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Guy Pearse — the speechwriter for the federal Coalition environment minister from 1997 to 2000 who blew the whistle last year on the Howard government’s use of Australia’s biggest polluters to write its greenhouse gas emissions policy — visited Melbourne on October 24 as part of an east-coast speaking tour.
On September 21 about 200 people attended a forum on Sri Lanka organised by People for Human Rights and Racial Equality, a group comprising Sri Lankans of different ethnic groups living in Australia.
It was when they played Kermit the Frog singing The Rainbow Connection at Gail Lord’s funeral that I started crying.
In the lead-up to the federal election, your guide to what’s really happening behind the spin of the official campaign.
On October 25, 20 people attended a forum on the current situation in Burma. The meeting was organised by the socialist youth organisation Resistance, and featured two human rights activists from Burma — Benya Aye and Sujauddin Karimuddin. The
Vladimir Villegas, Venezuela’s foreign affairs vice-minister for Asia, Oceania and the Middle East, met with members and affiliates of the Australia-Venezuela Solidarity Network at Casa Latina on October 22. Villegas, who had just completed a week of meetings with government leaders in the Pacific about how Venezuela could provide development assistance for their ailing economies and environments, spoke about the progress of the Bolivarian revolution, and outlined Venezuela’s plan for strengthening cooperation with the countries of Asia Pacific based on solidarity, respect for sovereignty and collaboration in the areas of energy diversification, health services and education, in particular. The next day, Villegas was joined by solidarity activists and representatives of other Latin American governments at a tribute held at the bust of Simon Bolivar in the Plaza Iberoamerica.
5000 state sector nurses crammed into Melbourne’s Festival Hall and voted unanimously to end their industrial action and accept a four year enterprise bargaining agreement (EBA) at an Australian Nursing Federation (ANF) mass meeting on October 25.
On October 21, 200 people attended the African Community Solidarity Gathering on the Esplanade to protest against immigration minister Kevin Andrews' decision to stop any further granting this year of refugee visas to African asylum seekers. Speakers
The Venezuelan consulate and the residency of a Cuban doctor were attacked with explosives in the opposition-controlled state of Santa Cruz in the early hours of Monday October 22.
Twenty-one years ago Jackie Kriz, an Australian Nurses Federation job representative, took part in Victoria’s landmark nurses’ dispute of 1986. As a young Geelong nurse she remembers the long campaign where nurses went from being professionals who would never strike to industrial campaigners.
The immigration department, Australia's detention centre operator GSL and the immigration minister Kevin Andrews are forcibly deporting asylum seekers who sought Australia's protection after having had the most heinous forms of torture inflicted on
Carrying signs reading “Police are the real terrorists” and “Free all political activists”, up to 1000 people rallied outside the Rotorua District Court on October 25 to protest against police raids that resulted in the arrest of 17 people a week earlier, as three of those arrested had their court cases transferred to Auckland.