Mel Barnes, a well-known Tasmanian political activist, will contest the seat of Denison in the upcoming federal elections, for the Socialist Alliance. Barnes is a leading climate and renewable energy campaigner involved in Climate Action Hobart.
She has also campaigned for women鈥檚 rights, Palestine solidarity, refugee rights and Latin American solidarity. In 2006, Barnes went on a solidarity tour of Venezuela to learn about the revolutionary changes occurring there. Barnes stood for the Socialist Alliance in the recent state elections.
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New World of Indigenous Resistance
By Noam Chomsky and voices from North, South, and Central America
City Lights Open Media, 2010, 300 pages
Review by Mat Ward
This book bills itself as a 鈥渧irtual hemispheric conversation鈥 and claims to be the first book of its kind.
It is certainly an eye-opener.
We come from the land that gives us life.
We remember the time when the virgin earth brought forth
fruits in great abundance 鈥 a natural paradise 鈥 before greed
ripped our land and lives apart
Now mining scars the face of the planet,
leaves deep craters where once wild rivers ran
Our freedom curtailed, many search for paradise lost,
chasing butterflies of illusion in a cloud of confusion.
Heed the warning of our cousins the Cree:
Only when the last tree has died,
the last river poisoned and the last fish been caught,
will you realise that you cannot eat money
The Queensland Crime and Misconduct Commission (CMC) recently released a report highly critical of the police investigation into the case of Palm Island Aboriginal man Mulrunji Doomadgee, who died in police custody in November 2004. The CMC gave police commissioner Bob Atkinson 14 days to take disciplinary action against six officers involved.
Atkinson was due to make his decision by July 2, but an injunction filed on behalf of the officers extended the deadline until July 6
While G20 leaders barely made mention of the climate crisis at the June 26-27 G20 summit in Toronto, Pablo Solon, Bolivia鈥檚 United Nations ambassador, was in town to encourage action on the 鈥淐ochabamba protocols鈥.
It is no surprise that Solon, also Bolivia鈥檚 chief climate negotiator, was not on the list of special invitees to G20 meetings. In April, Solon and the Bolivian government he represents organised the World People鈥檚 Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth in Cochabamba.
The detention of about 150 asylum seekers in a disused mining camp at Leonora, near Kalgoorlie in remote Western Australia, is a return to the dark days of previous Coalition prime minister John Howard.
Under Howard, asylum seekers were detained at a disused defence department shooting range at Woomera in South Australia. Both cases involve refugees being detained at remote prison camps and only allowed out accompanied by detention centre staff.
The number of 鈥淗igh Net Worth Individuals鈥 (HNWIs) in Australia 鈥 those with more than US$1 million in investable assets, excluding the family home 鈥 soared to 173,600 last year. This, according to the latest World Wealth Report, was an increase of 34.4% on the year before.
The June 30 Sunshine Coast Daily said: 鈥淲hat's more impressive is Australia's ranking in the global population of HNWIs. Out of 71 countries, Australia has the 10th biggest population of HNWIs in the world, in front of Brazil and just behind that millionaire's paradise of Switzerland.鈥
25 intrepid activists left on July 2 for Alice Springs as part of a Justice Ride to show solidarity with Aboriginal people fighting against the NT intervention. They will take part in the Defending Indigenous Rights: Land Law Culture convergence in Alice Springs from July 6 to 9.
Just after becoming prime minister, Julia Gillard told media on June 24 she could understand 鈥渢he anxiety and indeed fears that Australians have when they see [refugee] boats鈥. She did not cite evidence for this claim. She said that, as PM, she would explain to the Australian people 鈥渨hat we are doing to manage our borders and what we are doing to manage asylum seeker flows鈥.
National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) members at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) began industrial action on June 30 to pressure management to reach agreement with the union on a range of claims. They want reinstatement of job security protections for contract research staff; improved conditions for casual and fixed-term staff; Indigenous employment targets and an increase in paid parental leave from 26 to 36 weeks.
A Short Border Handbook
By Gazmend Kapllani
Portobello Books 2009
159 pages
Review by Alex Miller
This book, which the author describes as 鈥減art autobiography, part fiction鈥, is hard to assess. Each chapter is divided into two parts. The first part tells the story of a man (presumably Kapllani himself) who crosses into Greece from Albania when the border between those two countries opened in 1991. The second part consists of 鈥減hilosophical鈥 ruminations on issues raised by the story of the first part.
South Australian independent Bob Such announced on June 28 he would introduce a private member's bill into the state parliament that would, in effect, ban the wearing of the burqa or the niqab in banks and government buildings.
Such claimed his bill would not be discriminatory and would target any face covering where security might be a concern. However, all his public statements have specifically raised the burqa and its possible use in criminal activity.
Multicultural affairs minister Grace Portolesi said SA police have said they have no such concerns about the burqa.
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