It isn’t often that socialists, Greens, Liberals and NGOs agree on an issue. But that is the case regarding uranium exploration in the Arkaroola region in the Flinders Ranges, 700 kilometres north of Adelaide.
Marathon Resources announced on February 7 that the South Australian Labor government had renewed the company's mining licence in Arkaroola.
The Arkaroola area is a unique environment, unlike anywhere else on Earth. It has over 160 species of birds, is home to species of fauna found nowhere else in the world and is a sanctuary for the endangered yellow-footed rock wallaby.
Analysis
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange delivered a pre-recorded video address to a public meeting at Melbourne’s Federation Square on February 4. Below is the transcript of Assange’s speech.
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Thank you so much for coming to this rally. Your presence here and your support, in homes, workplaces, online and elsewhere is exactly what is needed to keep us strong.
Nine weeks after a boat carrying asylum seekers was smashed apart on the shores of Christmas Island on December 15, traumatised survivors remained locked up by the department of immigration. They are almost completely cut off from family and support.
At least 48 people may have died in the devastating shipwreck. The wooden vessel, named SIEV221 by authorities, was thrown onto rocks in savage seas to the north of the island at about 5am.
WikiLeaks has launched the WikiLeaks roundtable series, in which founder and editor Julian Assange addresses, in a short video, questions that people put to the organisation.
This forum aims to cut out “intermediaries” such as the mainstream corporate media, and instead allow the whistleblowing site to speak directly with people.
The first video was published on February 6.
“We are going to put everyone on a level playing field,” Assange said. “All members of the press and all members of the public.
I have thought for a long time that it is essential the Australian climate movement tune in more directly to the natural climate cycle, and thus popular consciousness of climate itself.
We as a country have just experienced the traumas of floods, then the most intense cyclone in recorded history, and now devastating bushfires in Western Australia.
Deadly bushfires swept the country a couple of summers before that, followed by another record heatwave in South Australia in 2010.
In the space of a few weeks, Australia and the world have been rocked by devastating weather events, from huge snowstorms across the US to flash flooding and cyclones in Australia. Many of these events have not just been catastrophic, but have set new records for weather.
Let’s pause to list some of the recent extreme weather events in Australia:
· Serious and long-lasting floods in Queensland around Rockhampton.
· Unprecedented flash flooding in Toowoomba and the Lockyer Valley.
· The biggest floods on record in western Victoria.
· A 100-year record flood in Brisbane.
Conservative Party chairperson and the first Muslim woman to attend the British cabinet, Sayeeda Warsi, said in January that Islamophobia and prejudice against Muslims has “passed the dinner table test” and is now widely accepted in Britain.
The rise of Islamophobia within Western societies has grown more since the September 11, 2001 attacks in the US.
A 2007 Zogby International study said 76% of Arab-American youth surveyed had been discriminated against.
Less than a week after Australians learned about the death of the 22nd Australian soldier killed in Afghanistan, Corporal Richard Atkinson, footage aired by Channel 7 on February 8 showed opposition leader Tony Abbott caught with his pants down.
“Shit happens,” Abbott told a US general during an August visit to Afghanistan as they discussed the circumstances surrounding the death of another Australian soldier — Lance Corporal Jared MacKinney.
MacKinney’s family had questioned whether the standard of the Australian Defence Force’s equipment contributed to his death.
At a packed Leichhardt Town Hall candidates meeting on February 7, education minister Verity Firth all but conceded that the Labor state government would not be returned on March 26.
Firth said she was looking forward to rebuilding the ALP from the opposition benches. She was unconvincing.
Firth told the meeting she joined the ALP when she was a 15-year-old idealist. “Genuine lasting change is about more than slogans,” she said.
“When you’re in government you cannot just issue a press release or organise a protest rally ... because governing is far more complex.”
Heavy-handed policing in Sydney over the past few months may indicate a heightened, anti-protester attitude of NSW police.
States and territories across Australia have either a “permit” or “notice” procedure for holding protests.
NSW law has the “notice” procedure, which is very favourable for those organising protests. The completion of a simple form, given to the police with seven days’ notice, protects activists from arrest for offences like obstructing traffic.
This favourable legal situation no doubt frustrates police, who are using more aggressive means to curb protests.
The Edmund Rice Centre released the public statement below on January 26.
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We, Australian organisations and individuals, unite to offer this statement to our nation.
A “Memorandum of Understanding” (MOU) was recently signed between the Australian government, the government of Afghanistan and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, permitting the involuntary repatriation from Australia of unsuccessful Afghan asylum seekers back to Afghanistan.
The persecution of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is unfortunately nothing new in the history of Australia or other Western nations. The outward appearance of democratic government often masks a darker, anti-democratic reality.
Dissenters and truth-tellers such as Assange, who dare to challenge the official version of events, have been subjected to acts of bastardry in the past.
The Australian government’s treatment of Assange today invites comparison with the earlier case of the Australian socialist journalist Wilfred Burchett, who died in 1983.
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