Ten years ago, on August 13 2004, the John Howard government, with the support of the Labor Party, passed legislation that defined marriage as between a man and a woman.
Queer people did not have the right to marry before the legislation was passed, but the new definition was brought in to close any loopholes and make it explicit that the Coalition government did not support civil rights for gay and lesbian people.
Australia
About 1000 people marched from parliament house to Victoria Square in Adelaide on August 2, to show opposition to the proposal to turn farmlands into gaslands.
The rally and march, organised to show the danger to South Australia’s food bowl, water and tourism, was jointly organised by the Limestone Coast Protection Alliance, Stop Invasive Mining Group — Eyre Peninsula, and the Yorke Peninsula Landowners Group.
It had a strong rural focus, with people travelling from all over rural and urban South Australia to attend.
A bill targeting protests in Tasmania’s forests was passed in the Tasmanian lower house on June 26. It is due to be introduced to the upper house when parliament sits again this month.
The Newcastle Resistance Centre was packed to capacity on August 3 to hear Shamikh Badra speak about what is happening in his home city of Gaza.
Badra said his grandfather was forced from his village in 1948 and ended up in Gaza.
He described the geography of the conflict, and how Israel exploits religion to cover the fact that it is occupying Palestinian land.
“In 1948,” he said, “there was no Hamas, no rockets. Yet this did not stop them from invading and committing massacres.”
Former prime minister Bob Hawke is urging Australia to become the world's nuclear waste dump. But he has little hope of succeeding.
Here is the latest “deal” from the self-proclaimed Captain of Team Australia that you are not allowed to refuse: He'll withdraw his law change that will give people the right to be bigots and in return his spooks will have access to the past two years of your metadata.
My meta-whaaat???
The social welfare cuts proposed in the federal government's May budget are a direct attack on working people and the poor. If implemented, they would represent a huge shift in income from the poor to the rich. This harsh reality is backed up by partial figures released by Treasury to Fairfax Media under Freedom of Information.
The 157 Tamil refugees who refused “a very good” deal to be deported to India now face the orchestrated despair of detention on Nauru.
The refugees were delivered to Nauru on August 2 without the knowledge of their lawyers and reportedly showing “clear signs of manhandling and trauma”. Human rights lawyer George Newhouse said he had “not had the opportunity to inform our clients of their rights and options.
This was a speech given to a forum hosted by the Resistance – Young Socialist Alliance student club at the University of Western Sydney on August 7.
The fight continues for two Woodville high school students who were taken from their community to a detention centre in Darwin in June.
The Sydney University Students Representative Council passed the following motion on August 6.
This was a speech given to the rally for Palestine in Melbourne on July 26.
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Over the past few weeks we have seen two major horrific events. Firstly Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 shot down over the Ukraine and 298 innocent people were killed.
This horrific event has been thoroughly condemned by many world leaders. Many of the Western world leaders have called for retribution against the Russian separatists and for retribution against Russia.
Many Western leaders want embargoes against Russia some from the US Senate and Congress even want war with Russia.
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