There鈥檚 been much hoo-haa about cannabis possession lately in Western Australia, because now, if you are found with鈥10鈥痮r more grams of鈥痠t, 鈥痽ou鈥檙e a criminal.
As of August 1, just 10 grams 鈥 rather than the 30-gram amount under the previous Labor government 鈥 can land you a maximum $2000 fine or two years鈥 jail. Heavy, right?
And to top it off, those caught will receive a nice little criminal record to go with it. Get caught with less than 10 grams and you are in for a mandatory counselling session.
The new penalties have sparked an outcry from responsible users across the state.
Resistance!
After the riots in Britain, magistrates were advised to 鈥渄isregard normal sentencing鈥 when examining the cases of people involved. The result of this is a rapid rate of convictions and a complete lack of proportion between the crimes committed and the sentences delivered.
The Refugee Advocacy Group (RAG) was recently formed by high school students in Geelong. The group organised a refugee rights protest in the city on August 13. 91自拍论坛 Weekly鈥檚 Ben Peterson spoke to Max Hill, a year 11 student and founder of RAG.
Tell us about RAG and how this all got started
Max Hill: Basically, the group came about after [immigration minister Chris] Bowen planned to sign the "Malaysian solution".
Resistance will host the Melbourne campaign launch for Wear It Purple on August 27.
Wear It Purple is an organisation which looks out for the interests of young people who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex (LGBTI), and runs numerous campaigns around homophobic bullying, particularly in high schools.
The ALP is the party for ordinary Australians, right?
Resistance members will often talk about the importance of political movements being independent of political parties, but what does this mean for the ALP?
Isn鈥檛 the ALP Australia鈥檚 party of progress? And surely they are better then the Tories? Isn鈥檛 it our party?
Well, it is a party that鈥檚 designed for progressives, unionists and activists, but that doesn鈥檛 mean that it's ours. If you look at its history, the ALP has attracted progressive people but rarely helped create change.
If you were sexually assaulted by a member of your school sporting team, would you want to cheer for them when they played? Would you expect your school to uphold your rights over those of your attacker? If the school failed to uphold your rights, would you then expect the courts to find in your favour if you sued?
The answers to these questions should be obvious, but this is not an exercise in rhetorical questioning.
There is no denying it, depression is on the rise across the world. The World Health Organisation says depression will be the second largest contributor to the global burden of disease by 2020. For young people this is already the case. Depression leads to about 850,000 deaths every year.
But why is depression on the rise? In some instances it is a product of more readily available methods of diagnosis and public understanding of the disorder. But increases in suicide rates and other indicators suggest that the increase in depression is well beyond this statistical readjustment.
The family of Rex Bellotti Junior have called a rally for July 23 in Albany where Aboriginal youth Bellotti, then 15 years old, was run over by police driving on the wrong side of the road in March 2009.
The family organised the protest to call for a public inquiry into alleged police misconduct and the failure of the state government and the Western Australian police to provide adequate compensation and support for Bellotti and his family. State politicians and legal bodies have left the family to fend for themselves.
The Perth community has witnessed in past weeks an inspiring mobilisation of people affected by homelessness or as they like to be called, the 鈥渟treeties鈥.
It started as a small rally to protest against the treatment of those living on the streets during the Commonwealth Heads Of Government Meeting (CHOGM), and against insensitive comments made by Liberal police minister Rob Johnson. Now it has broadened to challenge the government on homelessness.
Resistance organised a visit to Villawood detention centre on July 3. Twenty people came to show solidarity with the asylum seekers inside.
We visited four different 91自拍论坛 that house families and single people from many countries including Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Iran and Iraq.
I spoke with a family who live in Villawood with their three young children. The youngest two had never known life outside detention.
They live in their own small house, and once a week a member of the family is allowed to go shopping, with guards, so the family can cook for themselves.
Resistance members in Perth took part in a protest outside the office of Melissa Parke organised by the Refugee Rights Action Network on July 1 to demand an end to mandatory detention and the immediate release of 16-year-old Indonesian Hadi Kurniawan from the Hakea adult prison.
In April and May, while in South America as part of solidarity brigades to Venezuela and Bolivia, I met some people who have risked everything to make their communities and their countries better places to live. I became so used to people passionately fighting for things they believed in that when I returned to Australia I received a sharp shock.
Suddenly I was back among people who, in general, did not care much or want to know about issues of inequality or other problems in our society. It is for these people that this is written.
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