News

CBD office cleaners in cities across Australia and New Zealand staged protests on October 18 as part of the Clean Start: Fair Deal for All Cleaners campaign. About 70 cleaners and their supporters rallied outside the Tasmanian parliament marching to the Town Hall to present a letter to the city council.

Around the country, campus and high-school environment activists are focusing on getting young people to participate in the November 4 Walk against Warming international day of action on climate change.

Youth Rock the Block, held in Redfern on October 14, featured young community performers expressing their culture and raising money for a local women and children dance studio. The day included singing in the Indigenous Darug language, original dance pieces, renditions of well-known Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal pop songs and hip-hop.

On October 20, 65 people attended a public meeting to discuss the campaign to make the Newnes Plateau and other areas around the Gardens of Stone National Park, on the western edge of the Blue Mountains, a state conservation area. David Brazil from the Colong Foundation explained that the area has the highest density of rare plants in the Blue Mountains, contains important sites of Aboriginal heritage and provides a refuge for cool-climate species as global warming increases.

Union Solidarity-led community picketers halted the construction of the Otway gas plant for a day on October 20. The picketers came from Melbourne, Geelong, Warrnambool, Hamilton and Portland to support the workers at the site. For two years, construction at the site has proceeded without a single day of industrial action. In June, a site agreement was negotiated between unions and the construction company, Technip.

For the second consecutive year, Grassroots, a broad left-wing ticket has won a majority on the governing council of the Wollongong Undergraduate Students Association (WUSA). The elections were held on October 3-5.

Queensland Murris (Indigenous Australians) and their supporters marched on the state parliament on October 10. In a protest called to coincide with the first sitting day of the newly elected Labor government, the 600 demonstrators confronted Premier Peter Beattie with the demand that senior sergeant Chris Hurley be sacked.

On October 2, the Sydney-based Edmund Rice Centre (ERC) released its Deported to Danger II report, examining the fate of people whose claims for asylum in Australia were rejected. The report found that 39 of the 41 were deported to danger. Two have been welcomed in New Zealand.

Thirty people protested outside the US consulate on October 13 calling for justice for five Cubans unfairly imprisoned in the United States. The Cuban Five helped expose the activities of US-based terrorists planning attacks on Cuba, for which they were imprisoned, even while known terrorists in Miami walk free. Cuba solidarity activist Tim Anderson told the crowd that the Cuban government is not going to let the case rest until justice is achieved.

Technicians employed by Radio Rentals who were locked out of work for a month have returned to work after the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU) and the company agreed on an enterprise agreement that was better than Radio Rentals’ original offer.

The annual Queerspace student conference held at the Australian National University on October 6-8 was attended by 40 students from Canberra, Sydney, Melbourne, Hobart, Wollongong, Newcastle and Perth. The conference launched the national Queer Activist Network (QAN) for youth and students.

People charged over their involvement in a February protest outside PM John Howard’s state memorial service at the Sydney Opera House for media mogul Kerry Packer have called a protest demonstration on the first day of their three-day trial, which begins on October 27.