Resistance!

It's still unclear exactly what happened, but 13 hours after a schoolyard brawl during recess, year 9 student Jai Morcom was pronounced dead on August 30.

Racism is alive and well in Australia today.

At Camps for Climate Action, climate change activists organise discussions on the politics of the climate movement and take direct action against major polluting industries.

Sydney Resistance member Aaron Roden presented the following talk at the NSW Socialist Alliance conference on August 8.

From August 10 to 14, the University of Wollongong’s (UOW) Environment Week brought together campaigners and environmentalists for a variety of events. The climate emergency was a central focus.

On August 4, more than 400 police, including the Australian Federal Police and ASIO, staged a pre-dawn raid on 19 homes across Melbourne. The raid was carried out under the federal government’s “anti-terrorism laws” — extreme and repressive legislation created by the previous Howard government.

2DayFM’s Kyle and Jackie O radio show hooked up a 14-year-old girl to a lie detector, as part of a competition to win tickets to a concert, on July 29. When the girl was asked whether she’d ever had sex, she revealed that she had been raped when she was 12.

The Tasmanian Labour Party held its state conference in Hobart on July 26. It adopted a new policy in support of same-sex marriage after a close vote.

On July 31, Wollongong's satirical ‘Billionaires for Coal’ group rallied outside the ALP national conference in Sydney to congratulate the party on a “job well done”.

The Tasmanian Liberal Party, now in opposition, is running with a new youth-bashing policy in the lead-up to the next state election. The election will take place early next year.

On July 20, workers at the Vestas wind turbine plant on England’s Isle of Wight occupied the factory to protest its closure and the loss of 625 green jobs.

The following open letter was sent to the Australian Youth Climate Coalition from Resistance. It is in response to the Power Shift 2009 conference in Sydney on July 11-13.