Kerryn Smith

'Laugh while you still can' — night to raise laughs and funds in Sydney

In a world of Donald Trump, climate change and the threat of World War III, we need a laugh and quick — before it is too late.

So Green Left Weekly has put together what should be an electrifyingly funny evening in Sydney on September 22. It even features a couple of well-known, if not exactly well-loved names with Donald Trump and Tony Abbott making an appearance on stage (via the impersonation skills of Jonas Holt)

Israel attacks new Freedom Flotilla seeking to aid Gaza

Israeli forces seized a boat on July 29 that was carrying nearly two dozen activists and journalists aiming to break Israel’s maritime blockade on Gaza.

The boat is part of the international Freedom Flotilla Coalition (FFC), which describes itself as “a grassroots people-to-people solidarity movement composed of campaigns and initiatives from all over the world working together to end the siege of Gaza”. 

HACSU wins accreditation for disability workforce

Hundreds of Health and Community Services Union (HACSU) members disrupted the Victorian State Labor Conference on November 12 to protest against plans by the Daniel Andrews government to privatise public disability services.

Delegates walked off the conference floor to meet HACSU members, people with disabilities and their friends and families at the Moonee Valley Racecourse where they heard the message loud and clear: No to the privatisation of public disability.

Kashmir: Protesters condemn repression

A July 14 rally in Kolkata against repression in Kashmir. Hundreds of students, trade union activists, women’s rights groups, lawyers and queer groups gathered at Jantar Mantar, Delhi, on July 14, wearing black bands to condemn the violence being unleashed on unarmed civilians in Kashmir.

Big parties should scrap electoral funding scam

The deal between Labor and the Liberal-Nationals to add another $2 million to their election campaign funds — at the people's expense — before the September election was an extension of a “deeply undemocratic major party scam to further entrench their parliamentary domination”, said Peter Boyle, Socialist Alliance candidate for Sydney. “This comes on top of the $45 million in electoral funding these three parties received, between them, for the 2010 election,” said Boyle.

National Day of Shame

A “freedom ride” from Sydney to Canberra will be held on March 25 to mark the 10th anniversary of the Howard government’s overturning of the Northern Territory’s voluntary euthanasia law, the Rights of the Terminally Ill Act (ROTI).