News

The September 5 student strike against US President George Bush’s visit, initiated by Resistance, has triggered a wave of anti-war activism on high schools across Sydney. Students from more than 20 high schools, including Mosman High, Pennant Hills High and North Sydney Girls High, have pledged to walk out of classes to protest Australia’s involvement in the Iraq war, to call for genuine action against climate change and to defend the right to protest.

Shipping costs "The US Defense Department said on Thursday that a flawed system designed to rush supplies to troops in Iraq and Afghanistan let a small-parts supplier improperly collect $998,798.38 to ship two 19-cent washers … The lock-washer

On August 28, 100 people met at the Newcastle Town Hall to protest against the Newcastle City Council’s proposal to close Mayfield’s public swimming pool.

Victoria’s new Labor premier, John Brumby, has asked the Victorian Law Reform Commission to advise on how to reform abortion law. The commission’s report is due in March 2008, after the federal election. The move came right before a private members bill was to be put to parliament by ALP member Candy Broad.

On August 30, footwear workers formerly employed by Michaelis Bayley Holdings Pty Ltd — maker of the Homy Ped shoe brand — staged a protest outside the company’s Footscray offices. According to Textile, Clothing and Footwear Union (TCFUA) secretary Michele O'Neil, the company has sought to avoid redundancy provisions contained in the enterprise bargaining agreement it had committed to honour two years ago.

The world that we live in is crumbling around us. Imperialist nations such as the US use fear and violence as a means to an end — an end that favours the interests of the rich and the powerful. The Iraq war provides an example: Had Iraq been the world’s biggest producer of, say, potatoes, and not oil, Saddam Hussein would have been left to his misguided, vegetable-driven devices.

A spirited demonstration outside Toyota’s Melbourne headquarters on August 28 highlighted the company’s abuse of workers’ rights in the Philippines.

For nearly seven years, the Sandon Point Aboriginal Tent Embassy has guarded the Kuradji man burial site, artefacts and middens at Sandon Point at the bottom of Bulli Pass, in the northern Illawarra. Planning minister Frank Sartor, using recently legislated powers, has given approval to Stockland and the Anglican Retirement Village Trust for a huge development the size of a suburb on the site.

The September 1 Daily Telegraph published the names and photographs of all but two of the 29 people who have been put on the NSW police commissioner’s list of people to be excluded from much of the Sydney CBD during the APEC summit, and who will even be banned from flying into or out of Sydney airport.

On July 17, Chris M, a union delegate at the NSW State Transit’s Port Botany depot, was sacked by the State Transit Authority (STA), which is the government owned authority responsible for the operations of Sydney Buses and Newcastle Buses & Ferries. The sacking occurred four days prior to M becoming a permanent employee and thus having access to unfair dismissal protection.

On August 30, the Tasmanian parliament approved an operating permit for Gunns Ltd’s proposed $2 billion Tamar Valley pulp mill. The independents-dominated upper house voted by 10 votes to four to allow the mill to go ahead.

On August 17, Ali Humayun, a Pakistani gay man locked up in Sydney’s Villawood detention centre, received a report from the federal ombudsman recommending he be released into the general community while he waits for the High Court to hear his appeal against a decision by a member of the Refugee Review Tribunal (RRT) to reject granting him refugee status.