About 70 people campaigning to save Peron Point from becoming another unwanted canal project braved heavy storms in an action on May 8. They marched from the property of the developer, Cedar Woods, to state parliament in Western Australia to present a petition of more than 8000 signatures.
Greens MP Lynn MacLaren accepted the signatures and addressed the rally with several Labor politicians looking on.
The vocal crowd chanted and listened to speakers including Greens candidate Dawn Jecks and outspoken town planner Greg Gooroo at an 鈥渙pen mic鈥.
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鈥淭he anti-Semite Stephen Hawking can鈥檛 even wipe his own ass." 鈥淪omeone should release the hand brake when he鈥檚 on a hill." 鈥淗e should die already." These were just some of the comments left on Facebook after the most famous cosmologist in the world, Stephen Hawking, announced he was respecting the academic boycott of Israel.
The Conservation Council of Western Australia released this statement on May 9.
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The Conservation Council of Western Australia (CCWA) has warned that the state government could be repeating the mistakes made on James Price Point by rushing into a major new industrial gas fracking project in the Kimberley that risks serious and irreversible damage to the cultural and environmental values of the region.
The environment movement in Tasmania has split over support for a forest 鈥減eace鈥 agreement the Tasmanian Greens and environment groups made with the logging industry.
The environment groups have been in negotiations with the industry for almost three years. As the industry declined, environmentalists saw a chance for reform to win an end to the forest wars permanently.
The agreement was passed in state parliament on April 30, supported by the Greens and Labor, and opposed the Liberal party.
However, many people in the environment movement disagreed with the bill.
As the 2013 federal budget looms, both the Labor government and the Opposition insist on the need to cut social spending. All the talk is about bringing the budget back into surplus as soon as possible and the cuts, they argue, will be needed to end the federal deficit.
Ministers in Julia Gillard鈥檚 government have warned of a huge shortfall in government revenue, estimated at $7.5 billion by treasurer Wayne Swan and $17 billion by finance minister Penny Wong.
Before a May 7 visit to US Congress by South Korean President Park Geun-hye, the Workers Solidarity Student Group 鈥 the student section of socialist group Workers Solidarity All Together 鈥 issued this statement about the threat to war on the Korean peninsula. It was translated by Chris Kim and is abridged from US Socialist Worker.
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Amid the continuing rise of military tensions on the Korean peninsula, South Korea's new president, Park Geun-hye, will make her first visit to the US since her inauguration in late February for a US-South Korean summit.
No Local: Why Small-Scale Alternatives Won鈥檛 Change the World
Greg Sharzer
Zero Books, 2012
Against a backdrop of global climate disasters, financial panics, and inequality, localism 鈥 the creation of small-scale local systems of production and distribution 鈥 seems to make sense.
Start small and stay close to home. Forge community ties, grow your own food locally, and create alternatives that can eventually replace the current system of global capitalism with a sane, sustainable way of life.
Seventeen kilometres by ferry from Perth is Western Australia's "premier tourist destination". This is Rottnest Island, whose scabrous wild beauty and isolation evoked for me Robben Island in South Africa.
Empires are never short of devil's islands; what makes Rottnest different, indeed what makes Australia different, is a silence and denial on an epic scale.
Finally, we have a reason to get excited about elections. Yes, billionaire mining magnate Clive Palmer has formed a political party and is determined to become Australia鈥檚 next prime minister.
For the first time in god knows how long, we have a real alternative to the tweedledum-tweedledee politics of the big parties. Palmer's bid for PM poses a crucial question: why shouldn鈥檛 those who own this country, run it too?
Liberal Premier Colin Barnett has proposed reforms to license and register some forms of sex work. And again people are referring to the bill as 鈥渓egalisation鈥 and 鈥減artial decriminalisation鈥 when it is not. It鈥檚 deeply concerning when big party politicians and mainstream journalists do not understand the proposed sex-work laws, and describe them as the opposite of what they are. Most Western Australians seem unaware that Barnett鈥檚 proposed bill is unnecessary, perpetuates stigma towards sex workers and will result in worse working conditions.
University students across Australia will take to the streets on May 14 to protest the federal Labor government鈥檚 $2.8 billion cuts to higher education. The call by the National Union of Students (NUS) for a 鈥渟tudent strike against education cuts鈥 has not only received support from students, but also the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU), which covers university staff. On a number of campuses, NTEU members have been resisting cuts that university administrations claim are necessary due to lack of government funding.
The online Sydney Morning Herald published an of possible federal budget expenditures and cuts. You can click on an icon for several costed items listed as "Cuts to programs" or "Raise taxes or end concessions". As you click on a cut or revenue measure the budget balance shifts.
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