News

In a week that saw a huge mass meeting and a rally of 12,000 people, Fair Work Australia (FWA) has ordered Victorian nurses— for the third time — by to lift their industrial action.

After 13 days of an around-the-clock picket line, the workers at poultry company Baiada in Laverton North have won a tremendous victory. Baiada was well known as having the worst pay and conditions of all poultry processing companies.

The Health and Community Services Union (HACSU) has begun a series of rolling stoppages for better wages and conditions at mental health services across Victoria. HACSU covers mental health and allied health workers. Stoppages and rallies have been held in Bendigo and Shepparton, and at Eastern Mental Health, St Vincents and Melbourne Health. A two-hour stopwork rally will be held at Latrobe Valley Mental Health on November 29, from noon at the Latrobe Valley Hospital in Traralgon.

Wollongong City Council, elected on September 3, has so far made several decisions that reflect community will in the area. This is a refreshing change from the years of corruption scandals that rocked the last elected council and the four-year unelected administration that followed it. All 13 councillors, including four Liberal, four Labor, three independent and two Green, are under immense pressure to deliver outcomes for the community. Key election issues included democracy, transparency and accountability.

Adelaide Socialist Alliance branch hosted a Solidarity Dinner and Fiesta on November 19 to celebrate 20 years of Green Left Weekly and raise funds for the paper’s fighting fund. The event was a great success, with about 50 people attending. Those present ranged from long time GLW supporters to young Resistance activists, members of the Latin American community and people involved in Occupy Adelaide.

“People are joining up to the Lock the Gate Alliance all over the country,”, Lock the Gate president Drew Hutton told a rally of about 100 outside Brisbane’s Sofitel Hotel on November 24. The rally was called to protest at the annual general meeting of coal seam gas (CSG) company LNG Ltd. The company’s AGM took place inside the hotel. Hutton said: “The Lock the Gate Alliance is now moving to ‘Block the Gate’. We are calling on groups all over Australia to blockade wherever CSG companies are setting up, against the wishes of the farmers and landholders.

Activists involved in organising October’s peaceful protests during the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in Perth had warned that special security laws passed for the event could be used to restrict the right to protest in Western Australia. Now, a month after CHOGM finished, three Perth-based activists are fighting charges related to CHOGM.

The 1LOVE conference organisers released the statement below on November 23. * * * The first national, grassroots marriage equality conference in the history of the movement is taking place on Sunday December 4 at Sydney University. It is scheduled to take place the day after the ALP National Conference and Marriage Equality Rally in Sydney.

Stop CSG Illawarra released the statement below on November 23. * * * This week the Planning Assessment Commission granted approval to a 16th coal seam gas (CSG) borehole in the Illawarra. Stop CSG Illawarra spokesperson Jess Moore responded: “It is now abundantly clear who [Premier Barry] O’Farrell represents. It’s not communities, and the concern we express for our water, environment and health; it’s the CSG industry.

Trade unionists from the Transport Workers Union, the National Tertiary Education Union and the Maritime Union of Australia joined Occupy Sydney activists in a protest on November 22 outside Angel Place Recital Hall, where the union-bashing CEO of Qantas Alan Joyce was addressing a forum.

Two hundred people rallied outside NSW parliament on November 23 and handed over 20,000 petitions that call for a moratorium on coal seam gas (CSG) mining, a royal commission into the industry's impacts on communities and the environment and a ban on fracking. Coalition Premier Barry O'Farrell promised before the last election that his government would convoke a parliamentary debate on any issue upon receiving at least 10,000 petitions.

Occupy Adelaide released the solidarity statement below on November 22. * * * The Egyptian occupiers of Cairo’s Tahrir Square were an inspiration to genuine democrats and 99-percenters around the world. They overthrew the repulsive US-backed Mubarak dictatorship, at the cost of much pain and sacrifice of lives. But their revolution was only half-done.