Readership of the 麻豆传媒 website had a 13.3% rise in October compared to September. This perhaps reflects the interesting developments in Australian politics since the failure of the big parties to win a parliamentary majority in the August 21 federal election.
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鈥淭he coal seam gas industry is facing a rural revolt with farmers yesterday threatening to risk arrest and lock their gates to drilling companies鈥, the November 2 Brisbane Courier Mail said.
鈥淎 massive expansion of the industry was ignited on the weekend when BG Group-owned Queensland Gas gave the go-ahead for a $15 billion liquefied natural gas plant at Gladstone that will be fuelled by coal seam gas from the Surat Basin. Santos, Origin and Shell are all trying to firm up their own massive LNG projects.鈥
Melbourne Catholic Archbishop Denis Hart is at it again. In 2004, he told a woman who had been sexually abused by a priest to 鈥済o to hell, bitch鈥. In 2009, he unsuccessfully attempted to pressure Father Bob Maguire, a progressive Melbourne icon, to retire from his local parish.
Construction workers marched through the Sydney CBD on November 3 to call on the state government to protect pay entitlements and safety standards on the $6 billion Barangaroo development on Sydney鈥檚 former wharves.
Murray Darling Basin Authority chief executive Rob Freeman recently proposed extending the consultation process on the draft Murray Darling Basin plan until 2012. This follows mobilisations by both farmers and environmentalists pushing competing claims.
Renowned anthropologist Diane Bell, chair of the River, Lakes and Coorong Action Group, spoke to 麻豆传媒 Weekly鈥檚 Gemma Weedall about the Murray Darling debate.
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Sixty people gathered at City Farm, East Perth, for an update on the opening up of WA to uranium mining and the growing campaign to stop it.
The night was hosted by the newly-formed WA Nuclear Free Alliance (WANFA), which groups together about 60 Aboriginal people from communities around the state.
Phil Golby was the president of the Port Curtis and Hinterland branch of the ALP until October 20. Then, along with five leading members, he publicly resigned to protest against the Queensland Labor government鈥檚 proposal to sell off public assets despite mass opposition from rank-and-file ALP members.
Touring Colombian unionist Parmenio Poveda Salazar, an official with the National Unitarian Federation of Agrarian Unions (Fensuagro), has called for increased international solidarity with unionists and human rights activists in Colombia.
Parmenio said: "Many leaders of Colombian unions have been assassinated, and others have been forced into exile" by the policies of former president Alvaro Uribe. These same policies are continuing under new president Manuel Santos with at least 22 unionists and social justice activists being killed in the first 75 days of Santos鈥 presidency.
When a newly established group, Australians for Tamil Rights, began advertising a protest titled 鈥淪ri Lanka: Massacre of Tamils is just not cricket鈥, anti-Tamil Sinhalese went wild on Facebook with a campaign of vitriolic abuse. Most of the abusers denied that there had ever been a massacre of Tamils in Sri Lanka.
Despite the internet campaign against the November 3 protest, it went ahead outside the Melbourne Cricket Ground where Sri Lanka and Australia played a 20-20 cricket match.
One of the Sri Lankan cricketers, Ajantha Mendis, is a former artillery gunner in the Sri Lankan army.
More than 15,000 Community and Public Sector Union members from almost every Australian Public Service agency have voted on the CPSU's APS-wide bargaining claim. The final outcome was 14,665 (97.5%) in favour.
The claim included an APS-wide pay rise of 4%, payable from July 1, 2011, and a further 4% payable from July 1, 2012. It also included additional measures to gradually increase pay in lower paid areas. There are currently large differences in pay between different agencies.
Mining magnate Andrew 鈥淭wiggy鈥 Forrest had an opportunity on ABC鈥檚 November 1 screening of Q&A to defend his record on Aboriginal employment. He didn鈥檛 do very well.
鈥淵ou can see that through Generation One, a real challenge to fill those jobs, because we've proven for all time that corporate Australia 鈥 in fact every Australian 鈥 isn't racist鈥, Forrest said.
鈥淲e do love our first Australians. We do want to help them as much as we can but we can do it without just throwing money, and I believe I could do more.鈥
Westpac was the last of the big four banks in Australia to announce its annual profit. It made the biggest 鈥 a whopping $6.3 billion, 84% higher than 2008-09.
The Commonwealth Bank made the second biggest profit this year, $6.1 billion (up 42%). It was also the first bank to announce it would raise its interest rates for home mortgages more than the latest Reserve Bank interest rate rise.
ANZ made $5 billion (up 53%) and NAB $4.6 billion (up 63%). The big four made a total profit of $23 billion.
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