A public forum 鈥淏eyond the Carbon Price鈥 will take place at NSW Parliament House on April 27 to open the fourth Climate Action Summit, to be held at the University of Western Sydney over April 27-29.
A diverse panel of speakers will engage with the question of how Australia should tackle climate change now that the carbon price has been adopted.
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Despite the NSW government's promise to rule out sensitive areas to coal seam gas (CSG) activity, the long-awaited Strategic Regional Land Use Plan and Aquifer Interference Policy means 鈥渆very part of NSW is still up for grabs鈥, Jess Moore from Stop CSG Illawarra said on March 6. Liberal premier Barry O鈥橣arrell鈥檚 government policy is 鈥渁 disaster and a broken election promise鈥. Moore said 鈥渘o areas are off limits to CSG鈥.
A 鈥渇ree trade agreement鈥 being negotiated by Australia, the United States and other countries could have profound impacts on crucial public policy issues including food security, natural resource management, access to essential medicines, public assets and more.
Negotiations for the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) 鈥 including Australia, the US, New Zealand, Chile, Peru, Singapore, Brunei, Malaysia and Vietnam 鈥 are taking place in unprecedented secrecy.
More than 50 people rallied outside the Perth headquarters of British multinational corporation Serco on March 9 to protest against the company's ongoing push to privatise and take over public services. Serco runs Australia鈥檚 immigration detention centres and is responsible for implementing the oppressive government policy of mandatory detention.
A telling quote in the film KONY 2012 says: 鈥淲ho are you to stop a war? 鈥 the question is, who are you not to?鈥 I think the question that the people behind KONY 2012, which went viral on the internet on March 7, need to be asked is: 鈥淲ho are you to start one?鈥 Joseph Kony, the leader of the Lord鈥檚 Resistance Army in eastern Africa, is a bad man.
After eight months of campaigning by Victoria鈥檚 nurses to keep staff-to-patient ratios and win a wage rise there may be a breakthrough in the dispute.
On March 7, the Ted Baillieu Coalition state government finally offered to begin new negotiations with the Australian Nursing Federation (ANF) though a conciliation process overseen by Fair Work Australia.
In 1963, a senior Australian government official, A R Taysom, deliberated on the wisdom of deploying women as trade representatives. 鈥淪uch an appointee would not stay young and attractive for ever [because a] spinster lady can, and very often does, turn into something of a battleaxe with the passing years [whereas] a man usually mellows.鈥
On International Women鈥檚 Day 2012, such primitive views are worth recalling; but what has happened to modern feminism? Why is it so bereft of its political, indeed socialist roots, that any woman who 鈥渁chieves鈥 within an immoral system is to be admired?
The Maritime Union of Australia and other unions organised an action outside Rio Tinto鈥檚 headquarters on March 5 in solidarity with Quebec workers who have been locked out by Rio Tinto since December 30.
鈥淐apitalism wrecks everything,鈥 Liam Flenady, Socialist Alliance candidate for South Brisbane in the March 24 Queensland election, told a meet-the-cadidates forum sponsored by 麻豆传媒 Weekly on March 6.
"The neoliberal agenda of the past three decades means privatising profits, and socialising losses. Queensland and Australia are in the midst of a political crisis right now.
"People have generally lost confidence in the major parties and their support for the status quo. But they don't yet have a firm belief in a viable alternative project.
Greenpeace activists on March 7 painted a huge message saying 鈥淩eef in danger鈥 on the side of the Panamanian-registered coal ship Chou Shan, which was moored in Gladstone Harbour.
The action was timed to coincide with the arrival of a delegation from UNESCO investigating the impact of large-scale gas and coal developments on the Great Barrier Reef's world heritage values.
The Ballerrt Mooroop College Support Group met on March 4 to discuss action in response to the imminent closure of the college, which is the last surviving Aboriginal school in Melbourne.
Aboriginal people in the area have worked hard to keep the school open. But over the past 12 months, the education department has taken much of the land away and bulldozed the valuable student and community asset, the gymnasium/gathering place.
It was a week which started with federal treasurer Wayne Swan having a go at the mining billionaires for distorting our democracy, but which soon entered a new phase whereby the Labor party illustrated the rather narrow range within which our two party system has room to move.
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