News

Recently the PNG supreme court ruled that detaining asylum seekers and refugees is in breach of its constitution. The Australian government is saying they will not bring the 850 asylum seekers in Manus detention centre to Australia. Omid, a 27 year old refugee on Nauru self immolated in front of UNHCR officials and said beforehand "This is how tired we are. This action will prove how exhausted we are. I cannot take it anymore."

From May 4 to 16 a global wave of mass community direct action will target the world’s most dangerous fossil fuel projects with a clear message: keep them in the ground and speed up the transition to 100% renewable energy.

In response to widespread protests against plans to cut hundreds of jobs from the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), chief executive Dr Larry Marshall has announced a new CSIRO climate research centre in Hobart. But senior scientists have slammed the plan, saying that Australia is still facing a major reduction in its climate research program. The scientists told ABC News on April 26 that the 40 researchers allocated to the new centre may struggle "to do even the minimum of maintaining an Australian forecasting capability".

Since March 30, members of the Homeless Persons Union Victoria and other activists have been occupying a property on Bendigo St, Collingwood. The Victorian government purchased properties as part of the now-cancelled the East West Link. On April 26, the occupiers of #2 and #12 Bendigo St signed a land lease agreement with the Kulin Nation Embassy, currently situated at #4 Bendigo St. This agreement formally recognises the Kulin Nation as the sovereign owners of the land on which Bendigo Street stands.

The Mike Baird Coalition government in New South Wales is keeping its plans for further privatisation of the publicly-owned Sydney Trains network tightly under wraps, after state officials refused to release nearly 100 documents on the issue, declaring them "cabinet in confidence". NSW Treasury bureaucrats rejected a freedom of information request from the Labor opposition, saying the correspondence and emails could have an impact on commercial interests.

Dire warnings from the federal government that property prices will fall and rents will soar if negative gearing and capital gains tax discounts are reduced have been found to be untrue by a Grattan Institute report. It also found the government’s claim that “mum and dad investors” were its biggest beneficiaries was untrue. In fact it found that negative gearing largely benefited the wealthy, with the top 10% of income earners getting almost half of the tax benefits before rental deductions.

Local Kashmiris and their supporters rallied at Sydney Town Hall on April 22 to protest against the deaths of six Kashmiris in Indian-occupied Kashmir and other human rights violations. Kashmir is the most heavily militarised zone in the world. Thousands of innocent lives have been lost and untold miseries perpetrated on a small nation because of their desire to exercise their rights of self-determination, as enshrined in International law.

Residents of public housing towers in Waterloo, inner Sydney, rallied on April 23 against the NSW Coalition government's plan to forcibly evict tenants so it can sell off their homes. The community is fighting the government's plan to begin relocating residents from mid-next year, before demolishing the Waterloo apartment towers to build new private high-rise apartments.

King Street, Newtown ground to a halt on April 23 as some 500 locals took to the street in protest at the rise in homophobic and transphobic violence in the area since the introduction of the lockout laws.

The Rana Plaza murders will not be forgotten: this was the message of a small but spirited rally on April 13 in Melbourne’s Bourke Street Mall. Organised by the Textile, Clothing and Footwear Union (TCFUA) and other labour activists, the rally commemorated the third anniversary of the Rana Plaza building collapse in which 1134 Bangladeshi sweatshop workers lost their lives and 2500 others were injured. The Rana Plaza murders will not be forgotten: this was the message of a small but spirited rally on April 13 in Melbourne's Bourke Street Mall.

A new survey commissioned by the NSW Office of Environment and Heritage has found communities across New South Wales are big fans of renewable energy. An overwhelming 91% of the 2000 people surveyed across NSW said they support the use of renewables to generate electricity.

Tiga Bayles, a Birri Gubba Gungalu man and a Dawson River Murri has died after a long battle with cancer.