The company responsible for running many of Australia鈥檚 refugee detention centres, Serco, has been accused of ordering asylum seekers not to speak to the media as the federal government moves to deport more asylum seekers to their country of origin.
Asylum seekers in the Darwin Airport Lodge (DAL) detention centre have been subject to intimidation and several have been moved to Christmas Island after speaking to the media.
988
The Australian mainstream media publishes a 鈥渟ubstantial amount鈥 of articles critical of the scientific consensus on climate change, says . The report has found that Rupert Murdoch鈥檚 News Corp publications have a high rate of climate change scepticism, which leaves a large section of Australia without information on climate change science.
It was nice of former prime minister and spending his politician's pension wisely by flying to Britain to give a talk insisting the threat of climate change was 鈥渆xaggerated鈥.
Howard gave the keynote address at the Global Warming Policy Foundation on November 5. The foundation was set up by climate 鈥渟ceptic鈥 and former chancellor in Margaret Thatcher's government Nigel Lawson.
WA Greens Senator Scott Ludlam was officially re-elected on November 4 after an historic recount of WA Senate votes from the September federal election. He and the Sports Party鈥檚 Wayne Dropulich won over the ALP's Louise Pratt and Dio Wang from the Palmer United Party.
Before the recount, a 14 vote difference between the Christian Democrats and the Shooters and Fishers Party led to a preference flow that supported Pratt. After the recount, a 12 vote margin favoured Ludlam.
There is one obvious answer to the climate change crisis that is rarely up for discussion 鈥 the government has to take the lead with a huge green public investment drive.
Unity negotiations between Australia's two largest socialist organisations, the Socialist Alliance and Socialist Alternative, ended after the latter's National Committee decided on October 26-27 that the unity process had 鈥渞eached an impasse and consequently we are for ending the negotiations with the Alliance鈥.
Over the past few months there were tactical disagreements between the two groups over how to advance the movements for the rights of asylum seekers and for women's liberation.
Under the guise of 鈥渓aw and order鈥 and protecting the community from 鈥渃riminal bikie gangs鈥 Queensland Premier Campbell Newman has passed new laws that have implications for the civil rights of the wider community.
The Liberal-National Party used their majority to rush the laws through parliament on October 17. The Vicious Lawless Association Disestablishment Bill, Tattoo Parlours Bill and the Criminal Law Amendment Bill specifically target bikies.
Unionists at the Woolworths warehouse in Barnawartha, northern Victoria, have won an 8.3% wage rise and other benefits after an eight-day strike that ended on November 1.
The 350 members of the National Union of Workers (NUW) went on strike on October 25 due to pay rates much lower than Melbourne employees doing the same job. A NUW statement said management had offered a raise of 74垄 per hour for Barnawartha workers, compared to $1.04 for Melbourne employees.
Members at the Barnawartha warehouse already earned $203 a week less than workers in Melbourne.
About 100 Aboriginal people and their supporters gathered at Hyde Park fountain in Sydney on November 1 to protest against the continued desecration of Aboriginal sites across NSW by coal and coal seam gas mining companies Boggabri Coal, Whitehaven Coal and Santos.
The rally was organised by Gomeroi people from Gunnedah in north-west New South Wales. People of all ages were present, from young children to elders.
Steve Talbott spoke to the crowd informing them of the cooperation between the state government and mining companies.
In December last year, a pink-haired complex systems researcher named Brad Werner made his way through the throng of 24,000 earth and space scientists at the Fall Meeting of the American Geophysical Union, held annually in San Francisco.
This year鈥檚 conference had some big-name participants, from Ed Stone of Nasa鈥檚 Voyager project, explaining a new milestone on the path to interstellar space, to the film-maker James Cameron, discussing his adventures in deep-sea submersibles.
This is the Lucky Country, right? The Lucky Country that escaped the recession after the global financial crisis. The Lucky Country where a mining heiress鈥檚 wealth grows by $650 a second. Where banks break new profit records, year after year.
Not so 鈥渓ucky鈥 for some though.
An ongoing Roy Morgan survey found 2.41 million people in Australia (19.3% of the workforce) were unemployed or underemployed in October. An estimated 1.33 million (10.7% of the workforce) of these were unemployed.
In mid-October, principals in Victorian public schools told their staff they had been instructed to identify underperforming teachers and education support staff (ES staff) by the end of that month.
These staff members would not immediately be told they were underperforming, but would only receive a letter in March next year informing them they would not receive a pay rise. Some staff might even be fast tracked out of the profession.
The government told principals that between 20% and 40% of staff were to be identified as underperforming.
- Previous page
- Page 3
- Next page