The Climate Emergency – No More Business as Usual conference, held in Adelaide on October 10-11, included 18 workshops canvassing many issues around the politics of the environment: from food production and peak oil, to theories of political change and educational programming. The following article is based on discussion arising from one of these workshops titled “Sustainable solutions”. The presenters in the workshop were Bev Hall from the Australia Cuba Friendship Society, Andrew Hall from the Australia Venezuela Solidarity Network and Margaret Rhode, a member of Urban Ecology and resident of the Christie Walk EcoCity development in Adelaide.
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There’s one positive aspect of global financial chaos. It throws into question the Australian model of funding our retirement—compulsory superannuation.
The Young Liberals are testing the long-held notion that academic autonomy is sacrosanct. Their so-called “Make Education Fair” campaign is really a witch hunt against progressive educators and academics.
Despite the spectacular vaporisation of trillions of dollars of financial assets, and the collapse of more than a score of banks around the world, we haven’t seen a single banker jump out of a window in Wall Street or its equivalents around the world.
Having “free” and “fair” multi-party elections is the United States’ main claim to democracy. But just how democratic is US capitalism?
On October 24, Palm Island community leader Lex Wotton was found guilty of “riot with destruction” in a trial where police were accused by the defence counsel of “lying through their teeth”. Wotton is due to be sentenced on November 7.
The October 23 acquittal of Jack Thomas from a terrorism charge highlights what is wrong with Australia’s anti-terror laws and the way they are being applied.
On September 29, Harry Nelson, former Yuendumu (Northern Territory) council president, presented Indigenous affairs minister Jenny Macklin with a statement, written in Warlpiri and English, signed by 236 residents. Macklin was in the community to officially open a new pool, the funding of which predates the NT intervention. An abridged version of the statement is reprinted below.
A new documentary, A Well-Founded Fear, to be broadcast on SBS on November 19, documents the deaths of nine Afghan refugees who were returned to Afghanistan after having their asylum applications rejected.
With its banks secured in the warmth of the southern spring, Australia is not news internationally. It ought to be. An epic scandal of racism, injustice and brutality is being covered up in the manner of apartheid South Africa.
In early September, residents of the Brookland Greens estate, about 50 kilometres south-east of Melbourne, were advised by the Country Fire Authority that methane from the landfill nearby had reached potentially explosive levels and they should get out of there as soon as they could. No emergency housing was offered to them.
The following statement was written by Bree Blakeman (Djawulanganing) on behalf of the Gumatj clan nation, MataMata Homeland, North-East Arnhem Land.
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