News

The Dhu inquest — called to consider the death of a 22 year old Aboriginal woman who died in police custody in August 2014 — reconvened in Perth on March 14.

The Refugee Action Coalition released this statement on March 9. * * * A 34 year-old Iranian refugee on Nauru was savagely attacked by two Nauruans on March 5 at about 10pm. Two Nauruans on a motor cycle approached the man who was walking alone near the Nibok settlement. The man was struck across the top of the head by a machete, while the attacking Nauruans said, “Fuck refugees”. The Iranian man was left with a deep head wound that required 8 stitches.

"Remembering Fukushima: Resisting nuclear waste dumps!" was the title of a public forum held in Redfern on March 3. About 40 people heard a panel of speakers mark five years since the Fukushima tsumani and nuclear disaster in March 2011 and outline the growing opposition movement to federal government plans for a nuclear waste dump in rural Australia. "The nuclear industry has no place in a safe and sustainable future. Five years since the Fukushima disaster, it is time to break the nuclear chain," forum publicity stated. The forum was organised by Uranium Free NSW.

Human rights activists protested the visit to Melbourne on March 7 of Israeli war criminal Benny Gantz. “We will always live by our sword,” declared Lieutenant General Gantz on his retirement as Chief of General Staff of the Israel Occupation Forces, 12 months ago. Gantz led two major Israeli military offensives against Palestinians. Operation Protective Edge killed 2200 Palestinians, including 500 children and left tens of thousands of Gaza residents homeless.

Childcare workers chained themselves to the entrance doors of Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull's Melbourne office on International Women's Day, March 8 to demand better pay for the mainly women who work in the industry.

Aboriginal activist and writer Ken Canning will head the Socialist Alliance NSW Senate ticket — For a People's Movement — in the coming federal election. “I've joined this election campaign to build a people's movement to free all our communities from the tyranny of the old big parties which have been bought out by the rich and the multinational corporations.

On International Women’s Day, three women locked themselves to habitat trees in the critically endangered Leard State Forest in north west NSW. Gomeroi women gathered on Leard Forest Road to show support and solidarity for the action.

Hundreds of people marched for International Women's Day in Melbourne on March 8.

My Friend Hugo, a moving film tribute to former Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez made by well-known Hollywood director Oliver Stone, was screened at the Resistance Centre on March 4 to mark the third anniversary of the death of the leader of the Bolivarian revolution in Venezuela. The showing was organised by the Australia-Venezuela Solidarity Network (AVSN) and the Latin American Social Forum (LASF), with the support of the Embassy of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela in Australia.

An extraordinary, radical experiment in welfare policy will begin on March 15 in the small town of Ceduna and several remote Aboriginal communities in south-western South Australia.

The ABC reported on March 3 that the Moort Boodjari Mia Aboriginal maternity centre in Midland, Perth, part of the North Metropolitan Health Service, is expected to close in June due to lack of funding. The centre provides antenatal and postnatal clinical care, guidance, support and education to pregnant Aboriginal women and their families. A team of health professionals works with each woman during her pregnancy and for four weeks after the birth. Since opening in 2011, it has cared for hundreds of families.

Human rights activists protested the visit to Melbourne of Israeli war criminal, Benny Gantz on March 7. 'We will always live by our sword', declared Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz, upon his retirement from the role of Chief of General Staff of the Israel Occupation Forces, 12 months ago.