News

Since the November federal election, the federal Labor government has moved to re-engineer the federal public service. In early December it re-shuffled portfolios to create new departments including the Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations (DEEWR), with deputy prime minister Julia Gillard as its minister.

The principal of the exclusive Anglican Church Grammar School in Brisbane is attempting to ban same-sex couples from attending the school formal in June. After several senior students had indicated their intention to take partners of the same sex, headmaster Jonathan Hensman came out publicly saying it would not be appropriate.

Jorge Schafik Handal Vega, leader of the Salvadoran left party Farabundo Marti for National Liberation (FMLN) and deputy in the Central American Parliament, will be visiting Australia in May.

Tasmanian public sector workers will be attending stopwork meetings in the week beginning May 5 to consider a government offer on wages and conditions. In a negotiation process that has dragged on for over 18 months, members of the Health and

On April 24, as day broke over Canberra, red flags with yellow stars moved in columns throughout the city, held in the hands of marchers, fluttering from car aerials and hanging in the windows of hundreds of buses.

Around 50 protesters occupied the construction site of Newcastle’s third coal loader at Kooragang Island on April 19, forcing work to be stopped for around an hour and a half. The protest was organised by the climate change group Rising Tide Newcastle.

On April 2, federal environment minister Peter Garrett approved the third stage of the controversial Gunn’s pulp mill. Bulldozers have been given the go-ahead at the Tamar Valley site in northern Tasmania.

Indigenous activists are awaiting the full report into stolen wages after preliminary research by a Western Australian government task force found 28,000 references to wages not having been paid to Aboriginal workers between 1905 to 1972. However it the number of workers whose wages were stolen is not yet known. Nor is the exact amount owed.

Last month, four injured workers had their light duties suspended by Campbellfield car parts manufacturer Autoliv and were told that they should consider taking “voluntary” redundancy packages.

For Mel Barnes of the Tasmania-based group Students Against the Pulp Mill (SAPM) and Resistance, “young people have the authority to decide our future”, and they can inspire others to take action. Barnes was speaking at the Climate Change — Social Change Conference in Sydney, April 11-13, on a panel with other young environment activists.

Approximately 20,000 votes were submitted across NSW by teachers who attended stop-work Sky Channel meetings on April 8. Teachers went on strike over the state Labor government’s refusal to negotiate a new staffing scheme that would ensure transfer rights for all teachers and guarantee qualified and trained teachers for all students in NSW public schools.

On April 15, 200 people attended a public meeting entitled “Putting the terror laws on trial” at the Kaleide Theatre, RMIT. The meeting was jointly sponsored by the Civil Rights Defence campaign group and Amnesty International.