Twenty people gathered on June 22 in defence of civil liberties and in solidarity with Joanne Ball, who was facing trial. This was the first trial of an activist arrested during February protests against visiting US Vice-President Dick Cheney. By the end of the day, the prosecution鈥檚 case had collapsed and charges were dismissed.
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Barry Hemsworth, a Construction, Forestry, Mining and Energy Union member and workplace delegate, was sacked unfairly from his job at Botany Cranes in Sydney鈥檚 eastern suburbs in 2006, made possible by the Howard government鈥檚 unfair dismissal laws. July 2 will mark the 300th day that Barry has held vigil outside the gates of his former employer with the support of the union movement.
聯Tear up Work Choices! Defend all our rights at work聰 is the title of a new petition being circulated by trade union activists around Australia. The petition calls on the ACTU and state, territory and regional labour councils to immediately call a national day of protest to demand the full repeal of Work Choices and the Workplace Relations Act. It also calls for workers聮 right to take industrial action to be enshrined in Australian law.
The Victorian Socialist Alliance held a successful special state conference in Melbourne on June 16. Ninety people attended, with a strong presence from Geelong and Ballarat. The conference also attracted activists from environmental organisations, a range of unions and Latin America solidarity groups.
The headline of the June 21 Adelaide Advertiser blared 聯Unfair pay聰 and for once, most fair-minded people had to agree with the paper. The headline was referring to a pay rise for the state聮s already overpaid members of parliament.
Jim McIlroy, the Socialist Alliance candidate for the Brisbane seat of Griffith, called on Labor leader Kevin Rudd to condemn the Talisman Sabre war games being held at Shoalwater Bay.
Prime Minister John Howard announced on June 21 a plan to take control of some 60 Indigenous communities in the Northern Territory, supposedly to tackle a child sex abuse crisis in those communities. It is a plan that severely limits and in some instances eradicates the democratic and land rights of all Aboriginal people in remote NT communities.
Proposed laws introduced into the NSW parliament mean that the greater Sydney area will become a police state for two weeks around the APEC summit. The APEC Meeting (Policing Powers) Bill 2007 is expected to be passed without significant amendments.
聯I聮m taking control聰, said Johnny Howard, with a contrived quiver of righteousness in his voice. His face was set into a familiar pastiche of horror and disgust at the degraded behaviour of lesser beings. He also conveyed a weariness 聴 the weariness of shouldering the 聯white man聮s burden聰.
Michael Bozic, a barrister with the NSW Council of Civil Liberties, said on June 20 that the new powers being given to police during the APEC summit would make the conservative former premiers Robert Askin and Joh Bjelke-Petersen proud. Askin, NSW鈥檚 Liberal premier from 1965 to 1975, was famously quoted in 1966 demanding that the convoy accompanying visiting US President Lyndon Johnson 鈥渞ide over the bastards鈥 鈥 anti-Vietnam War protesters.
'Speciesism'
Richard Bulmer (GLW #713) presents a well-reasoned case against capitalist livestock meat production on environmental grounds, but in doing so he makes what I believe to be two errors.
Firstly, it is inappropriate to use words like
In a June 19 joint press conference in Washington with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, US President George Bush said: 聯It聮s interesting that extremists attack democracies around the Middle East, whether it be the Iraq democracy, the Lebanese democracy, or a potential Palestinian democracy.聰 He was referring specifically to the popularly elected Hamas-led government of the Palestinian people taking action in Gaza to prevent a bloody coup by their defeated rivals, Fatah, which since the January 2006 elections has been armed, funded and trained by Israel and the US.
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