News

PM Kevin Rudd has announced plans for a scheme that will deny youth allowance to unemployed people under 20 years old, unless they are at school or engaged in full-time vocational training.

The following open letter is to Tasmanian federal Labor MP Duncan Kerr, from Resistance.

SYDNEY— On April 24, more than 30 organisers and officials from the NSW Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) heard a presentation on the Palestinian resistance and the growing movement for boycotts, divestments from and sanctions against Israel (BDS). The presentation was given by activists from BDS Sydney and the Gaza Defence Committee.

More than 50 people gathered outside the Mercure Hotel in Hobart on April 30 where Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and state premiers met for the Council of Australian Governments forum.

The speech below was made by Darren Vanderkaay at a solidarity picnic on April 26 at Melbourne’s Yarraville Gardens. The picnic was hosted by the Western Suburbs Community and Unions Coalition. Darren is one of 39 workers unfairly sacked from the West Gate Bridge strengthening project by construction company John Holland.

Anti-desalination campaign group Watershed has called a protest for May 9 at the site of the proposed desalination plant in Wonthaggi, Victoria. The slogan of the protest will be, “If they build it, we all will pay!”

Construction company John Holland and unions are locked in discussions to settle a nine-week-long industrial dispute.

Despite the economic crisis, the Australian government has announced it will increase military spending by billions of dollars over the next 20 years.

More than 300 people marched for May Day in Wollongong on May 2. The lead banner read: “People before Profits; Export CEOs not Jobs!”. There were many different union and community contingents.

A 19-year-old Cairns woman faces up to 14 years in jail after being charged under Queensland’s abortion laws. It is the first time in more than 50 years such charges have been laid.

Four hundred Tamils and their supporters gathered in Melbourne on April 23 for an emergency protest. It was organised in response to the Sri Lankan government’s latest brutal military escalation in the north of the island.

The Aboriginal Deaths in Custody Watch Committee is organising volunteers to travel to Kalgoorlie for the next stage of the Coronial Inquest into the January 2008 death of Warburton elder Mr Ward. The inquest reopens on May 11.