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On September 5, the government’s climate change adviser, Professor Ross Garnaut, released his recommendations for medium-term cuts to Australian greenhouse gas emissions.

Eight hundred unionists and supporters protested outside the Geelong Magistrates’ Court on September 12, as Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) official Noel Washington appeared, charged with refusing to cooperate with the Australian Building Construction Commission (ABCC).

Information released under freedom of information (FOI) laws shows that NSW Police is keeping detailed documentation about numerous groups and individuals on the political left. Police intelligence assessments have targeted a variety groups, including Mutiny and Greenpeace.

Ross Garnaut’s long-anticipated “Targets and Trajectories” report into Australia’s carbon emissions future signals a wholesale surrender to the corporations desperate to change as little as possible and preserve their profits at any cost. It is a refusal to take the steps necessary to avert the very real dangers that climate change poses to life on the planet.

Speaking at the inaugural Ted Wheelwright Memorial Lecture for the Sydney University Department of Political Economy on September 1, Filipino anti-globalisation activist and academic Walden Bello, founding director of Focus on the Global South, contrasted the recent Beijing Olympics with the US Democrats national convention.