In the context of Australia鈥檚 struggling climate movement, the achievements of the Australian Youth Climate Coalition (AYCC) have been significant.
When the Murdoch press would rather report Lord Munckton鈥檚 denialist nonsense, a group that connects more than 70,000 young Australians to raise awareness and combat climate change is commendable.
However, AYCC鈥檚 politics are not without problems.
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About 1500 people joined an Occupy Sydney rally at Town Hall on November 5, making it the largest of the three Occupy Sydney marches so far. Members of the Maritime Union of Australia and other unions filled out the crowd.
Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams led a dramatic walkout from the Dublin parliament (Dail) on November 2. The protest was over the coalition government鈥檚 decision to hand over more than 鈧700 million to an unknown private investor in the failed Anglo Irish Bank.
Finance minister Michael Noonan admitted in the Dail there was no legal obligation to refund the bond investment, which was not covered by the former government鈥檚 bank guarantee.
With the government refusing a debate on the matter, Adams led the walkout of Sinn Fein and United Left Alliance parliamentarians.
Thousands of New South Wales high school and primary school teachers stopped work for two hours on November 2. They voted overwhelmingly to reject the Coalition O鈥橣arrell state government鈥檚 salary offer.
Ninety-nine percent of teachers at the stopwork meetings also voted to hold a 24-hour stopwork action on November 29 if the government refused to make a reasonable salary offer.
Teachers will consider further industrial action at the start of 2012 if a reasonable offer is not made by then.
If you speak out against the widening gap between wages and CEOs鈥 salaries, the corporate media will accuse you of stoking the 鈥減olitics of envy鈥. Workers who dare take industrial action to get a few more crumbs from the bosses鈥 table are cast as class war dinosaurs.
Occupy Melbourne has re-established its occupation at Melbourne鈥檚 Treasury Gardens. Its general assemblies are still held in City Square, the original Occupy Melbourne site.
Since being violently evicted from City Square on October 21, Occupy Melbourne has become a travelling occupation. When the Occupy Melbourne march arrived at the Treasury Gardens on October 29, it was met with a big police contingent, including police on horses. The police had threatened to arrest anyone who tried to pitch tents.
In the space of barely more than a weekend, the deal that was supposed contain the euro crisis has unravelled entirely. The call for a referendum on the so-called rescue package by Greek Prime Minister Georgios Papandreou, later retracted under huge pressure, merely capped its rapid unravelling.
The prospect that the European Unions鈥 principal victims could be asked their opinion of the policies inflicted on them provoked near-hysteria in respectable quarters. EU leaders, Greek politicians, and the financial markets united to denounce the threat of an unseemly democratic intrusion.
From November 9 to 15 Australian Taxation Office staff will vote on management's proposed enterprise agreement. This is the second time a staff ballot has been held. The first version of management鈥檚 proposal was rejected in June by a majority of 59% to 41%.
The Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU) is recommending that staff vote 鈥渘o鈥, because the pay offer of 9% over three years is less than the expected rate of inflation.
A ballot of CPSU members endorsed this position following a recommendation by union鈥檚 Tax Section Council.
Qantas chief executive Alan Joyce grounded all Qantas aircraft, locked out Qantas workers, and disrupted the travel plans of thousands of passengers, including visiting heads of state, on October 29.
The rapid growth of the coal seam gas (CSG) industry 鈥 despite broad public opposition and proven risks 鈥 is bringing the gap between policy and public will into stark relief. Research remains limited, but there is mounting evidence CSG mining poses serious risks.
Alan Kohler, the editor in chief of Business Spectator and the finance presenter on the ABC News, was blunt about who was to blame for the Europe debt crisis in his November 2 on the ABC's The Drum.
He said: 鈥淭he debt crisis in Europe is the fault of bankers, yet the people are the ones who pay.
Noam Chomsky, in Sydney winning the 2011 Sydney Peace Prize, spoke at the #OccupySydney meeting to inspire and continue the campaign against neo-liberalism.
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