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The Victorian Abortion Law Reform bill was passed by the parliament’s lower house on September 12 after more than 70 hours of debate. This may finally mean that abortion is removed from the state’s Crimes Act dating back to 1958. Until the bill is passed, abortion remains a crime.

Four retired and one active Venezuelan military officials have been arrested, a further 33 questioned and the US ambassador expelled in the wake of the September 10 revelation of a planned coup and assassination attempt against President Hugo Chavez.

The Australian Services Union (ASU) Victorian secretary, Ingrid Stitt, told 91������̳ Weekly that Labor’s new Interim Transitional Employment Agreements are a “wolf in sheep’s clothing”. The ITEAs were introduced by the Rudd government to replace the notorious Australian Workplace Agreements (AWAs <17> individual contracts).

In the lead-up to the release of a report from the federal government’s review into the Northern Territory intervention, the Australian Indigenous Doctors’ Association has blasted the policy. AIDA describes it as discriminatory, damaging to people’s health and completely unable to alter conditions of child abuse or neglect in remote Aboriginal communities.

Max Phillips, a newly elected Greens councillor in Marrickville and the Greens’ campaign coordinator for the September 13 NSW local government elections, puts the swing to the Greens down to the state Labor government’s implosion.