HOBART — A recent Newspoll on woodchipping commissioned by Doctors for Forests has drawn angry responses from the forestry industry and Liberal and Labor state politicians. More than 85% of the 1200 people interviewed across Australia said they would support federal government intervention to end old-growth woodchipping in Tasmania.
Tasmanian Greens senator Bob Brown unveiled the poll on January 28, a day before the ALP national conference in Sydney. He said that there was even stronger support for protecting Tasmania's forests than there was for saving the Franklin River in the early 1980s.
According to the January 29 Mercury, The Forestry Industries Association called the poll "a sham", because the question included the assertion: "Last year, more than five million tonnes of woodchips, largely from Tasmania's old-growth forests, were exported." The FIA claims that only 5% of woodchips were from old growth forests. However, Doctors for Forests pointed out that many forests considered by conservationists to be old growth are classified as "mixed-age native forests" or "other forests" by Forestry Tasmania.
Lucy Hawthorne
Activists to run for Senate
ADELAIDE — The Socialist Alliance will stand two Senate candidates in South Australia: Tom Bertuleit and Amy McDonell.
Bertuleit has been involved in actions to defend public hospitals, and campaigns against the poor treatment of refugees and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. He helped organise a successful protest against toxic emissions from a factory near his home.
McDonell is a member of socialist youth organisation Resistance. She was one of the Adelaide conveners of Books not Bombs, which organised thousands of young people to protest against the war on Iraq. She was involved in the campaign for free education, has organised protests and speak-outs for refugees and is currently helping to organise a youth contingent for this year's International Women's Day.
John McGill
Protest against corporate-funded ALP
SYDNEY — More than 50 noisy protesters chanted "Donations to the ALP, selling out democracy!" at a demonstration outside the Labor Party's lavish fundraising dinner on the eve of its January 29-31 national conference.
The January 28 protest, organised by the NSW Greens, condemned the ALP's massive funding by corporations, reflected by the dinner's $11,000 a table price tag.
Greens senator Kerry Nettle told the demonstration that the Greens are "moving for" a ban on all corporate donations to political parties. "In the past four years, Labor in NSW has taken a staggering $20 million in corporate donations — exceeding the $12 million raised by the traditional friend of big business, the Liberal Party."
Holding a placard which read "NSW Labor: the light's been privatised and the hill's been sold to developers", Socialist Alliance member Jenny Long, an activist in the Public Service Association, drew links between the ALP's massive corporate funding and its drive to decimate NSW public services.
"While taking masses of corporate money, the ALP is cutting thousands of jobs and ruining necessary public services — such as in TAFE with massive fee increases", Long said.
Paul Benedek
Invasion Day rally demands 'repay stolen wages'
BRISBANE — The demand to repay the stolen wages of Aborigines who worked under successive Queensland governments from the 1890s to the 1970s was the central focus of this year's Invasion Day rally, held at Emma Miller Place (Roma Street Forum) on January 26.
Around 300 people rallied and later marched to Musgrave Park for a Murri festival. Chairperson Sam Watson welcomed the crowd and urged continued struggle for the rights of Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders.
Aboriginal elders from the region, including Bob Weatherall from the Foundation for Aboriginal and Islander Research Action, condemned the Queensland Labor government for its lack of action on Murri rights. Auntie Ruth called on young Murris to "get political".
Adrian Skerritt, Socialist Alliance candidate for Inala in the Queensland state election, described the state government's settlement offer to Aboriginal workers as "insulting". He condemned the Howard government's attempt to re-write the history of Black dispossession and genocide.
Lynda Hansen, Socialist Alliance candidate for South Brisbane, said the stolen wages were "slave wages, until they are repaid in full". She discussed homelessness among Aboriginal people in inner-suburban Brisbane, and urged support for the rally to evict South Brisbane ALP MP Anna Bligh and turn her electoral office over to local homeless people on January 31.
Adrian McAvoy, an independent Aboriginal candidate for Brisbane central, spoke on his campaign to highlight the issue of stolen wages and Murri rights in Premier Peter Beattie's seat of Brisbane Central.
From 91×ÔÅÄÂÛ̳ Weekly, February 4, 2004.
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