Selected people in Australia recently received the following invitation from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade: 鈥淒ear TPP Stakeholders, As part of the Australian Government鈥檚 ongoing public consultation process on the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) negotiations, the TPP negotiating team will be visiting Sydney on 30 October 2013 to meet with interested members of the public, and business and civil society stakeholders.
鈥淭he meeting will provide an update on the negotiations and an opportunity for further stakeholder input.鈥
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Just what questions can you be asked when you apply for a job? According to an article in the Sydney Morning Herald on October 12, global energy company Chevron asks some intrusive reproductive health questions of women applicants in its recruitment process. Questions include whether an applicant has been sterilised, their pregnancy history, how many abortions and stillbirths they have had, the number of 鈥渘ormal鈥 children they have and any birth defects their children may have.
Tasmanian Aboriginal activist Michael Mansell said he was grateful for the thoughts behind his Australia Day award nomination but that he 鈥渨ould be a hypocrite to accept it鈥.
Mansell has been outspoken about the offensiveness of Australia鈥檚 national day celebrating the invasion and dispossession of Australia鈥檚 Aboriginal people. He has participated in Invasion Day rallies held by the Tasmanian Aboriginal Centre for many years.
More people die from air pollution in Australia than the road toll, Greens Senator Richard Di Natale told a public meeting in Melbourne鈥檚 inner-west municipality of Maribyrnong on October 23.
Di Natale instigated the recent Senate inquiry into the effects of air pollution on human health, which concluded in August. He said there had been a 鈥渃atastrophic failure in this country to monitor air quality鈥.
Controversial private member鈥檚 bill 鈥淶oe鈥檚 law鈥, which aims to give legal rights to foetuses, was again set aside in the NSW Legislative Assembly on October 31. Only a few MPs turned up to the third second-reading debate; four spoke against and three spoke for it.
Those against were: Andrew McDonald (ALP Macquarie Fields); Leslie Williams (Nationals Port Macquarie); Jamie Parker (Greens Balmain) and John Williams (Nationals Murray Darling).
"We are here today,鈥 Professor Stuart Rees told a media conference at Queens Square on October 30, 鈥渢o express our outrage that a so-called independent law centre from Israel could attempt to stamp out freedom of speech in Australia.鈥
"We call on the mainstream media to take an objective stand on the issue of Palestinian human rights.鈥
The gathering concerned the move by Shurat HaDin, an Israeli-based law centre, to file a case in the Federal Court against Professor Jake Lynch of the University of Sydney's Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies.
Police on horseback and riot officers violently broke up a student protest in Melbourne on October 30. The demonstration was held to oppose federal government threats to higher education, and was part of a national week of student action, called by the National Union of Students.
Just two days before the protest, education minister Christopher Pyne told the ABC鈥檚 Q&A the government was investigating the possibility of selling off student HECS debt to private companies.
Comedian, Hollywood star and former host of MTV and Big Brother's Big Mouth Russell Brand in a Newsnight interview subsequently viewed millions of times on YouTube.
The journalist, veteran of many bruising encounters with politicians of all stripes, decisively lost.
The Country Liberal government of the Northern Territory announced on October 26 it was extending a reservation over Darwin鈥檚 rural area to 鈥減rotect rural and rural-residential areas of the Greater Darwin region .
鈥淲hilst the Country Liberal government is open for business, we know it is not practical to have oil and gas development in the middle of the Greater Darwin Region鈥, said mines and energy minister Willem Westra van Holthe.
Reclaim The Night has a proud international history as an annual protest of women and their supporters demanding an end to violence against women, and to the sexism and misogyny that underpin it. As shown by a 2012 globally focused study by US political scientists Mala Htun and S. Laurel Weldon, a key factor in reducing violence against women is strong feminist movements.
The ANZ announced a full-year cash profit of $6.5 billion on October 29.
Two days later, the NAB posted a profit that was not quite so big. It had only managed $5.94 billion in the year to September.
Banks make their profits in a number of ways. One is a sort of bankers鈥 version of two-up, betting on foreign exchange rates. This is the world鈥檚 largest market.
Reserve Bank of Australia figures for April put the average Australian foreign exchange turnover at US$181.7 billion a day.
Despite a Victorian state moratorium since last year barring the use of 鈥渇racking鈥 (hydraulic fracturing) to extract gas, communities across the state continue to protest against gas drilling and exploration.
Sixty locals protested at a test drilling site in Yarragon in Gippsland, east of Melbourne, on October 19, where Greenpower Natural Gas holds a licence to explore for coal seam gas (CSG). The moratorium on fracking does not prevent exploration works such as drilling and flaring off.
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