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A poll commissioned by new online campaign found 61% of Australian people agreed a “public inquiry into the Australian media is necessary so the public can better understand the relationship between politicians, corporations and media outlets”. NewsStand, backed by GetUp, then launched an online on August 11 calling for parliament to “publicly scrutinise the media landscape as a whole”, which quickly gathered almost 30,000 signatures.

National environmental justice and indigenous rights organisation the Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN) that took part in the largest act of civil disobedience in decades at the White House in Washington DC from August 20 to September 3. The purpose of these actions was to send a direct message to President Barack Obama to deny approval of the 2739 kilometre Keystone XL pipeline.

"The pay offer is a lemon" has been the theme of protests by Australian Taxation Office (ATO) workers around Australia over the past two weeks. Workers have put lemons on their desks and stuck up posters of lemons to symbolise their rejection of management's pay offer of 9% over three years, which is less than the rate of inflation. Some workers have called for strike action in the tax office, as has happened in other government agencies.

Supporters of Fijian workers rallied in Melbourne on September 2 against a recent crackdown by the military regime. The same day, two Fijian trade unionists, Fiji Trades Union Congress president Daniel Urai and National Union of Hospitality, Catering and Tourism organiser Nitin Gounder, appeared in a Fijian court charged with unlawful assembly because they met with their union members to discuss a collective agreement. The Fijian trade union movement is under very heavy attack by the Fijian military government. New laws aiming to make it virtually impossible for unions to exist.

If you’ve even casually followed the climate debate in Australia over the past few years, it’s most likely you’ve heard a Labor or Liberal party politician utter the phrase: “Governments should not pick winners.” The idea is that governments’ role is not to give direct support to renewable energy such as wind power or solar power, but instead to create the market conditions where the best, most efficient technology can come to the fore. But the argument is always used as an excuse for why governments cannot pick clean, renewable energy.