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ADELAIDE Join us at the Green Left Quiz Night. A fun evening with great prizes supporting the newspaper. Friday September 18 at 6pm. Entry $15/10 conc. City Soul, 13 Hutt St, city. Bookings ph Gemma 0437 714 786. BRISBANE Come to a book Launch: Women of Steel: the story of the struggle by women for jobs in the steel industry in Wollongong in the 1980s. Special guests co-author Carla Gorton and Ros McLennan, secretary, Queensland Council of Unions. Thursday September 17 at 5pm. QCU, Peel St, South Brisbane. Visit jobsforwomenfilm.com.

By the time Manus Island detainee Hamid Kehazaei was transferred to Australia he was already brain dead, documents produced at a pre-inquest conference show. He was transferred from Port Moresby in a comatose state and confirmed dead on arrival at Brisbane’s Mater Hospital. Kehazaei was transferred from Christmas Island to in September 2013. On August 23 last year he was given intravenous antibiotics for a leg ulcer. When it had not improved two days later a request for urgent removal to hospital was made. This was not approved until the following day.

The community assembly outside the Hutchison terminal at Port Botany is holding firm against a threat by the NSW Port Authority to evict the gathering from the entrance to the facility. There was a similar stand-off at Fishermans Island, Port of Brisbane. The assemblies have been maintained for more than four weeks to protest against the sacking of 97 waterside workers by the giant Hutchison company, part of the biggest multinational stevedoring corporation in the world.

Local residents of the Sydney suburb of St Peters successful halted what they suspected was an illegal attempt to remove asbestos from the planned St Peters Interchange site in the ecologically and financially irresponsible $15 billion WestConnex road-tunnel project.

The Canning byelection is attracting national attention as the possibility that the Liberals may lose the seat they hold by a 12% margin is openly discussed.

The Daily Telegraph's Sunday staff were met on August 30 with rainbow banners, chalk, and vibrant queer pride as members of the rainbow community and their friends took a stand against the newspapers vitriol against documentary Gayby Baby. Gayby Baby follows the lives of four children with same-sex parents and shows the challenges they face due to homophobia.

The Refugee Action Coalition Sydney released this statement on September 1. A 25 year-old Burmese asylum seeker attempted suicide at Manus Island on August 31. The emergency unfolded over almost four hours as the man climbed onto the roof of Delta Compound around 3pm and made attempts to hang himself using bed sheets and electrical cable, before making a final attempt to jump just before 7pm. More than 50 Transfield and IHMS medical personnel were mobilised during the emergency.

Whatever else he might be, John Dyson Heydon is no fool. When he accepted the job of royal commissioner inquiring into trade union governance and corruption, he knew what was expected of him. The commission was set up as a political witch-hunt into unions, designed to give the federal Coalition government an issue with which it thought it could win the next election. Heydon was happy to oblige and has been handsomely paid for doing so.

National Australia Bank (NAB) has decided not to fund the Adani coalmine, rail and port facilities on the Great Barrier Reef coastline. The Korean company LG has also announced it will not buy the company's coal. Korean electronics giant LG signed a letter of intent with Adani last year to purchase 4 million tonnes of coal from the Carmichael mine. However Adani has now lost one of its two big external customers when the letter of intent expired and was not renewed.

Newcastle City Council voted on August 26 to join the global push to divest from fossil fuel. This follows the ACT’s announcement that it would become the first Australian government to divest from fossil fuels and aim to have 100% renewable energy by 2025. With a total investment portfolio of $280 million, Newcastle council has also told Australia’s big four banks they need to divest portfolios of assets that include coal and oil.

Queensland’s environment department has given conditional approval for the controversial expansion of the Acland coalmine. But questions about the link between political donations to the former LNP government and their support for the project remain unanswered. In December last year the Queensland coordinator-general approved Stage 3 of New Hope Coal’s Acland coalmine, despite the project requiring the “clearing of eight endangered and of-concern regional ecosystems” including koala habitat, issues regarded as “matters of state environmental significance”.

The University of Wollongong has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the immigration department to provide training for Border Force officers in maritime border security. Under the terms of the MoU, the University’s Australian National Centre for Ocean Resources and Security (ANCORS) will train Border Force officers in maritime enforcement, civil maritime security policy development, research and regional capacity building.