New South Wales鈥 peak advocate for housing justice, Shelter, held a conference in Sydney on April 18 to look at the challenges in housing assistance facing policymakers and decide what key steps need to be taken to improve housing outcomes for disadvantaged people.
NSW Minister for Community Services Pru Goward opened the conference.
She said the housing situation in NSW is grim due to housing being more expensive, less plentiful and inadequately funded. People who require housing also have more needs, she said.
964
Presentation by Gaye Page-Burt to the January 31 Sustainable Transport Forum in the Fremantle Town Hall.
In a different world 鈥 in a better world 鈥 Jock Palfreeman would not be in a jail serving a 20-year sentence. Instead he'd be awarded a medal for great courage, principle and instinctive support for victims of racist violence.
He would not be locked away in a jail in Bulgaria. He鈥檇 be toured around as an example of the sort of person we should all aspire to be. One who stands up for the underdog, who refuses to tolerate oppression and injustice.
Anyone who reads 91自拍论坛 Weekly would probably know Bernie Rosen was an inexhaustible letter writer and so it seems fitting to compose one in his honour.
Although it should be said that Bernie鈥檚 emphasis on letters later in his life was no doubt in part because his other favoured forms of political campaigning, such as door-to-door canvassing, newspaper distribution and public oration, were less and less physically possible for him. Letters were his way of engaging in the class struggle until the very end of his 88 years.
It has been four years since the Tamil rebels were crushed by the Sri Lankan armed forces. The Sri Lankan government, led by Mahinda Rajapaksa, still denies that any human rights violations occurred.
In March, a called on the Rajapaksa government 鈥渢o conduct an independent and credible investigation into allegations of violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law.鈥
This has fallen on deaf ears.
The smuggling of cameras inside detention camps on Nauru and Manus Island by the has added to pressure on Labor to answer for the shocking conditions in which men, women and children are being held.
Footage that was aired on April 29 showed rows of muddy tents, derelict amenities and ablution facilities and image after image of people who are losing the will to live.
Austerity almost seems like the defining feature of politics today. Across Europe and the US, crippling cuts to education, health care and welfare budgets are driving millions further into poverty.
Even in Australia, where our economy has been spared the worst of the financial crisis, both big parties are raising taxes on ordinary people and applying cuts to welfare and education.
Last year, cuts to courses and staff at several universities, including Sydney University and La Trobe University, led to strong campaigns by staff and students to defend their education and jobs.
James Hansen resigned from his position as director of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in April to devote more time to campaigning to cut global carbon emissions. In addition to his scientific research on climate change, Hansen has been arrested several times in recent years at protests against coal mining and tar sands mining. Bravo James Hansen 鈥 precious few scientists and academics live and breathe their politics as he does.
The federal Labor government had a rare win when it wedged Tony Abbott and the Liberal opposition into supporting its plan to fund the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) through an increase in the Medicare levy.
But will this be enough to stop Abbott from winning the next election? If the bookies know their business, few are game to put money on this. An ALP win is at its longest odds since Sportsbet opened betting on the election result.
About 200 people rallied outside NSW government offices on May 3 to protest the decision of the NSW Liberal government to defund the Welfare Rights Centre (WRC), an advice and advocacy service for pensioners, the unemployed and other welfare recipients.
The $400,000 cut is 40% of the WRC funding (the rest coming from the federal government) and is seen as an attempt to silence a voice for the poorest sector of society. This follows federal Labor government cuts to sole parent pensions, a step which plunged thousands more women under the poverty line.
Palestine Action Group Sydney released this statement on May 2.
***
Supporters of Palestine have responded to a May 2 report in the Australian that asserted that Max Brenner Israel has no direct shares in Max Brenner Australia as irrelevant to the solidarity campaign for justice in Palestine.
Palestine solidarity activists are bemused that the Australian has given front page coverage to this 鈥渟coop鈥. The YouTube video of the rally in question, which took place on September 21 last year, has also just been released.
Ten thousand building workers walked off the job and rallied in Melbourne's CBD on April 30 to protest against the poor safety record of construction companies such as Grocon.
Unionists led by the Construction Forestry Mining Energy Union (CFMEU) marched from Trades Hall to Grocon's Swanston Street building site, where a wall collapsed and killed passers-by Alexander and Bridget Jones and Marie Faith-Fiawoo.
- Previous page
- Page 3
- Next page