Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott has defended Papua New Guinea's efforts to shut down at least two legal inquiries into the treatment of asylum seekers in the Manus Island detention centre, after the violence that left one man dead and scores injured.
A PNG National Court judge, Justice David Cannings, announced early last month he would hold an independent inquiry into the conditions in the centre, and determine whether asylum seekers' human rights were being upheld under the country's constitution.
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Stop Income Management in Playford released this statement on March 26.
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The number of income management clients in the city of Playford in northern Adelaide increased almost 700% over the second half of last year, according to data from the Department of Social Services.
As of December 27, 495 people were on income management. The May 23 figure for Playford, seven months earlier, was 71 people.
Born in 1929, Michael Denborough studied medicine in Cape Town, South Africa, and as part of his training went to treat people in the black townships. Later as a Rhodes scholar at Oxford, he saw the stark contrast between the two worlds and his passion for social justice was ignited.
World War II had had a profound effect on him as people he had known at school were sacrificed in an 鈥渁ppalling waste of humanity鈥. He said: 鈥淭he nuclear industry seems to embody everything that is worst about human nature. It could destroy all life on earth 50 times over simply for greed鈥.
鈥淲e hope Christians will reflect on what it means to follow and worship a refugee God, and to stand in the tradition of a people who were sojourners and strangers in a foreign land,鈥 said Matt Anslow, a Uniting Church member who participated in a prayer vigil protesting the detention of asylum seekers, in the electorate office of Scott Morrison.
On March 21, this group of believers from Uniting, Anglican, Catholic, Hillsong and Anabaptist traditions walked into the office and invited the staff to join them praying for an end to mandatory detention.
A new documentary film Radical Wollongong, produced by 91自拍论坛 TV, will premiere in Wollongong in early May, followed by screenings in other cities and regional centres.
The film features activist participants from Wollongong's radical history of strikes and community rallies, from miners鈥 struggles to Aboriginal justice and environmental protection.
Co-producer John Rainford gives some background to the first coalminers associations, setting up Wollongong with its reputation as a city of militants.
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In Canberra on April 21, there will be the first meeting of representatives of the groups that together make up the Independent and Peaceful Australia Network (IPAN). The individual representatives will be drawn from every state and territory.
On April 22, the main conference will take place, with invited experts speaking on a range of related topics. The conference will be open to the general public and is expected to draw a large number of people with an interest in creating a more independent Australia.
These are dark times, so we should celebrate what victories come the way of working people facing the brunt of the Abbott gang's 鈥渒ick everyone and their dog鈥 strategy.
And so we should celebrate the big win for workers' rights with media star, would-be politician and part-time Australian Workers Union national secretary Paul Howes' announcing his resignation from the union movement.
Over the past year, Geelong has been hit hard by job cuts at Ford, Alcoa, Target, Holden, Toyota and Avalon Airport, as well as state and federal government departments. Geelong Trades Hall has organised a rally on April 7, calling for more manufacturing jobs in the region.
A public meeting organised by the Queensland Civil Liberties Network was held at Brisbane City Hall on March 24, the second anniversary of the election of the Queensland Liberal National government.
Speakers included Indigenous elder and long-term activist Sam Watson; union and community activist Bob Carnegie; QLD President of the Australian Lawyers Alliance Michelle James; Sisters Inside activist Debbie Kilroy; Queensland Council of Unions president John Battams and Civil Liberties Council spokesperson Terry O鈥橤orman.
PRIME MINISTER TONY Abbott introduced a 鈥渞ed tape repeal day鈥 on March 26. About 9500 regulations contained in more than 50,000 pages of legislation and related documents got the chop.
One of the 鈥渞ed tape regulations鈥 that will be scrapped is the Commonwealth Cleaning Services Guidelines, which apply to cleaners employed on government contracts.
University students and staff protested proposed cuts to tertiary education in Sydney鈥檚 CBD on March 26.
The event involved about 200 people from various faculties, who marched against the proposed $2.3 billion dollar cuts to their universities.
Students from as far away as the University of Newcastle, gathered outside the University of Technology Sydney Broadway campus.
"We'll win this, because we'll stick together", Barney Gardner, a long-time resident of the Millers Point public housing area in inner-city Sydney, told a rally of several hundred at Argyle Place on March 25.
The rally heard a variety of speakers condemn the Barry O'Farrell NSW government for its decision to sell-off 293 public properties in the historic heartland of Sydney, following a march organised by the Maritime Union of Australia (MUA) from the Kent Street Fire Station.
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