The Australian environmental movement is under attack by populationist and anti-immigration forces in a calculated attempt to divide the Green Party vote at the federal election.
The Stable Population Party (SPP), the Stop Population Growth Now (SPGN) Party in South Australia and their mother organisation, Sustainable Population Australia, are 鈥済reen washing鈥 their anti-immigration policies to make them more palatable to the electorate.
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A fire ripped through Nauru's main hospital on August 14, destroying the pharmacy, medical stores and x-ray facilities.
Joanna Olsson from the Nauru government's information office that the fire ruined a quarter of the building and could entail a 鈥渕edical emergency鈥 for Nauru.
The cause was believed to be electrical. Like many services on the island, Nauru's hospital is rundown and relies on Australian aid for maintenance and repair.
Liberal leader Tony Abbott's statement that marriage equality was a passing 鈥渇ashion of the moment,鈥 has galvanised anger in the lead up to nation-wide marriage equality rallies.
It follows Prime Minister Kevin Rudd鈥檚 promise to introduce a bill for marriage equality within 100 days of being re-elected.
During the August 11 debate between Rudd and Abbott, instead of committing Labor to passing the bill, Rudd said his party would have a conscience vote, and called on the Liberal Party to do the same.
About 260 people gathered at a mass meeting in Tecoma on August 11 and vowed to continue to fight against a McDonald鈥檚 Restaurant in their town.
Demolition of the site began on August 8 but the meeting reaffirmed their determination to maintain a protest on the site.
Support for the protest continues to grow. The Victorian branch of the Australian Service Union released a statement on August 10.
About 350 paramedics surrounded Victorian Health Minister David Davis's Melbourne office on August 12 to protest in support of their year-long campaign for better wages.
Victoria has Australia's most highly trained and lowest paid paramedics. Supporters came from as far away as Gippsland and Shepparton.
鈥淎mbulance Victoria is in serious trouble unless they can become competitive with other states,鈥 said Ambulance Employees Australia organiser Danny Hill.
This statement was released by the Socialist Alliance on August 16.
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Kevin Rudd says he is now in favour of equal marriage rights, but Labor鈥檚 policy allows its politicians a "conscience vote". This is simply unacceptable, and lets homophobic MPs off the hook.
Why does Labor have a "conscience vote" on equal marriage? It doesn't have a conscience vote on other issues, such as sending asylum seekers to PNG or cutting sole-parent pensions 鈥 even though Labor's policies on these issues violate the conscience of any decent human being.
The Queensland government has approved a $6.4 billion coalmine to be owned by Clive Palmer.
The huge mining project, located in the Galilee Basin in central Queensland, is expected to produce about 40 million tonnes of coal a year for 30 years, much of which will be shipped to booming industrial centres in China.
On top of that, hundreds of kilometres of railway will be laid to the Abbot Point coal terminal near Bowen, one of the many ports along the Queensland coast that is used to ship coal overseas.
The Victorian Blind Workers鈥 Union and United Voice Queensland are battling to save the jobs of 73 vision-impaired workers employed by Vision Australia Enterprises in Victoria, Queensland and New South Wales.
There are approximately 60,000 public and community housing tenants in NSW and about 85% of them are receiving welfare benefits.
Several non-government organisations (NGOs) such as Mission Australia are now providing clothing, food, job training and housing to welfare recipients.
As more and more public housing gets transferred into the hands of NGOs as part of a push for privatisation, many of the organisations who were traditionally advocating for the poor have now become their landlords. These organisations receive a large part of their clients鈥 income through their rent assistance.
About 40 people gathered at Reg Hillier House in Darwin鈥檚 rural area on August 15 to discuss threats posed by petroleum companies wanting to explore for oil and gas.
Applications for exploration under the Petroleum Act, which could include oil or gas, have reached the outer rural areas including the entire Cox Peninsula, parts of Humpty Doo and Howard Springs, the Dundee area and Litchfield National Park. Exploration may involve using the controversial method of horizontal hydraulic fracturing (鈥渇racking鈥) if shale gas is found.
Locked-out Yallourn power station workers were joined by hundreds of people at a rally outside the offices of their employer, Energy Australia, in Melbourne on August 16.
The company, a subsidiary of the Hong Kong-based China Light and Power, locked out all 75 shift operators, members of the Construction Forestry Mining Energy Union (CFMEU), on June 21.
The workers had been limiting power output as part of a campaign of protected industrial action in pursuit of a new enterprise agreement.
We recently suffered the very sad loss of Mick Goldstein. Goldstein was a stalwart of Jews Against the Occupation (JAO), who campaign for the rights of Palestinians. Like Bernie Rosen, whom we lost earlier this year, Goldstein was in the proud Jewish tradition of the international socialist left.
The mass participation of Jewish people on the left was largely decimated by the Nazi Holocaust, and lamentably, it has been overtaken by a reactionary Zionism which has now come to dominate Jewish communities around the world. But activists like Goldstein reminded us of what once was.
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