News

While we heralded the end of the Howard regime, those of us involved in the many campaigns for social and environmental justice knew the fight had not ended with his demise. We knew the struggle for real and lasting justice would go on, and this is why it is important that we stay inspired and active.

Public school teachers committed to keeping a state-wide centralised model of staffing that guarantees teachers’ transfer rights and delivers equity for students and school communities voted on April 8 for a 24-hour strike on May 22.

NSW Labor’s proposal to build a dam in the Tillegra Valley will be a waste of $300 million, according to local residents who picketed the offices of Hunter Water in Newcastle on May 16.

Five months into its term the Rudd government delivered on one of its pre-election promises and ended the Temporary Protection Visa program. The TPV program was hatched by the ultra-racist Pauline Hanson and introduced by the Howard government in 1999. It placed successful asylum seekers on three year temporary visas, having to endure the horror of being reviewed and possibly deported after three years.

After more than three years of detention, on May 16 Ali Beg Humayun was told by the Department of Immigration and Citizenship he had been granted permanent residency.

Thirty people held a Quaker-initiated vigil at the steps of Newcastle Local Courthouse on May 13 in support of the “Kooragang 16”. The 16 faced charges for trespassing on the construction site of a new coal-loader being built in Newcastle.

Angry at the raw deal they received in Treasurer Wayne Swan’s budget, up to 300 pensioners blockaded one of Melbourne’s busiest intersections on May 16.Angry at the raw deal they received in Treasurer Wayne Swan's budget, up to 300 pensioners blockaded one of Melbourne's busiest intersections on May 16. Traffic was blocked for up to an hour before police moved the crowd onto the footpath; and some of the protesters stripped off to express their frustration.

More than 2000 people rallied at Fremantle Esplanade to celebrate May Day and to call for the scrapping of all of the anti-worker laws of the previous government.

Five unions met in Brisbane on May 6 to launch a national campaign for the abolition of the Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC).

On May 5, Victorian Premier John Brumby and education minister Bronwyn Pike announced that they had struck a deal with the Victorian Australian Education Union (AEU) over teachers’ pay. While there are several aspects of the agreement to be finalised, the government decided to go public and claimed that Victorian teachers are now the highest-paid teachers in Australia.

Western Australian public servants voted unanimously to continue their fight for a decent pay rise at a 1000-strong rally on the steps of Parliament House on May 8.

A May 8 meeting in Wollongong heard an eyewitness account of the political struggle within Venezuela from Carlos Sierra, a political leader in the radical Venezuelan youth organisation Frente Francisco de Miranda. The meeting was part of Sierra’s Resistance-organised tour which also took him to Newcastle and Sydney Universities.