Alpine grazing action alert - Friends of the Earth

Cattle were removed from the Alpine National Park in 2005 by the government of Steve Bracks. This was an important step forward for good land management in our state. Since then, some of the long term damage caused by decades of grazing have started to heal. However, the Victorian Coalition announced in the build up to the November election that it would return cattle grazing to Victoria's alpine national parks as a tool to reduce fire risk.

Related: Alpine National Park... or cow paddock? | Victorian National Parks Association: opinion piece | Report: Science, credibility and alpine grazing | Cattle grazing in the Alps FAQ

How defending abortion rights becomes a free speech battle

The abortion wars have not abated. In Victoria, they have recently escalated into a full-on free speech fight as Melbourne City Council targets Radical Women for harassment, including large fines, as they attempt to defend an abortion clinic from far right anti-abortion activists. This has become an important test case not only in the campaign for abortion rights but for the right to protest in Melbourne.

Related: The Age | Radical Women Website

29 workers arrested at Visy in Dandenong- Solidarity Needed!

Around 500 Visy workers across Australia have been on strike since November 29th, 400 of them at the Visy plant in Dandenong. The strike has been over the workers demands that the company stop undermining their job security by forcing casual employment on workers at the factory, as part of latest round of enterprise bargaining. Visy has further angered the protestors by flying in an a scab workforce by helicopter to maintain production at the factory and by taking out injunction on individual workers this morning. Today saw a major escalation of the dispute with at least 29 people being arrested and charged with creating an undue obstruction and besetting the premises. One worker was injured when a truck run over his foot.
Update: Trades Hall has called for a community picket at 6AM at the site tommorow (Tuesday 13th December). Please try to make if it you can to show solidarity. Corner Greens Rd and Hammond Rd Dandenong
Related: Video of arrests from Channel 9 -- Youtube footage of picketline -- AMWU Press Release -- Workers Solidarity Network

Melbourne rally to defend Wikileaks declares "You're the Voice!"

A crowd of 1000 plus people attended a Melbourne rally in support of Wikileaks held on Friday 10th December. An array of speakers included criminal laywer Rob Stary and barrister, Indigenous activist Robbie Thorpe, Brian Boyd and Jacob Grech from Trades Hall, Greens politicians Brian Walters SC and Adam Bandt amongst others . An impromptu march through the CBD following the rally disrupted peak hour and included a number of sit-ins on CBD street corners. (Related reports: Rallies around Australia)

Videos of Melbourne Rally: Robbie Thorpe, Indigenous Activist, Rally, Rap news
Photos: Flickr photostream -- Photos on Facebook

Wikileaks, West Papua and commemorating the 1854 Eureka rebellion at Ballarat

The persecution of Julian Assange and wikileaks for publishing diplomatic cables, and information on the Afghanistan and Iraq wars is just the latest in government suppression of freedom of speech and human rights and liberties, which past generations have fought for including the men and women of the Eureka rebellion in Ballarat in 1854. I have just returned from Ballarat where I was part of the commemoration of the Eureka Rebellion in 1854 - the 156th anniversary. The struggle for democratic rights and liberties and against corrupt government continues in 2010.

Australia and Melbourne Indymedia stand in solidarity with Wikileaks


The Australian and Melbourne Indymedia Collective stand in solidarity with Wikileaks and its spokesperson Julian Assange and condemn their unprecedented persecution. In making this statement we join other members of the IMC networks including IMC Brazil and IMC Sucre. Around the world and Australia people are joining the movement in support of Wikileaks. Australia wide protests have been called in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, Perth and Hobart. A new website has been site up too promote these rallies at www.rally4wikileaks.com Globally resistance is taking the form of over 500 websites mirroring Wikileaks and Operation Payback taking down a bank that froze Julian Assange’s defence fund. The Indymedia Network is hosting one of these Mirrors. As Assange has now been taken into custody and Wikileaks sustained ever more attacks on its ability to function, it is not overstating it to say the freedom of whole internet is now at stake. Will we allow Wikileaks and Julian Assange to be destroyed for daring to tell the world the truth about wars and the criminal deeds of governments around the world?

Koorie school community rallies against discriminatory development

Builders are moving in to destroy the gymnasium of Ballerrt Mooroop College, the only aboriginal school in Melbourne. The school is located in Hilton Street Glenroy and the school is being moved into two demountable clasrooms and the gymnasium slated for demolition on December 17 to create 170 car parking spaces for an $18 million development of Glenroy Special School.
Campaign details at Treaty Republic Website
15th Dec Bourke St Mall Solidarity Rally
Picket on December 17th to stop demolition

Eureka 156th anniversary to be marked in Ballarat

One hundred and fifty six years after the Eureka Rebellion was drowned in a sea of blood in Ballarat on the 3rd December 1854, diverse opinions are still held about the Rebellion's significance. Opinions have varied from Karl Marx's observations in 1855 "we have to distinguish between the riot at Ballarat (near Melbourne) and the general revolutionary movement in the colony of Victoria. The former will have been suppressed by now; the later can only be suppressed through complete concessions". Mark Twain, in 1897 in his whirlwind Australian tour believed "Eureka...

A peak into the human well being equation

The man who invented the term “Peak Oil” delivered a lecture at Melbourne University on Wednesday night declaring that: “fossil fuel energy does the work we don’t like doing ourselves” and “without energy there can be no economic growth”.

Kjell Aleklett, Professor of Physics at Uppsala University in Sweden and President of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas (ASPO), believes that oil, gas and coal are reaching peak production, which is set to leave the world with a deficit of energy relative to future demand.

No More Band-aid Solutions: End The Housing Crisis rally

On Friday November 12th the “No More Band-Aid Solutions: End The Housing Crisis” rally closed down Victorian Housing Minister Richard Wynne’s electoral office in Collingwood. Despite sweltering heat and a looming rainstorm 80 to 100 people joined the protest playing drums and percussion, setting up tents and a clothesline and plastering Wynne’s office windows with band-aids and squatting stickers.