News

My university, the University of Technology, Sydney (UTS), has given 22 student and staff records to the Australian Federal Police, the NSW police and the Australian Taxation Office.

Fifteen of the 20 workers at the Esselte site in Minto, in Sydney’s south-west, have been on strike for four weeks. The stationary company has been trying to force its employees onto Australian Workplace Agreements (AWAs — individual contracts) for two years.

Some 80 people packed the Resistance Centre on July 1 for a Latin America solidarity conference organised by the Australia-Venezuela Solidarity Network (AVSN), Australia Solidarity with Latin America (ASLA) and the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) committee.

On June 30, 45 people met to prepare the next phase of the Save Ralph’s Bay (SRB) action group’s campaign against a proposed canal housing estate being built by the Walker Corporation, owned by billionaire Lang Walker, inside the publicly owned Ralphs Bay Conservation Area, in the Derwent river estuary.

A gathering of 150 unionists and political activists stood outside the Queensland ALP conference held at Brisbane’s Exhibition and Convention Centre on June 30. Organised by the state branches of the Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union and the Electrical Trades Union, the protest called on the ALP to maintain the promise made at the ALP national conference to abolish the Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC). After the national conference, Labor’s industrial relations spokesperson Julia Gillard announced that a Labor government would keep the ABCC until 2010.

Internationalism was a strong theme of the 36th Resistance conference held in Sydney over July 5-8. Apart from hearing from Julia Espinoza from Socialist Worker in New Zealand and Gusti Galuh Ratna Sari from the Indonesian National Student League for Democracy, the whole conference took part in a separate one-day forum on July 7 organised by the Venezuelan Embassy.

On July 14, Gold Coast doctor Mohamed Haneef was charged with “providing support to a terrorist organisation” after 12 days in detention without any charge. His detention without charges or a trial shows the danger to civil liberties posed by federal and state “anti-terror” laws.

In an unexpected backdown, the Queensland University of Technology agreed in the Federal Court on July 12 to continue paying the salaries of the two lecturers who were suspended after they criticised a documentary titled Laughing at the Disabled: Creating Comedy that Confronts, Offends and Entertains, produced by QUT PhD student Michael Noonan.

The annual rally for NAIDOC week on July 13 drew a crowd of 1500-2000 people. While officially a day to celebrate the survival and revival of Indigenous culture and heritage, outrage at PM John Howard’s recent intervention in the Northern Territory was palpable in the crowd. A sea of placards and banners made reference to the importance of protecting land rights, and fears about children being taken away.

In a judgment against the police that was describing as “scathing” by Sydney Morning Herald journalist David Marr, magistrate David Heilpern dismissed all charges against the two “tranny cops” who were violently arrested at a protest against US Vice-President Dick Cheney on February 23. This brings to four the number of Cheney protesters who were charged and acquitted.

On June 26, 50 inner-west film fanatics gathered inside the Petersham Bowling Club to revive another 16mm film print from the National Film and Sound Archives — a place so far immune from attack in the “history wars”.

The Killalea State Recreation Park between Shellharbour and Kiama comprises 250 hectares of Crown land on 8km of coastline renowned for its surf beaches.