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The legal team of former Guantanamo Bay prisoner David Hicks submitted a communication to the United Nations Human Rights Committee on August 23. It argues the Australian government treatment of Hicks has violated the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Australia is a party.

It has become a cliche in mainstream media and political discourse that feminism is no longer necessary in society. However many ordinary women disagree. Green Left Weekly asked members of the newly formed Feminist Collective of South Australia about feminism’s relevance today. Emma Gray-Starcevic said: “Women still earn on average 17% less than men in Australia, and are under-represented in a huge number of jobs, especially in industries such as law, business and politics — jobs synonymous with high wages and powerful positions.

A dozen members of Darwin's legal community presented a letter to ALP MP Warren Snowdon on September 2 calling for the federal government to comply with the High Court's recent decision on the "Malaysian Solution". The High Court said the ALP government's plan to deport refugees to Malaysia was illegal. The letter called on federal politicians to ensure the speedy resolution of asylum seeker claims, universal access to legal representation and an end to mandatory detention.

The Orica chemicals plant at Kooragang, near Newcastle NSW, released hexavalent chromium (VI) into the atmosphere on August 8. Up to 20 workers were exposed in the accident. The Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) was not notified of the accident for 16 hours. Residents of nearby Stockton were not told that the toxic pollutant blew over their suburb for 54 hours.

According to Australia’s outgoing discrimination commissioner Graeme Innes, racism is still a big problem in Australian society. This is nothing new. Racism has been an issue in Australia since the very beginning of white colonisation, when Aboriginal people were forced from their lands to make way for the new colonial Australia. But racism, like our society, has changed with the times. This throws up new challenges in tackling it.

About 100 people rallied in Melbourne on September 1 in defence of the Kurdish Association of Victoria after a series of violent attacks. The Kurdish community has received numerous death threats. There have been many attempts to set the association's building on fire, ending on April 14 this year when the building was burnt down by arsonists and rendered non-functional. Just a few weeks ago, eight bullets were fired at the remains of the building. Fortunately, no one was inside at the time.

About 200 protesters against the coal seam gas industry and supporters of refugee rights rallied outside a federal government community cabinet meeting at Yeronga State High School on September 1. Despite three separate requests from the Lock the Gate Alliance management committee and individual members of the campaign against coal seam gas, no interview with federal environment minister Tony Burke was granted.

Students rallied on August 29 against RMIT’s decision to terminate the Bachelor of Applied Science (Disability) course in 2012. The course is the only disability specific degree available in Victoria and provides students with a professional education and a platform to offer leadership, innovation and quality service to community and disability-related groups. In a statement on its website, RMIT said the course was cancelled because: “Interest in the degree has diminished over several years, resulting in the lowest ever number of applicants in 2010.”

The US embassy in Canberra secretly assessed Australian ethnic minority groups, Indigenous prisoners, the Socialist Alliance, anti-war protesters, Cuba and Palestine solidarity activists and Amnesty International for links to political violence and terrorism, an embassy cable released by WikiLeaks on August 29 has revealed. The cable, titled “Canberra — Security Environment profile”, was sent to the FBI, the CIA, the US Defense Intelligence Agency and the Secretary of State in Washington on March 2, 2009.

A WikiLeaks cable released on August 29 has revealed federal Labor MP for Melbourne Michael Danby offered to help the US embassy promote a “Day of Solidarity with the Cuban People”. It was a May 21 2008 initiative of the George W Bush US administration designed to pressure the Cuban government.

Marking the 10th anniversary of the Tampa scandal, when the former John Howard government refused to allow the MV Tampa to dock in Australia after it had rescued asylum seekers at sea, close to 100 refugee rights activists converged on the Perth detention centre outside the domestic airport on August 27.

In 2007, Australian government officials repeatedly told the US embassy in Canberra of its plans to increase Australian troop commitments in Afghanistan. But they asked the US government to keep quiet about it, as the plans had not yet been made public. Other Australian officials briefed the embassy on Australia’s likely troop deployments even before the federal cabinet had approved it. The revelations are contained in three embassy cables — classified secret — that were released by WikiLeaks on August 29. Related coverage: