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NSW Treasurer Michael Costa passionately claims privatisation of NSW’s electricity generation and distribution is “good economics”. However, there is popular opposition to the proposal — up to 86% in opinion polls.
Amid audible gasps of relief, on December 15 the US delegation to the United Nations climate change conference in Bali signalled that Washington would be part of the “Bali Roadmap” for combatting global warming. With the US on board, a two-year process of discussion would begin — hopefully to culminate in the adoption of a new pact to replace the Kyoto Protocol, due to expire in 2012.
One of the 60 companies currently holding uranium exploration licences in South Australia, Marathon Resources, has admitted it’s investigating how 50-60 garbage bags containing what’s thought to be uranium tailings were dumped in the Arkaroola Wilderness Sanctuary in the Flinders Ranges.
This is an extract from an inspiring letter from Jim Knight, one of our loyal readers in northern NSW:
On January 26, most people around the country celebrated “Australia Day”. Thousands of Australian flags with the British union jack were raised, shrimps rolled on the barbie and beer poured like water.
Around the country, hundreds of people marked white invasion of Australia on January 26 by attending protests and festivals.
For the first time in 11 years we are under a new government, a Labor government. PM Kevin Rudd’s government was elected off the back of mounting dissatisfaction with the continuing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, inaction on climate change, the Northern Territory intervention and Work Choices, but the battle for change has not been won.
Professor Sharon Beder, a research fellow at the University of Wollongong, prepared a submission on behalf of Unions NSW to the Ownen Inquiry that makes a powerful case against Premier Morris Iemma’s government’s proposed energy privatisation.
Green Left Weekly’s Zane Alcorn spoke to John Parker, Secretary of Gippsland Trades and Labour Council, about environmental and industrial issues surrounding electricity privatisation.
NSW TAFE teachers will consider industrial action when they return to work on January 29, in an attempt to maintain a quality TAFE system. A campaign of rolling stoppages and longer-term action will be discussed.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc in the early 1990s, Cuba lost access to the oil, fertilizers and virtually all trading partners that the small island nation depended upon to survive. Cuba faced economic collapse virtually overnight.
Workers fined for striking @9point non = PERTH — A Federal Court judge has imposed fines of $10,000, with $6750 suspended for six months, on 64 construction workers convicted of being involved in an illegal strike. Three workers facing the same