazil, Venezuela" and "US hands off Latin America" The rally was organised by the Latin America Social Forum (LASF), with the support of other solidarity groups.