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Dr Leslie Cannold, a founder of Reproductive Choice Australia, told a forum in Albury on September 23 that abortion does not need a special law. It should be administered no differently than a knee replacement, she said. “We don’t have a special tonsil law, we don’t have a knee replacement law or a liver cancer law, and we don’t need a particular law governing abortion either.” Abortion should be regulated like all other medical procedures, she said.
Disciples of Fred Nile and his Christian Democrat Party (CDP) gathered in Belmore Park in Sydney on September 20 to convince each other that their anti-marriage equality stance is right. They were supported by police, who facilitated their bigoted ranting and kept marriage equality protestors as far away as possible.
Canadian activist and author of This Changes Everything: Capitalism versus Climate Naomi Klein spoke to a packed audience at the Festival of Dangerous Ideas, Sydney Opera House on September 5. This is an edited transcript of her speech. Klein and Avi Lewis’ film This Changes Everything is about to be released. ***
About 500 people attended Geelong’s first marriage equality rally on September 19. It was largely a young crowd with the visible presence of the local Socialist Alliance branch, the Greens, local Deakin University students, and the Geelong Adolescent Sexuality Project, a local support service for LGBTI youth.
Undercover West Papua documentary Forgotten Bird of Paradise has been awarded Best Short Documentary at the 2015 Davis International Film Festival in the US. More than 1100 films were submitted to the festival from 80 countries. Since its release in 2009, Forgotten Bird of Paradise has been shown at dozens of film festivals around the world, providing a rare and moving insight into the ongoing struggle for freedom being waged by the West Papuan people living under Indonesian colonial rule.