News

The Story of Cap & Trade (below) is a fast-paced, fact-filled look at the leading climate solution being discussed at the climate talks in Copenhagen. Cap and trade is also variously described as “carbon trading'' and “emissions trading”. In Australia, the federal Labor government is trying to push a variation of this through the Senate called the “Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme”.

About 300 supporters from more than 30 groups rallied in Melbourne to call for the Australian government to let refugees into Australia. The rally opened with a motion of support for the 255 Tamil asylum seekers in the Indonesian port of Merak.

Results of the recent elections for branch council and senior officer positions in the Australian Education Union Victoria branch were released on October 29. The incumbent union leadership was challenged by the Teachers Alliance, a rank and file group of AEU members that campaigns for an active and democratic union.

A November 18 report by the Victorian Health Promotion Foundation (VicHealth) titled Building on Our Strengths confirmed that the experience of racism has serious health implications for Indigenous and migrant communities in Australia.

The deadline to pass the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS) approached, and passed, on November 26, with the Senate extending debate on the issue until the week after. The nation's media were transfixed by the spectacle of the Liberal Party annihilating itself over what position to take.

Critics of Melbourne's public transport system are preparing to party at Flinders Street Station on December 3 to farewell the much-maligned train operator Connex.

Twenty-eight-year-old Malaysian activist Sivaranjani Manickam will be a special guest at the “Towards Justice, Sustainability and People’s Power: Fighting for Socialism in the 21st Century” conference in Sydney in January.

A statement of support for refugees has received wide support from left parties and unions in the Asia-Pacific region.

A national day of action in support of same-sex marriage rights took place on November 28.

The last of the 78 Tamil refugees who had protested for more than four weeks on board the Oceanic Viking walked off the Australian customs ship moored in Indonesia on November 17. For at least a month, they will be locked up in an Indonesian detention centre. They ended their protest after the Australian government promised to resettle them.

A speak-out against the Labor-Liberal dirty deal on the proposed Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS) was held in Perth on November 26. The action was organised by the Coalition for a Safe Climate.

On November 26, Paddy "Joe" Hill and Gerry Conlon told a transfixed audience their experience of unjust imprisonment. The event, at the Perth Irish Club, was part of a tour profiling the British Miscarriages of Justice Organisation (MOJO).