ADELAIDE — Activists have begun a campaign to re-establish the Rape Crisis Centre as an autonomous service. (The state Labor government closed the centre last year.) Initially Rape Action Link Up will provide a phone service aimed at offering advice, receiving complaints and gathering information about gaps in the system. Lines will be open from March 22 on Tuesdays 10am-3pm and Wednesdays 7pm-midnight. Phone (08) 349 5951. Assistance and support will be welcomed.
- A small group of women met on March 14 to convene an organising collective to plan and build a national conference of women here late in 1995. The aim of the conference is to bring together women interested in getting active and rebuilding the movement at the grass roots. Phone Danielle 382 6709 for details.
- 450 workers at the Australian Submarine Corporation walked off the job on March 14 for 48 hours. The dispute is over the lack of consultation with workers following the appointment of new forepersons and changes to overtime systems. A dispute in February, which is still to be heard in the Industrial Relations Commission, involved a walkout over heat stress.
- The South Australian Institute of Teachers has called for school councils to join the battle to protect education from cuts in the wake of the government's commission of audit. SAIT has advised councils that they need to start debating these issues now because there are fears of school closures, devolution of responsibilities and possible privatisation.
BRISBANE — A speak-out involving 60 youth on March 18 protested against state Labor government attacks on young people. Issues raised at the speak-out, organised by Resistance, included the youth wage, environmental destruction, Generation X, decriminalisation of marijuana and proposed cuts in the dole and Austudy. Ana Kailis, candidate for the Democratic Socialists in Dutton Park, said, "Young people are being scapegoated for the problems in today's society". The speak-out demanded real job creation, public transport to be made cheap and efficient, free education and decriminalisation of abortion.
MELBOURNE — During the week following the drowning-out of a National Action white supremacist rally by hundreds of counter-demonstrators in the multi-ethnic suburb of Brunswick, a small band of skinhead thugs have disrupted and vandalised the offices of the Student Representative Council at LaTrobe University. The terrorist attack is believed to have been an act of retribution and intimidation against the participation of members of the council in promoting the anti-Nazi demonstration.
SYDNEY — Members of Resistance distributed condoms and safe sex information to high school students at Fort Street High on March 15. The action was in support of recommendations in a report commissioned by the state health minister. These included the distribution of condoms in schools and prisons, lowering the age of consent for homosexuals from 18 to 16, voluntary euthanasia and the legal use of marijuana for the terminally ill. Conservative politicians have attacked the report.
- More than 200 people attended a lively rally organised by Resistance at Sydney University on March 18 against foreign minister Gareth Evans, who was speaking at the 10th anniversary dinner of APHEDA, the ACTU's aid organisation. Although Evans sneaked in through the back entrance, he could not avoid hearing chants of "PNG out of Bougainville, CRA out of Bougainville, Australia out of Bougainville", "Suharto is a butcher, Evans is a butcher, free East Timor now" and "Human rights not mining rights".