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About 5000 people walked across Canberra’s Commonwealth Bridge and rallied in front of Parliament House on June 5, calling for real action on climate change now. Up to 45,000 people rallied nationwide. Speakers at the Canberra rally included former Liberals Leader John Hewson, Richard Denniss from the Australia Institute, 2010 Greens Senate candidate Lin Hatfield Dodds and Bishop Pat Power. Hewson said we needed to respond to climate change with a greater sense of urgency and in a way that recognised the magnitude of the problem.

The Victorian government has proposed a new law that will allow police to give on-the-spot fines for “indecent, offensive or disorderly language”. In response, a protest has been organised at 2pm, June 25 at Melbourne’s Flinders St Station. By June 11, more than 10,000 people had said on the event Facebook page that they would attend the “Fuckwalk”. Below, protest organisers explain the politics behind Fuckwalk. * * *

Melbourne’s City of Yarra awarded the volunteer-run climate research group Beyond Zero Emissions its 2011 sustainability award for community action on June 2. BZE’s Melbourne group office is based in the Yarra council area. The council said: “Beyond Zero Emissions Inc. (BZE) is an independent, not-for-profit, volunteer-run organisation leading a ‘can do’ campaign for climate solutions grounded in commercially available technologies and peer-reviewed research.

About 5000 people walked across Commonwealth Bridge and rallied in front of Parliament House on June 5, calling for real action on climate change now. Speakers included former Liberals Leader John Hewson, Richard Dennis from the Australia Institute, 2010 Greens Senate candidate Lin Hatfield Dodds and Bishop Pat Power. Hewson said we needed to respond to climate change with a greater sense of urgency and in a way that recognised the magnitude of the problem.

Since the 1980s, Friends of the Earth's (FoE) annual Radioactive Exposure Tour has exposed thousands of people first-hand to the realities of “radioactive racism” and to the environmental impacts of the nuclear industry. The tour is a 10-day journey into the heart of the breathtaking semi-arid landscapes of South Australia and its atomic history and current uranium mining operations.

Members of various activist groups joined a roadside anti-privatisation protest in Booragoon, Western Australia on June 3. The groups responded to the call by the “In Public Hands” campaign group to campaign for public ownership of the soon-to-be-built Fiona Stanley Hospital. Protesters held placards reading “Don’t privatise our hospitals” and “Honk if you support anti-privatisation”, which received plenty of responses from passers-by.

About 40 people joined a “flash mob” action in the Myer Centre, Queen Street Mall, on June 3 to protest Seacret, as an Israeli company operating in Australia. Seacret is a cosmetics firm that uses minerals from the Dead Sea, which is part of the Palestinian territory stolen by Israel over decades of invasion and oppression. Participants in the flash mob occupied tables in the food court at Myers and chanted a song, beginning with the refrain, “We will boycott Israel! We will boycott Israel!” They then trooped through the centre, chanting, “Free, free Palestine!”

More than 3000 people turned out to Austinmer beach in the Illawarra on May 29 to form a “STOP COAL SEAM GAS!” human sign. Three helicopters, each from a big media outlet, circled above the cheering and waving crowd to film the historic event. Check out all the pictures and media coverage by visiting Stop CSG Illawarra's website: stop-csg-illawarra.org. A big team of more than 40 volunteers from Stop CSG Illawarra helped make the day such a success.

Three hundred teachers from across NSW rallied outside NSW Parliament House in Macquarie St on June 4. They were joined by members of the Public Service Association, the Fire Brigade Employees Union, the NSW Nurses Federation and other unionists. The teachers left a session of the New South Wales Teachers Federation (NSWTF) council to protest the Liberal government’s plan to strip away conditions and limit wage rises of public sector workers. At the rally, the NSWTF councillors declared their support for other public sector workers and the unions NSW campaign against the changes.

Members of climate action group NoPlanetB.org blocked the haulage of coal from Xstrata’s West Wallsend underground mine for several hours on May 30. A climber was suspended in a tunnel entrance on a haul road, used for transferring coal to the port of Newcastle. Others stood in front of trucks. The group sought to raise its concern about the demands from the coal industry, including Xstrata, that pollution from coalmines be exempt from the federal government’s proposed carbon tax.

Safe sex advertisements are being returned to the city's bus shelters after widespread protests forced a ban to be overturned. Adshel, one of Australia's largest outdoor advertising companies, had taken down the ads on May 31 after a concerted campaign of complaints by the Australian Christian Lobby.

Aboriginal community leader Sam Watson called a rally outside state parliament on June 1 to demand a new Royal Commission into Aboriginal deaths in custody. The rally also condemned the Queensland Police Union (QPU), who have demanded the Queensland government pay the legal costs incurred by Senior Sergeant Chris Hurley during his defence case about the 2004 death in custody of Palm Island man Mulrunji Domadgee. Watson told the rally: “We as taxpayers should not be paying for the legal costs of Hurley and the QPU.