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WorkChoices: Sign up for slavery

Graham Matthews Unemployed workers will face no choice but to accept any job offer, regardless of its lack of penalty rates, public holidays or breaks, under the Howard government's proposed changes to industrial relations laws. Failing to take

Student activists targeted

Simon Cunich, Sydney Students have claimed all year that the Howard government's proposed "voluntary student unionism" (VSU) legislation is really aimed, not at giving freedom of choice as the government claims, but at silencing dissent against its

Centrelink staff to stop work on November 15

Andrew Hall, Canberra Members of the Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU) working in Centrelink are set to stop work nationally for several hours on November 15 to attend the ACTU's national SkyChannel broadcast and protest rallies against the

Ambulance officers stop work

BRISBANE — Ambulance officers around Queensland stopped work on October 26 to demand improvements in staffing and working conditions, in the first statewide strike in history. Around 500 paramedics and their families demonstrated outside the Kedron

Save Recherche Bay, says heritage group

Alex Bainbridge, Hobart The Recherche Bay Protection Group held a commemoration on October 28 for the 250th anniversary of the birth of French botanist Jacques-Julian Houtou de Labillardiere. The group used the occasion to call once again on the

New sedition laws target anti-war movement

Doug Lorimer At an October 16 media conference where Prime Minister John Howard announced the Australian government's intention to double the number of people directly employed by its ASIO secret police agency by 2010, he dismissed concerns that

VENEZUELA: Call for Pat Robertson to be extradited

On October 26, Venezuelan ambassador Fermin Toro Jimenez told the UN Security Council that his country has begun processing an extradition request for Reverend Pat Robertson from the US. Robertson has publicly called for the assassination of

James Hardie locks the gate

Andrew Martin, Brisbane On October 19, workers at James Hardie's Meeandah concrete pipe factory arrived for their usual start time of 6.30 am to find factory's gates locked. The company had initiated a 28-hour lockout in response to workers holding

Anti-VSU ticket wins landslide election victory

Amanda Zivcic, Wollongong A landslide victory was recorded in the elections for the Wollongong Undergraduate Students Association (WUSA), held October 7-12, for the left-wing ticket Grassroots. Grassroots stood on a platform of support for social

Amanda Zivcic, Wollongong