Hundreds braved rain on October 13 to rally against the construction of the East West link in Melbourne's inner suburbs.
The Socialist Party's Anthony Maine, vilified by the Herald Sun as a 鈥渟erial pest鈥 spoke at the rally. He said: 鈥淭he government is making decisions on behalf of the road lobby. We have the potential of mass support on our side of people that want to see more rail [lines] built. Our goal has to be to mobilise these people into action."
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A half-day strike by NSW public servants planned for October 22 has been called off after the Barry O鈥橣arrell government agreed to meet with the NSW Public Service Association (PSA) to discuss the union鈥檚 concerns about the high number of redundancies being implemented across the public service.
The PSA central council voted on October 14 to put industrial action on hold pending talks with the NSW government about the axing of 15,000 public sector jobs over four years and concerns about the new Government Sector Employment Act.
The Victorian treasurer has recently announced a budget surplus, but Melbourne taxi drivers have been forced to protest outside of parliament this week due to the Coalition's austerity-driven taxi reforms.
The Denis Napthine government wants to deregulate taxi licensing and claims that taxi standards have been compromised due to a lack of "competition" in the industry.
Taxi drivers and stakeholders know this is a lie.
Protesters gathered outside the immigration department CBD offices on October 18 to call on the Australian government to allow seven West Papuan asylum seekers to seek protection in Australia.
The seven West Papuans arrived in Australia鈥檚 Torres Strait on September 24. They fled West Papua, fearing reprisal for involvement with a Freedom Flotilla from Australia.
The federal resources minister Ian Macfarlane announced early in his term that one of his first priorities was to expand the coal seam gas (CSG) industry in NSW.
This will put him on a collision course with a powerful rural and city alliance 鈥 including activists like mother-of-four Melinda Wilson from western Sydney.
Wilson helped form No CSG Blacktown and CSG Free Western Sydney. She is organising a in Sydney on October 22.
A new free trade deal to be signed this year could allow foreign corporations to sue the Australian government for introducing environmental regulations on coal seam gas (CSG).
Australia has joined 11 other countries 鈥 the United States, Malaysia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam 鈥 in negotiations for the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP). Unlike most trade deals, other countries can sign on in the future.
Mainstream media outlets gave substantial coverage to the UN鈥檚 new report on the climate change crisis late last month, which said the Earth鈥檚 climate is warming faster than at any point in the past 65 million years and that human activity is the cause.
Disappointingly, though not unsurprisingly, the news reports .
Blue Mountains Mayor Mark Greenhill told ABC News Breakfast on October 18: 鈥淭he climatic conditions that fuelled that fire yesterday were just unprecedented ... an unprecedented disaster.鈥
More than 100 fires broke out across New South Wales on October 17. By October 19, they had destroyed at least 193 homes in the Blue Mountains alone and caused at least one confirmed death.
On Thursday October 17, New South Wales suffered the worst outbreak of bushfires in decades. Although it is not yet summer, the day was another one of high temperatures and hot, dry gusty winds. Fires raged out of control destroying hundreds of homes and killing one 63-year-old man trying to defend his home.
Sydney city and surrounding suburbs, as well as Newcastle and Wollongong, were covered by towering smoke plumes and ash, even though the nearest bushfires were tens of kilometres away to the north, west and south. It was apocalyptic.
In the ballot to elect the Australian Labor Party leader that concluded on October 9, 74% of the membership voted 鈥 30,426 of the party鈥檚 43,823 members 鈥 apparently energised by the novel prospect of having a say in the leadership.
Although the two aspirants, Bill Shorten and Anthony Albanese, are leaders of the party鈥檚 right and left factions respectively, both avoided controversy by saying next to nothing about policy.
These photographs were taken on October 17 from Sydney's inner-west 鈥 many kilometres away from the nearest fires (which were in the Blue Mountains, Wollongong and Newcastle) in what has been described as the worst bush fires in the state of NSW in decades.
Discussing the last-minute deal in the United States Congress to avoid triggering a debt default, Gail Collins, a columnist in the New York Times wrote: 鈥淲ell, um, yippie. Wow.
鈥淐ongress has decided it won鈥檛 trigger a global financial crisis out of pure pique. Can鈥檛 get any better than that.鈥
Much could be written about the antics of the far right in the Republican Party on display for the world these past weeks.
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