News

Last week was one of much activity in the regional city of Cairns, as the push for abortion law reform in the state shows no sign of slowing down.

Over the past year and a half, Australia’s rental crisis has hit Canberra especially hard. The nation’s capital has the highest rents in the country.

Ninety workers stopped work on June 10 across the three manufacturing sites of Tieman Industries in a battle for a new collective bargaining agreement. Among their demands are a 36-hour week — in effect a nine-day fortnight — a better redundancy clause and a decent wage increase.

Green Left Weekly will be taking a one week break. This means the next issue will be dated June 17.

More than 120 people packed into a seminar “Media complicity: reporting Gaza and Sri Lanka 2009” on May 27 at the University of Technology.

Canberra residents picketed the Minerals Council of Australia’s National Conference on May 28. The protest, organised by Climate Action Canberra, condemned the Rudd government’s free permits to Australia’s biggest polluters, worth $16 billion.

“Climate change has placed all humankind before a great choice: to continue in the ways of capitalism and death, or to start down the path of harmony with nature.”

Mamdouh Habib, illegally detained in Guantanamo Bay and then cleared of all terror charges has, since returning to Australia in 2005, faced systematic harassment from security agencies and the NSW Police.

The threat of climate change means that for the first time humanity is faced with the very real possibility of extinction. The root cause of the ecological crisis is capitalism’s drive to maximise immediate profits above all else.

The Australian government and coal industry’s push for so-called “clean coal” technology is justified on the grounds that if we can keep burning and selling coal, but in a “sustainable” way, many Australian jobs will be saved. This is pure propaganda.

Scientific agreement on the need for drastic action to combat climate change has prompted the search for ways to ease humanity’s increasing burden on the planet, including consideration of population growth and consumption habits.

As the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS) appears less and less likely to get through the Senate , the Australian Greens say now it is time for real action on jobs creation and climate change.