A report in the October 29 Brisbane Courier Mail signalled that the Queensland state Labor government may finally legislate to decriminalise abortion. But not immediately — perhaps in 18 months time, well after the federal elections are over. Labor MP for Aspley, Bonny Barry, has been reported as preparing a private member’s bill to remove abortion from the criminal code. Premier Anna Bligh has said she will support it, but has no intention of introducing a bill.
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On October 31, some 70 Wollongong TAFE teachers stopped work in support of students facing massive fee increases. The stopwork meeting condemned both federal and state governments for under-funding TAFE and shifting the cost of quality vocational education onto students. The teachers also expressed disgust at the Howard government for finding a “lazy” $2 billion to support the duplication of TAFE with the new Australian Technical Colleges (ATCs).
Respect — the Unity Coalition, the first British political party to the left of Labour to win a seat in the Westminster parliament since 1945, has split. In May 2005 George Galloway confounded pundits by winning an historic victory in the East London constituency of Bethnal Green and Bow. A former Labour MP, Galloway was expelled for his vociferous and unflagging opposition to the wars on Iraq and Afghanistan, and with others in the anti-war movement — notably the Socialist Workers Party (SWP), which plays a leading role in the Stop the War Coalition — formed Respect.
Starting on October 15, New Zealand Security Intelligence Service officers and police began raids on the homes of environmental, unionist and Maori activists in an unprecedented police action allegedly in response to a “terrorist” threat. Peter Robson from Green Left Weekly spoke to New Zealand-based activist Joe Carolan, who is involved with the Civil Rights Defence Committee (CRDC), the Solidarity union, and is a member of the national executive of Socialist Worker, about the raids and who is affected by them.
“Here in Bolivia, the majority have realised that the neoliberals have always betrayed us. Now the people cannot be so easily bought off, there is growing consciousness and a shift in the attitude of society. That is why it will be difficult for [the neoliberals] to defeat us now. We will continue governing for at least 50 to 100 years — some say forever.” This is how Roman Loayza, head of the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) group of delegates to Bolivia’s constituent assembly, described the situation in Bolivia when Green Left Weekly spoke to him on October 17.
The US military has increased air strikes in Iraq five-fold this year, according to data obtained by USA Today. The papers October 22 edition reported that the US military had carried out 1140 air strikes in the first nine months of this year, compared with 229 last year. The figures do not include attacks carried out by helicopters.
On October 28, the Israeli defence ministry ordered the cutting of fuel supplies to the Gaza Strip, home to 1.5 million Palestinians, half of whom are children. While Israeli government representatives claimed that they planned to cut supplies by 5-11%, fuel supplies were immediately cut by more than 30%, according to Palestinian officials.
After receiving the modified project of constitutional reform, which includes an additional 36 changes proposed by the National Assembly, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, announced on October 31 that the proposed changes, which will be put to a referendum on December 2, should be voted on in separate blocs, rather than as one single bloc.
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