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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’ version of two-up, betting on foreign exchange rates. This is the world’s largest market. Reserve Bank of Australia figures for April put the average Australian foreign exchange turnover at US$181.7 billion a day.

Many residents have been involved in the campaign to stop the East West tunnel in Melbourne, an $8-15 billion tollway project of Denis Napthine’s Coalition government. One resident, Keith Fitzgerald, has lived in Collingwood for 70 years. Fitzgerald told �鶹��ý Weekly his grandparents had come over from Richmond in 1898 and settled in Collingwood. His father was born in Collingwood in 1900. Fitzgerald has lived in the same house for 69 years but has received a letter saying it is likely to be requisitioned,

The stack of new laws rushed through the Queensland parliament in recent weeks have put the Liberal National Party government on a collision course with the judiciary, the legal fraternity, trade unions and civil liberties activists not seen since the days of Joh Bjelke Petersen. These new laws — directed at bikie gangs, G20 protesters, sex offenders and workers compensation — attack basic freedoms of association, the right to protest peacefully, fair sentencing and the right of workers to sue negligent employers.

Secondary Students for Refugee Rights (SSFRR) is a group that was founded by Caitlin Woodland and Lucy Dodd, both students at Princes Hill Secondary College, to advocate for refugees’ rights. It formed during the federal election campaign in response to refugees being demonised by politicians during the campaign.

Selected people in Australia recently received the following invitation from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade: “Dear TPP Stakeholders, As part of the Australian Government’s 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. “The meeting will provide an update on the negotiations and an opportunity for further stakeholder input.”