I'm 16 years old. I identify as queer and am in year 11 in high school.
While I go to a tolerant and progressive school, there are many students like me who do not enjoy this privilege. For people like me, school can be the most dangerous place to be. For people like me, mental health issues are rife because of experiences at school. For people like me, things need to change in our schools.
The Growing Up Queer report, released this year by Twenty10 in conjunction with the University of Western Sydney, has revealed some staggering facts about life at school for queer kids.
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The thing that really gets me about Australian politics right now is not just that we are getting so severely screwed, it鈥檚 that we are getting screwed by such dingbats.
I mean, you cannot check the news on any given day without being smacked in the face with the latest utter insanity from one, or frequently, multiple members of the Abbott government.
Progressive activists are concerned about reported unprincipled deal-making in the upcoming elections for the new University of Sydney Student Representative Council.
The Sydney University student newspaper Honi Soit reported the Socialist Alternative Sydney University club had decided to support the ALP presidential candidate over the activist Grassroots presidential candidate in the upcoming elections.
In an action that has reverberated around the world and inspired pro-Palestinian activists, five days of pickets by activists prevented a ship from the Israeli shipping company Zim Integrated Shipping Services from unloading almost any of its cargo at the port of Oakland.
The blockade was organised as part of the global targetting Israel called for by dozens of Palestinian civil society groups. It was the longest blockade yet of an Israeli ship anywhere in the world.
"At the end of my tour of Australia, I would like to give thanks to all the unionists and supporters of Cuba who have assisted in telling the story of the unjustly jailed Cuban Five," Aili Labanino-Cardoso, daughter of Ramon Labanino, one of five Cubans imprisoned in the US on conspiracy charges since 1998, told a forum in Sydney on August 16.
The forum, attended by about 80 people, concluded a tour of the country, organised by the Construction Forestry Mining Energy Union and the Maritime Union of Australia, supported by the Australia-Cuba Friendship Society.
A group of women gathered in protest outside the Wicked Campers depot on August 16.
Wicked Campers is a Brisbane-based company that rents out tourist camping vans. The company has been criticised for the misogynist, racist and homophobic slogans that are painted on its vans.
The company has not responded well to the condemnation and has sought to punish those who have spoken out. In one case, it responded to a journalist by painting a slogan on a van that threatened physical violence.
A protest against the opening night of the Israeli Film Festival went ahead in Sydney despite a successful police gag application.
Palestine Action Group organised the peaceful public assembly to draw attention to Israel's occupation of Palestine.
Stop CSG Sydney has launched a campaign to extinguish the coal seam gas (CSG) exploration licence (PEL 463) covering most of metropolitan Sydney, home to about 4 million people.
The group formed in 2011 when residents discovered that Arrow Energy was about to drill at a waste site in the inner-west suburb of St Peters.
After more than two years of community campaigning, including mass petitions, marches and film screenings, the CSG company now known as Dart Energy claimed that it had never intended to drill at St Peters.
Should Scotland鈥檚 people decide to separate from Britain in next month鈥檚 independence referendum, the English establishment may well be very unhappy with Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott, whose recent ham-fisted attack on Scottish nationalism appears to have given a boost.
For the fifth time since their election in September last year, thousands of Australians will take to the streets in protest against Tony Abbott Coalition's government.
These mobilisations have been critical to keep the pressure on the Labor Party, Greens and independents to stand firm in opposing the government's budget, which will bring austerity, cuts and privatisation.
As a result of this opposition, Treasurer 鈥淪mokin' Joe鈥 Hockey's budget has stalled.
The Socialist Alternative club at the University of Western Australia had its 鈥渃lub privileges鈥 suspended on August 13. In effect, this amounts to a suspension of the club's affiliation to the Student Guild, which could be a prelude to complete disaffiliation.
The issue seems to have flared over posters produced for a campus forum on the topic 鈥淲hy Israel is a terrorist state鈥. After initially approving the posters, and allowing them to be displayed in Guild areas on campus, on the day of the forum the Guild sent an email to the club saying that all the posters had been removed.
Save Medicare Sydney, a campaign group committed to defending universal public health care, is calling on the Australian Medical Association (AMA) and the Palmer United Party to reject any compromise over the federal government's proposed $7 GP co-payment.
The AMA released an alternative plan on August 21. It proposed a $6.15 co-payment, excluding concession card holders and children.
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