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"The last thing Australia needs is a holy war," Nick Deane, spokesperson for the Independent and Peaceful Australia Network (IPAN), said. "Our federal government should reject completely any consideration of sending our air force personnel to drop bombs on Islamic State forces in Iraq and Syria, or sending our troops or SAS into combat in those countries. We know now only too well the inevitable civilian casualties from such actions.

The National Tertiary Education Union released the statement below today. *** The Minister for Education, Christopher Pyne, has today introduced legislation that if passed would see the most radical changes to the way Australian higher education is regulated and funded in over a generation. Mr Pyne claims that his Bill will give Australian universities the chance to be the best in the world. However his so called reforms are all about cutting government’s funding commitment to public universities and subsidizing private providers and leaving students with massive debts.

Jews Against the Occupation released this statement on August 27. *** "The anti-Semitic leaflet distributed widely in Sydney's eastern suburbs is disgusting" said Vivienne Porzsolt of Jews Against the Occupation. "It replicates the ancient shibboleths of traditional European hatred of Jews which has no place in a modern democracy.

More than 300 concerned citizens took part in a peaceful people’s picket on August 19 at Tasmania’s parliament house to protest against a bill that would ban the right to protest. The Workplaces (Protection from Protesters) Bill, introduced by the state Liberal government, passed Tasmania’s lower house in June. It is due to be debated in the upper house in late October. The bill makes it an offence to hold a protest that prevents business activity. Protesters can be given on-the-spot fines of $2000. Three-month mandatory jail sentences will apply for second offences.

Stop CSG Sydney has launched a campaign to extinguish the coal seam gas (CSG) exploration licence (PEL 463) covering most of metropolitan Sydney, home to about 4 million people. The group formed in 2011 when residents discovered that Arrow Energy was about to drill at a waste site in the inner-west suburb of St Peters. After more than two years of community campaigning, including mass petitions, marches and film screenings, the CSG company now known as Dart Energy claimed that it had never intended to drill at St Peters.

“Hyperactivity around security legislation is unprecedented,” Professor Jude McCulloch told a public forum in Melbourne on August 21. "Between 2001 and 2007 when Howard was defeated, the parliament passed 44 anti-terror laws – one every seven weeks. “Many legal experts have withdrawn from talking about this because of the difficulty of remaining an expert in this field. The basis of these laws is the politics of fear. The neoliberal government has nothing to offer on education, welfare and health. If a problem can be militarised, it will be militarised."

The National Tertiary Education Union at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) took strike action on August 20 after negotiations with UTS management around an enterprise bargaining agreement (EBA) stalled. Staff and students held a picket line at the city campus and asked students and staff to turn away and respect the picket. The action was held to coincide with the National Day of Action called by students against the federal government’s proposed education cuts.

The National Union of Students (NUS) organised a national day of action on August 20 against the federal government's changes to tertiary education.

A group of women gathered in protest outside the Wicked Campers depot on August 16. Wicked Campers is a Brisbane-based company that rents out tourist camping vans. The company has been criticised for the misogynist, racist and homophobic slogans that are painted on its vans. The company has not responded well to the condemnation and has sought to punish those who have spoken out. In one case, it responded to a journalist by painting a slogan on a van that threatened physical violence.

A protest against the opening night of the Israeli Film Festival went ahead in Sydney despite a successful police gag application. Palestine Action Group organised the peaceful public assembly to draw attention to Israel's occupation of Palestine.

Progressive activists are concerned about reported unprincipled deal-making in the upcoming elections for the new University of Sydney Student Representative Council. The Sydney University student newspaper Honi Soit reported the Socialist Alternative Sydney University club had decided to support the ALP presidential candidate over the activist Grassroots presidential candidate in the upcoming elections.

"At the end of my tour of Australia, I would like to give thanks to all the unionists and supporters of Cuba who have assisted in telling the story of the unjustly jailed Cuban Five," Aili Labanino-Cardoso, daughter of Ramon Labanino, one of five Cubans imprisoned in the US on conspiracy charges since 1998, told a forum in Sydney on August 16. The forum, attended by about 80 people, concluded a tour of the country, organised by the Construction Forestry Mining Energy Union and the Maritime Union of Australia, supported by the Australia-Cuba Friendship Society.