News

Around 100 members of the Maritime Union of Australia (MUA) rallied at the Sydney Overseas Passenger Terminal at Circular Quay on October 9 to oppose harsh exploitation of crews aboard Royal Caribbean cruise ships, and demand the right of employees and linesmen on the dock to be union members. Sydney MUA secretary Paul McAleer told the rally: "This cruise company imposes a huge level of exploitation on its crews, including underpayment and poor conditions on board. Up to now, the company and the shipping agents, Port Jackson Holdings, have refused to allow port workers to join the union.

An agreement has been reached to prevent Aboriginal children from being forcibly taken from their families and communities in western New South Wales. Grandmothers Against Removals (GMAR) finalised the deal with the Department of Family and Community Services (FACS) that will ensure Aboriginal elders are consulted if concerns are raised about a child's welfare.

Sam (named changed) is a young refugee from Burundi who came to Australia in 2011 on a Protection Visa. However his visa has expired and the government wants to send him back. Burundi is currently engulfed by a civil war between the Hutu and Tutsi tribes. Unrest is growing because the opposition has accused President Pierre Nkurunzizi, a former Hutu leader, of violating the constitution that places a two-term limit on presidents. Nkurunzizi was re-elected for a third term in 2015.

Doctors and nurses at Melbourne's Royal Children's Hospital have announced they will not discharge children back into immigration detention. Their stance has received the backing of the Victorian state government and the Australian Medical Association. Medical staff held a rally outside the hospital on October 10: they held banner that read, “Detention harms children.”

Immigration department officials seized pregnant Somali refugee Abyan from Villawood detention centre and flew her to the Solomon Islands on October 16, with the plan to fly her from there to Nauru. Abyan had been flown in from Nauru four days earlier to see doctors regarding the planned termination of a pregnancy that resulted from her being raped while in detention on the island.

The Socialist Alliance (Australia) adds it voice to the global condemnation of the terror bombing of a peace rally organised by trade unions, NGOs, the Peoples Democratic Party (HDP) and other progressive parties in Ankara on October 10. So far, 128 people have died from this bombing and some 500 have been wounded.

Workers at the Hutchison Ports community assembly at Port Botany, Sydney, are holding strong and are keen to settle the long-running dispute with management. The dispute began on August 6 following the sacking of 97 waterside workers by Hutchison at their Port Botany and Brisbane terminals. Since them, the community assembly has held strong for nine weeks as talks continue between the Maritime Union of Australia (MUA) and management.

Two Western Sydney University Resistance activists are running for the editorial board of the student magazine, Cruwsible. Phil Craig and Ian Escandor, both current Student Campus Council members, believe the student magazine could do much more to encourage activism on campus and better reflect students’ concerns. “Cruwsible should encourage more activism”, Craig told Green Left Weekly. “But the only way to do this is to have more student consultation.

Enterprise bargaining is the only way that workers and their unions can legally seek wage increases. Since the system was first introduced by a federal Labor government in 1993, it has achieved its deliberate, but unstated, aim of lowering aggregate wages and increasing profits.

Geelong Trades Hall Council president Jackie Kriz gave the following speech on October 12 at a rally in protest against Geelong mayor Darryn Lyons' sexism. Kriz is also a member of Socialist Alliance. *** We have to ask ourselves — is what the mayor did really that bad? I mean, he only wore a t-shirt depicting a naked lady with some captions. We've heard the comments — it's only a t-shirt, or it's political correctness gone mad. What's the fuss? It's a trivial matter. We hear this rhetoric all the time, but it is not a trivial matter.

Ten months after trains ceased running into Newcastle station, the New South Wales parliament has passed a controversial bill to close the line at Wickham and rip up the rail line in the CBD. The NSW Greens, who opposed the legislation along with Labor, the Christian Democrats and the Animal Justice Party, labelled the outcome a “betrayal” of the Hunter community and accused the government of selling out to “developer spivs”.

Labor leader Bill Shorten’s October 5 “defence” of penalty rates so totally missed the mark that he was quickly on the receiving end of a backlash from his own party. Shorten said that the extra income from penalty rates could be the difference between parents being able to send their children to private schools or not. What makes this even more embarrassing for Labor is that this was not a slip up due to an off-the-cuff comment. It was part of a prepared media statement.