There is a growing spate of racist attacks on people of Asian appearance. Peter Boyle spoke to community leaders about how they are starting to fight back.
Jenny Leong
A large section of the population — renters — has been left to fend for themselves in the coronavirus crisis, writes Pip Hinman.
Supporters of the right to choose are pulling out all stops against the religious right’s attempts to derail a broadly sponsored abortion decriminalisation bill before New South Wales parliament.
“It is simple, straight forward: stay out of the lives of women”, implored one Liberal MLA as debate in the NSW Legislative Assembly on a bill to decriminalise abortion entered its second day on August 7.
Eventually, after eleven and a half hours of debate, the Reproductive Health Care Reform Bill 2019 was passed in the lower house 59 to 31 on August 8.
“We owe it to future generations to do our best to halt this disastrous project,” Greens MLA for Newtown Jenny Leong told an August 22 public meeting about the controversial $17 billion WestConnex tollway project.
According to Monash University professor Chris Nash, who also addressed the meeting, "It is not too late to stop this project".
On January 11 at 6.30am, tree loppers started felling some of the 500 trees slated for destruction at Sydney Park to make way for WestConnex’s St Peters interchange near the corner of Euston Road and Campbell Street.
Before that, Steffie Leedham had climbed up to a platform connected to three trees. She told Green Left Weekly from the platform that she would stay up there “for as long as it takes to stop WestConnex vandalising Sydney Park”.
Several others tried to stop the felling but were mostly pushed aside by police. At least two were arrested.
A community meeting in inner city Newtown, called at short notice to hear from WestConnex and a panel of traffic, heritage and health experts, attracted some 170 people on December 6.
Community groups from across Sydney have condemned the NSW government's announcement that the community consultation period for the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the M4 East section of the huge WestConnex tollway will be limited to 45 days.
NSW Planning Minister Rob Stokes released the Environmental Impact Statement on September 9.
NSW Greens spokesperson for WestConnex and MP for Newtown Jenny Leong said: “This is the largest, most complex road building project in Australia’s history.
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