Analysis

These are stills from film footage shot by Jill Hickson and John Reynolds for Actively Radical TV of the half a million-strong march on February 16, 2003 against the impending US-led invasion of Iraq.


The warnings were clear and now it’s happened: bending over backwards with carbon tax compensation to appease Australia's dirtiest electricity generators, the Gillard government has handed big coal billions in windfall profits, whilst consumers are effectively paying twice for the carbon price.
These are stills (Part II) from film footage shot by Jill Hickson and John Reynolds for Actively Radical TV of the half a million-strong march on February 16, 2003 against the impending US-led invasion of Iraq. [See Part I here.]


A civil trial expected to last eight weeks in the federal court in Melbourne was averted on February 18 by an agreement between the Victoria Police and six African-Australians suing them for racial discrimination and racial profiling. The agreement mandates an enquiry, with submissions from the public, into allegations of police racism in the Flemington-North Melbourne area, which includes culturally diverse Housing Commission estates. The agreement also permits the six complainants to publicly tell their stories using police documents obtained through the court case.
Simon Butler was a 25-year-old activist who helped organise the mass mobilisations in Sydney in February and March 2003 against the invasion of Iraq. He was also a leader of the socialist youth group Resistance and the student anti-war movement Books Not Bombs, which Resistance initiated.
Lip-stitching and attempted self-immolation are among increasingly extreme acts of self-harm taking place in Australia’s two offshore detention camps in recent weeks. Hunger strikes, cutting and attempted hangings have already become widespread in the tent city on Nauru. But, on February 19, for the first time since the “dark days” of former prime minister John Howard’s “Pacific solution,” refugees stitched their mouths closed to protest their arbitrary and indefinite detention.
Angry residents from Kemps Creek and surrounding neighbourhoods packed the local sports and bowling club auditorium on February 18 to protest against the state government’s plan to dump radioactive waste in the area. The NSW Liberal government is proposing to shift 5800 tonnes of soil from an area in Hunters Hill, where a uranium ore processing plant once stood, to the Kemps Creek SITA dump site. Cancer clusters have been detected in Hunters Hill, which have been linked to the contamination left behind at the former plant site.
The first day of NSW parliament this year was met with a strong protest against the announced shortening of the heavy rail line to Newcastle. Organised by Save Our Rail, a large contingent boarded the 8:03am express from Newcastle Station. Supporters saw them off, while others hopped on at outer stations. Leaflets were distributed and petitions were signed as activists explained to the other passengers what the state government was proposing. The media were regularly on the mobile phone to Save Our Rail president Joan Dawson.
Hall Greenland, a respected left-wing activist, writer and journalist in Sydney, is the Greens candidate for the inner-west Sydney seat of Grayndler. Greenland was a Leichhardt councillor for the Labor Party in the 1980s, and served a second term as an independent between 1999 and 2004. He is president of the Friends of Callan Park, a community group which has waged a long struggle against the privatisation of a vital heritage area. Greenland is also the author of Red Hot, a biography of one of Australia’s earliest Trotskyists, Nick Origlass.
This statement was released by the Socialist Alliance Moreland councillor Sue Bolton on February 20. *** Experienced crane driver and union activist Billy Ramsay was killed on the Grocon construction site in central Melbourne on February 18. This news was buried many pages inside the Murdoch-owned Herald Sun daily tabloid.
“Enough is enough,” warned a full page ad taken out by the Mineral Council of Australia in the February 13 Australian, “in relation to the obsession with increasing taxes on mining in Australia." It was like an exasperated parent pushed too far by a naughty child. “Enough! Go back to playing with your toys. What about the welfare recipients? You love kicking them! Go on, leave us adults alone!”
Simon Butler was a 25-year-old activist who helped organise the mass mobilisations in Sydney in February and March 2003 against the invasion of Iraq. He was also a leader of the socialist youth group Resistance and the student anti-war movement Books Not Bombs, which Resistance initiated.