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Five thousand people attended the vibrant Climate Emergency Rally in Melbourne on June 5. Grassroots environment activists and groups came from all over Victoria to protest numerous environmentally destructive projects currently underway or proposed, demanding action instead be focused on renewable energy and public transport.
Professor Ross Garnaut’s draft review of climate change policy options for the Australian government was released on July 4, with climate change minister Penny Wong due to release a green paper canvassing policy options on July 16. Garnaut’s report looks at the “costs” and “benefits” of mitigating drastic climate change through a carbon polluting trading scheme. It suggests tax cuts and “welfare reform” to compensate low-income households, which will be hit hard by energy price rises.
Two weeks ago, I presented a young Palestinian, Mohammed Omer, with the 2008 Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism.
David Rovics has been described as the musical voice of the progressive movement in the US. In this interview with Green Left Weekly’s Matt Clark, he explains his motivations, his influences and his take on politics today.
On June 26, NSW Nurses Association branches voted in favour of the pay and conditions offer and classification review offer made by the NSW health department. The first 3.9% pay rise will happen in early July. There are some improvements to conditions; notably, part-timers can choose to increase their contracted hours to the average actually worked over the preceding 12 months.
Against the split in the Aboriginal rights campaign I am writing to protest the actions of those who walked out of the Sydney Aboriginal Rights Coalition (ARC) on June 23 to set up a rival group. This split is damaging to the movement against the
There have been nationwide protests against the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government’s decision to raise the prices of petrol, diesel and cooking gas.
On June 21, Indigenous affairs minister Jenny Macklin announced that her government would begin to end funding for infrastructure to remote Northern Territory (NT) Aboriginal communities that she deemed were “economically unviable”. This is the Rudd Labor government’s first major attack on Aboriginal land rights since taking power.
Truck drivers are planning a national strike if demands for changes to new transport reforms are not met by the federal government. Drivers from NSW, Victoria and Queensland will take action from midnight on July 27.
The June 3 Apache Energy gas facility explosion on Veranus Island, 100 kilometres west of the port of Dampier in WA, is the latest in a long history of social irresponsibility in the global oil and gas industry.
Censoring Science: Inside the Political Attack on Dr. James Hansen & the Truth of Global Warming
By Mark Bowen
Dutton, 2008
324 pages, $49.95 (hb)
On June 30, the collective agreements covering actors in the US television industry expired.