The plan for the privatisation of electricity in NSW is like the mythical creature the hydra, which had multiple heads. It had to be 鈥渒illed鈥 many times before it would actually die 鈥 and every time it was 鈥渒illed鈥 it could bite back apparently unharmed.
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More than 10,000 unionists marched through Brisbane鈥檚 streets on May 5, celebrating the union movement鈥檚 role in the defeat of the Howard government last year. The annual Labour Day parade was led by the building unions, with the Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union (CFMEU) in the lead. This year marks the 150th anniversary of the founding of the original building workers\' union in Queensland.
鈥淸It] would be imprudent to tip the winners in the race for low emission technologies鈥, wrote Barney Glover, University of Newcastle deputy vice-chancellor, in an April 10 letter defending the university鈥檚 research in so-called clean coal technologies.
More than 2000 people rallied at Fremantle Esplanade to celebrate May Day and to call for the scrapping of all of the anti-worker laws of the previous government.
After a four-hour community blockade on April 9, Melbourne Chef agreed to pay out sacked National Union of Workers (NUW) member Abdelwahab Bekhaled and negotiate a collective agreement at the site. However, the company reneged on the agreement, sparking a month-long union campaign. Bekhaled has finally received a payout that included long-service leave and all his entitlements.
Plans are under way for the 2008 Resistance national conference, to be held at the University of Technology, Sydney from June 27-29. This year鈥檚 theme is: 鈥渨ar, racism, environmental destruction, homophobia, sexism 鈥 Turn anger into action!鈥
Redfern聮s historic 聯Block聰 will be the site of the Aboriginal Rights Coalition聮s (ARC) first national conference, to be held on May 23-25. The Socialist Alliance gives full support to this initiative, a valuable occasion for Aboriginal people and their supporters from around Australia to share experiences and chart the way forward for Indigenous rights.
On May 5, Victorian Premier John Brumby and education minister Bronwyn Pike announced that they had struck a deal with the Victorian Australian Education Union (AEU) over teachers聮 pay. While there are several aspects of the agreement to be finalised, the government decided to go public and claimed that Victorian teachers are now the highest-paid teachers in Australia.
A May 8 meeting in Wollongong heard an eyewitness account of the political struggle within Venezuela from Carlos Sierra, a political leader in the radical Venezuelan youth organisation Frente Francisco de Miranda. The meeting was part of Sierra鈥檚 Resistance-organised tour which also took him to Newcastle and Sydney Universities.
The Western press has been untiring with respect to the changes happening in Cuba after Raul Castro鈥檚 election as president of the Republic and have celebrated a possible liberalisation of the island鈥檚 economy.
Colonel Moe Davis, former chief prosecutor at the US prison Guantanamo Bay, has finally told the world that David Hicks was never a serious terror threat and that his pursuit was politically driven. Davis has also now said that evidence was obtained through prisoner abuse.
On May 5, the night before the Victorian budget was released, it was revealed that Premier John Brumby鈥檚 government is proposing to pay households with solar power$0.60 per kilowatt hour for electricity that they feed into the grid. However, this $0.60 will only be paid if households are exporting more energy than they are taking from the grid.
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