News

“We refuse to be subtle in our outcry against this war, we refuse to do nothing and be silent while people are killed in our name for profit for the rich and we refuse to be sent overseas in a war for oil.”

On March 22, some 1500 protesters on Parliament Lawns denounced Tasmanian Labor Premier Paul Lennon’s push to fast-track the building of a $1.5 billion pulp mill in Bell Bay, in northern Tasmania’s Tamar Valley.

Scenes of joy and relief erupted outside the Brisbane courts complex on March 21 after a Supreme Court jury cleared four Palm Islanders of charges of rioting causing destruction.

The most important elections for many years in the Victorian branch of the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU) are set for mid-April. This election will be a showdown between the incumbent unified Victorian branch leadership and the conservative vehicle division of the union and its supporters.

If the Howard government thought that it’s battery of anti-unions laws had completely intimidated workers not to take so-called “illegal” industrial action then they must be disappointed. For the first time in more than a decade all work on the nation’s waterfront came to a halt on March 23 when more than 11,000 wharfies walked off the job. The stop work coincided with the Melbourne funeral of Bobby Cumberlidge, who died in an industrial accident at Toll’s Westernport wharf on March 16.

Workers from across Melbourne have thrown their support behind National Union of Workers (NUW) members who are on strike at Preston Motors in Campbellfield.

An Esperance Port Authority (EPA) safety worker has been sacked for “asking too many questions” and a blood specialist has been dispatched to the area as WA authorities scramble to cope with a widening heavy-metal contamination crisis.

Lawyers acting for 12 of the “Melbourne 13”, a group of Muslim men who have been held in Barwon’s Maximum Security Prison for more than a year, argued on March 20 that the possibility of a fair trial had been jeopardised and applied for a stay in proceedings.

Over the last few weeks, the family of Mamdouh Habib, former Guantanamo Bay prisoner and independent candidate for the seat of Auburn in the NSW state election, has been subjected to greater police harassment.

“Nuclear fools’ day” protests will mark Palm Sunday — April 1. The protests are in response to the most significant push for expanded uranium mining in Australia since the Hawke Labor government’s 1983 decision to defy public opinion and allow uranium mining to continue at Rio Tinto’s Ranger mine in the Northern Territory, and to be developed at Australia’s two other largest uranium deposits — BHP Billiton’s Olympic Dam (Roxby Downs) mine in South Australia, opened in 1988, and Rio Tinto’s Beverley mine (also in SA) in 2001.

On March 15, more than 1000 public sector workers and their supporters rallied in the city under the banner of “Job cuts = service cuts”. They were expressing opposition to the 20,000 “backroom” job cuts proposed by the NSW Liberals as part of its state election campaign. The election will be held on March 24.

On March 15, the Canterbury/Bankstown branch of the NSW Teachers Federation (NSWTF) held a speak-out at Labor Premier Morris Iemma’s local electoral office in the seat of Lakemba. Iemma was invited to address the speak-out but did not respond.