The Commander of the Inner West Police Area Command apologised to Socialist Alliance members Rachel Evans and Susan Price on September 11 for the “distress and embarrassment” suffered during their arrest in 2017, after the matter was resolved in a confidential settlement.
New South Wales
A decades-long feminist campaign to remove abortion from the anti-woman NSW Crimes Act is likely to take one more step towards victory with debate on a pro-choice private members' bill to begin in state parliament on August 6.
The NSW Land and Environment Court’s decision to refuse the Rocky Hill coalmine near Gloucester on February 8 is ground breaking. For the first time in legal history, the impact of a new coalmine on climate change was a determining factor in refusing consent.
A bucket of dead fish was emptied outside NSW minister for regional water Niall Blair’s office on February 7 as part of a protest to demand swift action on the water crisis affecting regional communities. The protest was organised by Fighting In Resistance Equally (FIRE).
The NSW Coalition government's privatisation of the Northern Beaches Hospital on the city's upper North Shore has created a crisis situation with the cancellation of elective surgery and doctors threatening to strike over staff shortages and lack of vital medical supplies.
Another stolen generation looks certain to be created in New South Wales after the state Coalition government passed an adoption law that makes it easier for foster parents to adopt a child who they have had under care for less than two years.
Chanting “Not the church, not the state, women will decide our fate”, supporters of women’s right to choose gathered outside NSW parliament on November 15 to oppose conservative MLC Fred Nile’s third attempt to introduce a foetal personhood bill in the Legislative Assembly.
Early submissions to the NSW Parliamentary Inquiry into the Impact of the WestConnex Project, which began on October 9, have already exposed the disastrous environmental and social effects of the controversial $17 billion WestConnex tollway.
The Socialist Alliance will contest the NSW state election, to be held in March next year. The Alliance’s ticket for the Legislative Council is made up of 18 activists from across the state. It has also preselected Susan Price to stand in the Legislative Assembly seat of Parramatta.
The housing crisis could be overcome through a “new system of universally accessible housing, with rents based on ability to pay”, according to Action for Public Housing. The problem, they say, is that “the housing needs of our people come second to profit and greed” for the NSW Coalition government.
There are many ways to fix New South Wales — currently plagued by cuts, privatisations and tollway madness — participants at a socialist activist conference concluded on August 12. The day-long discussion ended with the election of a team of Socialist Alliance candidates to contest for the NSW Legislative Council in the March 2019 elections.
Information provided by the NSW Water Office indicates that if the Bylong coalmine in the Upper Hunter region proceeds, there is a real danger of the Bylong River and local creeks drying up.
The Bylong coalmine, a project of South Korean government-owned company Kepco which supplies coal to the electricity industry, involves open cut and underground extraction of up to 6.5 million tonnes of coal for a period of 25 years. The Planning and Assessment Commission’s hearing of Kepco’s application was completed in May last year and its review report was completed in July.
In some sort of sick joke, residents of the inner west suburbs of St Peters and Haberfield have been sent earplugs by WestConnex after complaints to it about the incessant and loud noise caused by the construction of this controversial $17 billion tollway.
After a concerted campaign by staff, trade unions and the community, the NSW government announced on October 27 that Shellharbour Hospital in the Illawarra will remain in public hands.
The campaign forced the government to cancel its proposed public-private partnership (PPP) plan and instead proceed with a $251 million redevelopment of the hospital on its current site.
International students in New South Wales face higher cost of living expenses than their counterparts in other states. This is one of the reasons students at Western Sydney University (WSU) have decided to launch a campaign calling on the state government to grant them public transport concessions.
“New South Wales is the only state where international students do not have the same rights as domestic students and cannot access the same facilities,” Daniele Fulvi told Green Left Weekly.
