The National Disability Insurance Scheme purports to support a better life for hundreds of thousands of people with disabilities, their families and carers. Graham Matthews, Steve Warren, Terry Townsend and Lisa Macdonald argue for a needs-driven scheme.
Terry Townsend
BLUE MOUTAINS — About 60 people filled the Family Hotel bistro on July 24 to see Actively Radical TV's new film on the NT intervention, Alyawarr Walk-Off Protest vs Northern Territory Intervention. The event, organised by Green Left Weekly and the Socialist Alliance, also heard a reportback from the recent anti-intervention convergence in Alice Springs and the “Justice Tour” bus trip.
Many participants expressed disgust at the Labor government’s role in the intervention. Many were also amazed at how little coverage there was in the media about the issue.
BLUE MOUNTAINS — Blue Mountains train stations have lost one-fifth of staffing hours each week, after the implementation of RailCorp’s review, said figures supplied by the Rail, Tram and Bus Union (RTBU).
The following is an abridged version of a talk given by Terry Townsend at the recent Climate Change Social Change Conference in Sydney. Townsend is a long-term member of the Democratic Socialist Perspective and the managing editor of Links online journal (<http://links.org.au>).
More than 40 people gathered at the Katoomba YHA on February 2 to demand that the Labor state governments in NSW and Victoria overturn their decisions to end the ban on the commercial growing of genetically modified (GM) canola. From March this year, NSW farmers can apply to grow GM canola.
More than 400 people protested against Prime Minister John Howard’s anti-union government outside Bathurst’s Carrington restaurant on May 25. Howard was in town to address a fundraiser, part of a desperate attempt to save Liberal MP for Macquarie Kerry Bartlett from likely defeat at the federal election.