Tasmanian Aboriginal activist Michael Mansell said he was grateful for the thoughts behind his Australia Day award nomination but that he 鈥渨ould be a hypocrite to accept it鈥.
Mansell has been outspoken about the offensiveness of Australia鈥檚 national day celebrating the invasion and dispossession of Australia鈥檚 Aboriginal people. He has participated in Invasion Day rallies held by the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre for many years.
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More people die from air pollution in Australia than the road toll, Greens Senator Richard Di Natale told a public meeting in Melbourne鈥檚 inner-west municipality of Maribyrnong on October 23.
Di Natale instigated the recent Senate inquiry into the effects of air pollution on human health, which concluded in August. He said there had been a 鈥渃atastrophic failure in this country to monitor air quality鈥.
Controversial private member鈥檚 bill 鈥淶oe鈥檚 law鈥, which aims to give legal rights to foetuses, was again set aside in the NSW Legislative Assembly on October 31. Only a few MPs turned up to the third second-reading debate; four spoke against and three spoke for it.
Those against were: Andrew McDonald (ALP Macquarie Fields); Leslie Williams (Nationals Port Macquarie); Jamie Parker (Greens Balmain) and John Williams (Nationals Murray Darling).
Police on horseback and riot officers violently broke up a student protest in Melbourne on October 30. The demonstration was held to oppose federal government threats to higher education, and was part of a national week of student action, called by the National Union of Students.
Just two days before the protest, education minister Christopher Pyne told the ABC鈥檚 Q&A the government was investigating the possibility of selling off student HECS debt to private companies.
"We are here today,鈥 Professor Stuart Rees told a media conference at Queens Square on October 30, 鈥渢o express our outrage that a so-called independent law centre from Israel could attempt to stamp out freedom of speech in Australia.鈥
"We call on the mainstream media to take an objective stand on the issue of Palestinian human rights.鈥
The gathering concerned the move by Shurat HaDin, an Israeli-based law centre, to file a case in the Federal Court against Professor Jake Lynch of the University of Sydney's Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies.
Comedian, Hollywood star and former host of MTV and Big Brother's Big Mouth Russell Brand in a Newsnight interview subsequently viewed millions of times on YouTube.
The journalist, veteran of many bruising encounters with politicians of all stripes, decisively lost.
Multi-lingual multi-instrumentalist Pat Marks fronts the multi-faceted Melbourne band Pataphysics. As the "guerilla hip-hop" outfit prepare to launch their new EP, 91自拍论坛 Weekly's Mat Ward spoke to Marks about his multifarious pursuits, from refugee rights to juvenile justice.
Several thousands of people marched and rallied in the United States鈥 capital on October 26 in protest against the mass surveillance of almost all Americans and hundreds of millions of citizens of other countries.
The huge Big Brother program, conducted by the US National Security Agency (NSA), has been exposed by Edward Snowdon, considered a hero by those demonstrating.
Beginning in May last, Snowden鈥檚 trove of revelations keeps coming through releases by Glenn Greenwald in the British Guardian.
鈥橳hank you鈥
The Big Truck That Went By, How the World Came to Save Haiti and left Behind a Disaster
By Jonathan M. Katz
Palgrave Macmillan, 2013
282 pp., $24.95
On January 12, 2010, Haiti, one of the poorest countries in the world, was devastated by a huge earthquake.
Death toll estimates range from between 100,000 to more than 300,000. Nobody really knows, because Haiti was poorly governed beforehand and virtually taken over by foreign governments and non-government organisations (NGOs) afterwards.
I was introduced to Gazan hip-hop act Revolution Makers when I saw them perform in Gaza City during PalFest in May.
A details genocide against the indigenous people of West Papua carried out by the Indonesian government, which has occupied the territory since the 1960s.
The report, 鈥淎 slow-motion genocide: Indonesian rule in West Papua鈥, was written by Dr Jim Elmslie and Dr Camellia Webb-Gannon, both visiting scholars at the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies at Sydney University. It was published in the Griffith Journal of Law and Human Dignity.
Recently, Mamamia editor Mia Freedman wrote railing against Kim Kardashian. While by no means do I hold Kardashian up as a demonstration of feminism, I think that Freedman has this wrong, very wrong.
From the title 鈥淎re you a mother or a porn star?鈥, which degrades the ability of women who work in the porn industry to be effective parents, Freedman projects some extremely backward views on motherhood, sexuality and body image.
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