Australian News

The community assembly outside the Hutchison terminal at Port Botany is holding firm against a threat by the NSW Port Authority to evict the gathering from the entrance to the facility. There was a similar stand-off at Fishermans Island, Port of Brisbane.

The assemblies have been maintained for more than four weeks to protest against the sacking of 97 waterside workers by the giant Hutchison company, part of the biggest multinational stevedoring corporation in the world.

Hundreds of people from across NSW gathered outside AGL's HQ on September 2 to mark the 100th week of a protest first initiated by Camden residents angry that AGL is allowed to frack near their homes. AGL first started fracking in Camden, south west Sydney, in 2001.

Speakers included Jennifer Schoelpple; Anne Thompson, an original Knitting Nanna from the Northern Rivers; Greens MP Jeremy Buckingham; and Julie Lyford, president of Groundswell Gloucester.

The Canning byelection is attracting national attention as the possibility that the Liberals may lose the seat they hold by a 12% margin is openly discussed.

A loss would be a severe blow to the Coalition government — already reeling from controversies ranging from the Border Farce stunt in Melbourne to the choppergate scandal — as well as to the leadership of Tony Abbott.

ADELAIDE
Join us at the Green Left Quiz Night. A fun evening with great prizes supporting the newspaper. Friday September 18 at 6pm. Entry $15/10 conc. City Soul, 13 Hutt St, city. Bookings ph Gemma 0437 714 786.

BRISBANE
Come to a book Launch: Women of Steel: the story of the struggle by women for jobs in the steel industry in Wollongong in the 1980s. Special guests co-author Carla Gorton and Ros McLennan, secretary, Queensland Council of Unions. Thursday September 17 at 5pm. QCU, Peel St, South Brisbane. Visit jobsforwomenfilm.com.

National Australia Bank (NAB) has decided not to fund the Adani coalmine, rail and port facilities on the Great Barrier Reef coastline.

The Korean company LG has also announced it will not buy the company's coal.

Korean electronics giant LG signed a letter of intent with Adani last year to purchase 4 million tonnes of coal from the Carmichael mine. However Adani has now lost one of its two big external customers when the letter of intent expired and was not renewed.

A delegation of Garawa people from Borroloola and their supporters gathered on September 2 at Parliament House in Darwin to present the NT government with a petition.

The petition, signed by 3600 people, calls on the government to shut down and clean up Glencore’s McArthur River lead and zinc mine upstream from Borroloola.

Freedom of Information documents recently revealed that several government departments had been aware of the high levels of heavy metals leaking into the waterways for 18 months.

Queensland’s environment department has given conditional approval for the controversial expansion of the Acland coalmine. But questions about the link between political donations to the former LNP government and their support for the project remain unanswered.

In December last year the Queensland coordinator-general approved Stage 3 of New Hope Coal’s Acland coalmine, despite the project requiring the “clearing of eight endangered and of-concern regional ecosystems” including koala habitat, issues regarded as “matters of state environmental significance”.

The Refugee Action Coalition Sydney released this statement on September 1.

A 25 year-old Burmese asylum seeker attempted suicide at Manus Island on August 31.

The emergency unfolded over almost four hours as the man climbed onto the roof of Delta Compound around 3pm and made attempts to hang himself using bed sheets and electrical cable, before making a final attempt to jump just before 7pm.

More than 50 Transfield and IHMS medical personnel were mobilised during the emergency.

Protesters will soon be banned from harassing women outside Victorian abortion clinics in a deal between the Victorian government and Sex Party MP Fiona Patten.

The Labor government has agreed to support Patten’s private member’s bill, which would place 150-metre protest exclusion zones outside fertility clinics, with hefty penalties for protesters who breach them.

A plan to swamp Melbourne’s CBD with Australian Border Force officials, police and transport officers to check the visa status of “any individual we cross paths with” was cancelled before it began following sustained criticism of the operation from politicians, unions, Melbourne city council, human rights lawyers and the people of Victoria.

An emotional and highly charged stopwork meeting of hundreds of tram workers jammed into Trades Hall on August 27 to hear a report on their dispute with Yarra Trams.

Yarra Trams and Metro Rail workers had called off a planned four-hour strike on August 21 in the hope that the companies would present the Rail Tram and Bus Union (RTBU) with a better offer. The better offer never came so the tram workers struck for four hours on August 27. This was the first tram strike since 1997.

More than 800 workers gathered in Bicentennial Park on August 23 to protest against the China-Australia Free Trade Agreement in a rally organised by the Electrical Trades Union (ETU).

ETU National Secretary Allen Hicks told the crowd Chinese companies need invest only 15% in a project worth at least $150 million to be able to bring in workers from overseas who are not subject to labour market testing.

For as little as $22.5 million, a Chinese investor in a joint venture with an Australian company can avoid paying Australian wages and conditions.