A coalition of 300 schools and churches from around Australia have asked that a memorial to the SIEV-X tragedy, currently standing on the Canberra lakeshore in Weston Park, be allowed to remain in place for a further 12 months. The SIEV-X boat sunk in October 2001 while en route to Australia from Indonesia, drowning 353 asylum seekers, many of them children.
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Australia’s peak nature conservation groups — the conservation councils of NSW, Queensland, South Australia and Western Australia, Environment Victoria, the NT Environment Centre and Environment Tasmania — have launched a website to promote Walk Against Warming 2007, which will be held on the Sunday two weeks before this year’s federal election.
The committal hearing for three Tamil activists charged under the “anti-terror” laws began on October 1. Aruran Vinayagamoorthy, Sivarajah Yathavan and Arumugam Rajeevan are accused of raising money for and giving other assistance to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), a group fighting for self-determination for the Tamil people of north-east Sri Lanka, who are oppressed by the racist Sri Lankan government.
On October 3, immigration minister Kevin Andrews justified cutting the number of African refugees accepted into Australia using racism, alleging that African refugees were “not adjusting too well” to Australian society.
Due to the Latin America and Asia Pacific International Solidarity Conference (October 11-14 in Melbourne — visit
As the October 24 hearing approaches for the Perth-Mandurah railway tunnel construction workers — who are being prosecuted by the Australian Building and Construction Commission (ABCC) for taking “unlawful” industrial action in February 2006 against the sacking of the health and safety union representative — new research has exposed “critically high” levels of injury in the construction industry.
Chickenhawk-in-chief
"... one of the eight guests sitting around a table with [Emperor George] Bush at the White House, reported: 'Responding to one of the bloggers in Iraq he expressed envy that they could be there, and said he'd like to be there
The federal government should restore Indian doctor Mohamed HaneefÂ’s work visa immediately, and pay him compensation for distress and financial loss, Jim McIlroy, the Socialist Alliance candidate for the south Brisbane seat of Griffith, told Green left Weekly. Griffith is held by ALP leader Kevin Rudd.
With a federal election imminent, many working people are placing their hopes of defeating the Howard government in the ALP. Many have hoped that a future ALP federal government will indeed “tear up” Work Choices and other reactionary legislation introduced by the Howard government, such as the “anti-terror” laws.
Prostitution
In an opinion piece in the October 1 Melbourne Age ("Helping women make choices on prostitution") feminist academic Leslie Cannold makes some clumsy attempts to morally justify why it's a "good idea" to allow "brothels to operate in a
“Now we have the proof: The Howard government’s multi-million dollar advertising campaign to sell Work Choices is built on the lie that workers are better off under individual contracts than collective agreements”, Sam Wainwright, the Socialist Alliance candidate for the seat of Fremantle in the coming federal election, said on October 4.
Further protests in solidarity with the struggle for democracy in Burma have been held around Australia. On October 3, some 150 people gathered on the steps of Parliament House in Adelaide and the same day, 120 people marched in Cairns. The Burmese community in Sydney are holding protests every Thursday and on October 4, some 175 people rallied, calling on the Australian government to stop doing business with the ruling military regime. The Australian Coalition for Democracy in Burma (ACDB) also wants the Howard government to extend the visa ban on the military regime to include their relatives and business partners; to downgrade the full embassy status of the Burmese regime in Canberra; and to withdraw Australian Federal Police training of Burmese police. To contact the ACDB, phone Maung Maung Than on 0411 337 816.
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