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ADELAIDE — With just two days' notice, 80 people gathered on October 7 to voice their opposition to federal environment minister Malcolm Turnbull's approval of the Gunns pulp mill in Tasmania's Tamar Valley. The rally, called by the Greens, was addressed by Sarah Hanson Young, the Greens' lead Senate candidate in South Australia. Greens MLC Mark Parnell also spoke, condemning the South Australian Rann Labor government for its failure to perform an environmental impact study for a new pulp mill at Penola in the state's south-east. Kris Hanna, independent MLC, and Ruth Russell of the Democrats also spoke. Socialist Alliance activist Ruth Ratcliffe called on those present to continue the campaign against the pulp mill and for a massive turnout at the Walk Against Warming protests.

As the 2007 federal election gets underway, an odd trend is showing up in the opinion polls. After eleven-and-a-half years of Coalition government and an ALP “opposition” that stood “shoulder to shoulder” with it in so many of its crimes, the combined vote for the two “parties of government” is back up to 90% (48% for Labor and 42% for the Coalition according to the Nielsen poll released on October 19).

@body intro = My name is Ayi Layah Mon and I am a member of the Mon Youth Group.

In the lead-up to the federal election, here’s a guide to what’s really happening in the Liberal and Labor camps, as well as anecdotes from the Socialist Alliance’s campaign trail.

The Howard government’s changes to electoral legislation, passed last year, will mean a large portion of young people who are of voting age will be left off the electoral roll for the November 24 federal election. This legislation — an obvious move to bar certain voters from the political process — affects mainly those who are statistically more likely to vote against the government, such as the young, homeless people, house-renters and those who speak English as a second language.