August 20, 2006 – WA metalworkers: $28,600 fines for 15 minutes…

Western Australian-based Total Corrosion Control (TCC), one of the contractors engaged by ALCOA in Pinjarra to erect scaffolding has served writs on the 40 metalworkers it employs.

The workers face $28,600 in fines plus unspecified damages — for a union meeting that allegedly went 15 minutes over time.

The workers’ union, the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU), also faces fines, totalling $220,000 plus unspecified damages…

This is the radical new front of industrial relations. The first time Australian workers have been individually charged with taking illegal strike action.

SUPPORT THE 107 – AUGUST 29TH – MARCH & RALLY

The individual charging of 107 workers from a Perth building site for going on strike in February is shaping up as a seismic shift in industrial relations in Australia.

The men were charged for refusing an order to return to work and although they could be fined up to $28,000 each, they maintain they’d rather go to jail than pay.

The Office of the Australian Building and Construction Commissioner warns more charges will be laid, a move that has drawn an angry response from the union movement.

The Australian Building and Construction Commission has issued writs against 107 of a possible 430 workers who took strike action in February while working on the troubled $1.5 billion Perth railway project.

WA metalworkers: $28,600 fines for 15 minutes: On July 28, all 40 workers and the union were served with applications to the federal court for fines under both the Building and Construction Industry Improvement (BCII) legislation and the Workplace Relations Act (WRA), plus unspecified damages for the loss of production.

The employer’s application also says that money paid to cover any fines imposed will be passed directly on to them.

The 40 workers and the WA branch of the AMWU appear in court on August 29, the same day as the 107 WA construction workers facing similar fines…

Support The 107: http://www.cfmeuwa.com/cfmeuwa/supportthe107

Demonstrate Solidarity on Court Day August 29th

The 107 face their first appearance before the Federal Court in Perth on August 29th at 10:15am.

Together with their families, they need to know that across the country, concerned unionists, workers and community members stand beside them.They welcome any expressions of solidarity undertaken on their behalf. If you have anything planned, please let us know.

In WA, an alliance of unions and community will March and Rally on August 29th in defence of The 107 and their civil rights. READ MORE…

Striking workers face new reality This landmark dispute was sparked when the contractor Leighton Kumgai sacked a shop steward for refusing to follow management directions. Despite warnings from the employer, the State Government, the union and the Building Commission that any action would be illegal and could result in penalties, the workers went on strike.

The 107 Construction site workmates are being summonsed to appear in Federal Court after they went on strike on the Perth Mandurah railway site in February.

The charges under section 127 of the Industrial Relations Act are for breaching an order to return to work.

The new workplace laws mean the workers face up to $28,000 each in fines if convicted.

Court Day August 29th

From: PERTH INDYMEDIA 

The walk-off in the Northern Territory 40 years ago by a staunch mob of Aboriginal stockmen and their families became one of the most protracted industrial and political disputes in Australian history – resulting in the enactment of the 1976 NT Land Rights Act.

This weekend, at the township of Kalkarinjee, hundreds gathered to mark the anniversary of the walk-off 40 years ago by Gurindji stockmen from Wave Hill Station.

Meanwhile, controversial amendments to the NT Land Rights Act passed in the Federal Senate, with little consultation – virtually dismantling the laws, enabling corporations to lease Indigenous land from the Federal Government…

Annual Wave Hill walk-off at Kalkaringi, Northern Territory – It’s 40 years since Gurindji elder Vincent Lingiari led his people off Wave Hill station in a fight for fair pay and better working conditions.

The walk-off began as a campaign against the British beef baron Lord Vesty for better wages. Lingiari took his people to the banks of the Wattie Creek and the fight developed into a major push for land rights.

The Gurindji struggle led to the 1976 Land Rights Act which has since enabled Aboriginal people to regain ownership of half the land mass of the Northern Territory. This weekend, at the township of Kalkarinjee, hundreds gathered to mark the anniversary of the walk-off 40 years ago by Gurindji stockmen from Wave Hill Station.

Following this week’s passing of radical amendments to the NT’s Aboriginal Land Rights Act – the very piece of legislation their forefather pioneered all those years ago – Aboriginal land rights have been eroded.

The Federal Government’s controversial changes to the Land Rights Act passed just last week – virtually disabling the NT Land Rights Act. The amendments will diminish the power of the four land councils which cover the Northern Territory.

The Land Rights Act will be effectively extinguished by the the Federal Government to allow for 99-year leases of townships on Aboriginal land.

Many at the walk-off anniversary learnt for the first time of the Prime Minister’s new amendments, with critics saying: “It’s a real irony to know that in the preceding days to this celebration we’ve had phenomenal amendments to the Aboriginal land rights legislation, that it could have a fairly significant and disastrous impact on Indigenous people and our rights into the future…”

The Senate’s rush to pass the amendments to the Land Rights Act has rung alarms beyond the Aboriginal population. The public interest group GETUP! gathered 25,000 signatures over just one weekend for a Web-based campaign. “What we’re seeing is an unravelling of the rights and interests of Aboriginal people in relation to their country, without negotiation, without consultation, without their agreement,” said the GetUp guy.

There are certain elements of the bill where there has not been any consultation at all. If you look at the traditional owners’ submission to the Senate inquiry, it says, “We only knew about this Senate inquiry by chance”.

The Senates Community Affairs Legislation Committee heard submissions on the bill over one day in July and new and contentious measures were later introduced to the Senate at very short notice.

The Senate committee dominated by Government members, lamented that the time available for its inquiry was totally inadequate to do justice to the complex nature of the issues.

“It is unfair, it’s unjust and it’s totally unprecedented that Australians who have won their cases after a full hearing before a judge should have their case terminated by the Commonwealth Government. It’s un-Australian.”

n May 1975, Gurindji people were successful in having an area of their own land excised from the Vestey pastoral lease at Wattie Creek in the Northern Territory. In 1986 a claim for recognition of traditional rights made under the 1976 Land Rights Act was successful and 3000 sq km of their land was transferred to Gurindji people.

Yet amid the celebrations, there were concerns that any gains resulting from the strike 40 years ago, and its benefits – have now being eroded.

An academic specialising in Indigenous land issues says changes to the Northern Territory Land Rights Act attack the principle of social justice for Aboriginal people. Professor John Altman says the changes are a blow for Indigenous rights.

“To the whole notion of social justice for Indigenous people through land rights,” Professor Altman said. “I think the Federal Government has dressed these amendments up as a way to deliver industry and commerce to Aboriginal land, but I think there’s absolutely no evidence base that suggests that’s going to happen.”

The Northern Territory Government has declared the route of the Wave Hill walk-off a heritage site. But the Central Land Council says the strike will be better remembered if all levels of government respect Aboriginal land rights.
The chief executive of the Central Land Council, David Ross, says he will fight amendments to the Aboriginal Lands Rights Act passed by Federal Parliament this week.

The amendments diminish the power of the land councils and allow for 99-year leases on Aboriginal land, clearing the way for private home ownership. But Mr Ross says not all Aboriginal people want to own their own home and change should not come at the expense of people’s cultural links to their land.

Australians for Native Title and Reconciliation (ANTAR) spokesman Gary Highland says the introduction of 99-year leases on traditional land threatens Aboriginal self-determination. “It’s a day that will go down in history as when the high-water mark of land rights in Australia receded,” he said.

“It significantly weakens the ability of Indigenous people to control what happens on their land. We think it’s a bleak day for Indigenous people and for land rights in Australia.”

It’s a serious problem for our nation.

We have major changes to one of the most fundamental pieces of legislation affecting the first peoples of this land and it’s being rushed through as though they and their views don’t matter…

Related Meme Pool:
http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2006/s1720400.htm
http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2006/s1718859.htm
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200608/s1717592.htm
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200608/s1718810.htm
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200608/s1718239.htm
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200608/s1716656.htm
http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2006/s1709952.htm
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200608/s1716256.htm
http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2006/s1718126.htm

Monday, August 21, 2006: An international oil expert believes the soaring price of fuel may lead to a change in the motoring industry.London-based Chris Skrebowski arrived in Perth yesterday for a series of industry talks and meetings with state and federal politicians over the rising cost of fuel… The price of oil would continue to rise until world oil production peaks in 2010 with any weather or political disruption able to cause a spike in price, an oil expert said today. The London-based editor of Petroleum Review, published by the UK’s Energy Institute, Chris Skrebowski said in Perth that world production would peak about 94 million barrels of oil per day, up from present levels of between 85 million barrels and 86 million barrels per day. Mr Skrebowski predicts the price of unleaded petrol in Western Australia could reach $2 a litre by Christmas. He believes oil production will not be able to match supply within the next five years. Mr Skrebowski says although high fuel prices have many flow-on effects to the average consumer, the situation is forcing people to think outside the square. “If you go to Japan where the fuel is even higher, a third of the market’s now really tiny cars under 700cc,” he said. “So in that sense, putting the price up does start to change behaviour.” However, Mr Skrebowski concedes solutions that work in other countries may not be suitable to the vast distances travelled in Australia. Mr Skrebowski is encouraging people to start planning for the future. “We don’t have a chance of doing that unless we get on with it, face up to it now and start getting on with it,” he said. “Any investment takes a number of years, any change-over in social behaviour or technical instruction always takes a lot of time and that’s really what I’m here to say.” The global community needed to develop new fuels or technologies by the time production peaks or there could be a disruption, he said. “The sooner we can start mitigating the effect the better,” he said. “We have left it pretty late already.” He said while the disruption would not be on the same scale as the oil crises of the 1970s, the decline in oil could have uncomfortable side effects. The rising oil price has translated to escalating petrol prices, but he said for petrol to reach $2 a litre in Australia, the oil price (now trading about $US71 a barrel) would need to soar up to $US120 a barrel. “It’s pretty improbable it will get that high,” Mr Skrebowski said. “What we can say is the chance of petrol going down is very slight.” He predicted the oil price could reach up to $US90 a barrel by the end of the year, but this could be pushed higher on supply concerns, including if the conflict in the Middle East flared up again. “I don’t think it will go below $US70 (a barrel) and could test up to $US90,” he said. The northern hemisphere would soon be heading into winter and this traditionally pushed prices higher, he said, but a severe winter would see prices spike as energy consumption for heating soared. All the risks are on the downside in terms of supply, which means all the risks are on the upside in terms of price,” he said. Mr Skrebowski predicts the price of unleaded petrol in WA will crash through the $2 mark this summer. He said WA motorists’ pain at the bowser would worsen. “It’s certainly going to go through $2 in the not-too-distant future,” Mr Skrebowski said. “You could see it as early as Christmas, or the beginning of next year. In most of Europe, they’re paying rather more than that now.” He said in the long term Australians could expect to pay a lot more than $2 a litre. There was worldwide complacency about the looming oil crisis, but he praised the WA and Federal governments’ offering LPG conversion subsidies. “At the moment, by denying or minimising the problem, we are simply not tapping into all the solutions that could be generated once you make people really think about it,” he said. His advice to the WA Government is: Be prepared. “Look in a clear-eyed way at the problem, don’t be hoping that it’s all going to sort itself out,” he said. “See how you’re vulnerable, what is actually the threat _ and what you can actually do about it. Forewarned is forearmed. With a fairly low population density and people travelling a great deal, of course, you are vulnerable to the cost of fuel.” By 2010, WA drivers would have to cut down on unneccessary trips. “It won’t be drastic straight away,” he said. “It’s after that it starts getting a bit more difficult. We have to start examining the way people live and where they’re living, physically, in relation to where they’re working.” People working from home or commuting to work on some days only would become a part of life. Mr Skrebowski, a world expert on oil depletion, will speak at the Committee for Economic Development of Australia conference in Perth on Wednesday. Oil prices on rise till 2010: expert Petrol $2 by Christmas Petrol prices force motoring innovation: expert

Sources

August 21, 2006 – Wikinews

NASA has announced that rockets will be launched from Woomera in outback South Australia to service the International Space Station (ISS) – starting in 2008. NASA has selected two American companies to launch rockets from the Woomera base. Rocket Plane Kistler and Space-X will conduct orbital flight tests and commercial operations. The Woomera site would also be used to launch cargo such as fuel and food to the ISS as often as every two weeks.

Woomera, named for an Aboriginal spear-throwing tool, was originally involved in testing of long-range missiles and rockets for Britian during the Cold War. The site was also recently used by the Australian government to incarcerate asylum-seeking refugees.

SpaceX based in California, and Rocketplane-Kistler of Oklahoma City, will share up to $US500 million in NASA seed money to develop their launch vehicles. NASA has stated it wants commercial firms to take over ISS transportation services after the space shuttle fleet is retired in 2010.

SpaceX, owned by Internet entrepreneur and PayPal founder Elon Musk, made its launch debut in March with the Falcon 1 rocket but the vehicle failed shortly after lift-off. The two companies secured the NASA contract to demonstrate its “commercial orbital transportation services”. Kistler has scheduled the first launch of its K-1 rocket from Woomera in late 2008.

Kistler said work on a $100 million launch site at Woomera was expected to start in October. The site should be completed by the end of next year. Kistler Woomera chairman Alan Evans said the contract meant “hundreds of jobs” would be created within the aerospace industry in South Australia. “The jobs will be within the high-level end of the spectrum of the space industry, which is great news for the state,” he said.

K-1 will have crew transportation capabilities, meaning the Woomera site could see astronauts leave from Australia. The site may also be used to transport satellites into space for telecom companies and defence organisations. The K-1 launch vehicle is designed to be re-used 100 times. It is powered by liquid-propellant engines and lands back on Earth with the help of parachutes and airbags.

“Woomera was chosen because it can be used for polar and equatorial launches and because of its clean land areas,” Mr Evans said. “Kistler has already spent US$700 million developing this idea.”

Rocketplane Kistler say their K-1 launch system will also provide low cost space access for satellites and research payloads. Their sub-orbital XP Spaceplane is 50% complete, and scheduled for first flight in late 2008. The K-1’s hardware is 75% complete – and is scheduled for first flight in 2008.

• “Woomera chosen as rocket launch site for space station“. Australian Broadcasting Corporation, August 21, 2006

• MATT WILLIAMS, XANTHE KLEINIG “NASA in $272m Woomera deal“. The Advertiser, August 21, 2006

• “Rocket town ready to take off again“. The Australian, August 21, 2006

• “SPACEX WINS NASA COTS CONTRACT TO DEMONSTRATE CARGO DELIVERY TO SPACE STATION WITH OPTION FOR CREW TRANSPORT“. Spacex Media Release, August 18, 2006

• “Rocketplane Kistler Wins $207 Million Award to Demonstrate International Space Station Servicing“. Rocketplane Kistler Media release, August 11, 2006

Wikinews August 21, 2006

A report by the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) says rising demand for irrigation to produce food and biofuels will aggravate scarcities of water. “One in three people is enduring one form or another of water scarcity,” states the report compiled by 700 experts.

IWMI warns there has to be a radical transformation in the management of water resources – citing as examples Australia, south-central China, and last year’s devastating drought in India. Report authors claim that the price of water could double or triple over the next two decades. The report, backed by the United Nations and farm research groups, shows that globally, water usage had increased by six times in the past 100 years and would double again by 2050 – driven mainly by irrigation and demands by agriculture.

Record oil prices and concerns about rapid onset climate change are driving more countries to produce biofuels – from sugarcane, corn or wood – as an alternative to fossil fuel. “If people are growing biofuels and food it will put another new stress,” says David Molden, who led the study at the Sri Lanka-based IWMI. “The big solution is to find ways to grow more food with less water. Basically, more crop per drop,” Molden said. “The number one recommendation… is to look to improve rain-fed systems in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia.”

The report says conquering hunger and coping with an estimated 3 billion more humans by 2050 will result in an 80 percent increase in water use for agriculture. Irrigation absorbs around 74 percent and is likely to surge by 2050.

“We will have to change business as usual in order to deal with growing scarcity,” said Frank Rijsberman, director general of the IWMI, of the report released at the 2006 “World Water Week” conference in Stockholm. Solutions included helping poor countries to grow more food with available fresh water via simple, low-cost measures in a shift from past policies that favoured expensive dams or canals, the report said.

According to Rijsberman, there are two types of shortages: those observed in regions where water is over-exploited, causing a lowering of groundwater levels and rivers to dry up; and those in countries lacking the technical and financial resources to capture water – despite its abundance.

Billions of people in Asia and Africa already faced water shortages because of poor water management, he said. “We will not run out of bottled water any time soon, but some countries have already run out of water to produce their own food,” he said.

The report said that a calorie of food took roughly 1 litre of water to produce. But a kilo of grain needed only 500-4,000 litres – while a kilo of industrially produced meat took 10,000 litres.

“Without improvements in water productivity the consequences of this will be even more widespread water scarcity and rapidly increasing water prices.” Rijsberman said water scarcity in Africa was caused by a lack of infrastructure to get the water to the people who needed it. “The water is there, the rainfall is there, but the infrastructure isn’t there,” Rijsberman told reporters.

Other recommendations for certain regions include the extension and the improvement of agriculture using rainwater, the introduction of cereal varieties that need less water as well as the development of irrigation systems.

But the priority, Rijsberman stresses, is to change mentalities and often outdated government policies. “Government policies and their approach to water are probably the most urgent that need changing in the short term,” he said.

There is, he says, enough land, water and human capacity to produce enough food for a growing population over the next 50 years, but one of the challenges is to provide enough water for agriculture without damaging the environment. “Agriculture is driving water scarcity and water scarcity is driving environmental degradation and destruction,” he said.

In Australia last week, Rijsberman said he would “not be surprised to see the price of water double or triple over the next two decades.”

Sources

• “Food, biofuels may worsen water shortage“. News Limited, August 21, 2006

• Alister Doyle “Food, biofuels could worsen water shortages-report“. Reuters, August 20, 2006

• “World is rapidly running out of water“. Independent Online, August 18 2006

• “Call for radical re-think on global water management“. The Qatar Peninsula, August 21, 2006

• Frank Rijsberman “Water more expensive than oil?“. The National Forum, August 16, 2006

More “terrorism” claims

From Wikinews, the free news source you can write!
August 20, 2006

Melbourne man Jack Thomas has been aquitted of terrorism offences in Victoria’s Court of Appeal. His convictions for receiving funds from a terror group and using a false passport were quashed on Friday. Mr Thomas was earlier sentenced to five years in jail.

Jack Thomas, 33, known as “Jihad Jack” was convicted under new Australian anti-terror laws. He was found guilty in February of accepting cash and a plane ticket from an al-Qaeda agent in Pakistan. But was cleared of ‘intentionally providing resources for al-Qaeda’. The former taxi driver was sentenced to five years in prison in March.

The Court of Appeal ruled Thomas’s interview with Australian Federal Police (AFP) in Pakistan was inadmissible. Thomas appealed his conviction on the grounds that interviews conducted in Pakistan after his arrest in 2003 breached Australian law and should not have been allowed as evidence at his trial.

He was interviewed without access to a lawyer, having already been interrogated during two months in custody in Pakistan. Mr Thomas’ lawyers argued that he was earlier threatened with torture from foreign security agencies.

His lawyer said Mr Thomas, who is married and has three children, accepted the money and plane ticket because he wanted to return home. Mr Thomas said he never had any intention of becoming an al-Qaeda operative.

Lawyer Rob Stary said Thomas wanted to thank his legal team and staff at a hospital he had spent the past several months in psychiatric care. “He’s in a debilitated condition as a result of what’s transpired,” Mr Stary said.

Liberty Victoria president Brian Walters, SC, welcomed the decision, saying: “We believe that the Court of Appeal has righted a great injustice.”

Prosecutor Nick Robinson is calling for a retrial based on a television interview with the ABC. The defence counsel has labelled the submission “bloody-minded.” Rob Stary said the defence team would counter with arguments that prosecutors withheld a statement from a prisoner now held overseas. “The AFP has withheld important information that would have contradicted other evidence,” he said.

Thomas’ brother, Les, who took part in a protest rally outside Barwon Prison this weekend in support of 13 detainees facing charges of “terrorism”, said the 13 Melbourne men faced a similar predicament to his brother.

Les Thomas said the 13 were victims of a government “scare campaign” and “media demonisation” and were being held in solitary confinement in Barwon’s high security Acacia Unit, despite not being convicted of any crime. He said the men faced greater “persecution” than he claimed his brother had faced because most were of Middle Eastern background. “These people have not been convicted of any crime, but they’re already being punished in extremely punitive circumstances,” said Les Thomas.

Ten of the 13 were arrested in pre-dawn police raids in Melbourne and Sydney last November, and another three were arrested in March this year.

Jack Thomas was the first person to be convicted under the controversial new Australian anti-terror legislation.

Sources

• “Thomas acquitted of terrorism conviction“. Australian Broadcasting Corporation, August 18, 2006

• “‘Jihad Jack’ conviction quashed“. BBC, August 18, 2006

• Jane Holroyd “Court sets Thomas free“. The Age, August 18, 2006

• Mark Dunn “Feds ‘withheld Jack evidence’“. News Limited, August 21, 2006

• Catherine Best “Terror suspects are ‘demonised’“. The Herald Sun, August 20, 2006

Sources

August 20, 2006 From Wikinews

400 Australian soldiers have been officially farewelled at parade in Darwin, NT, ahead of their deployment to Afghanistan on Tuesday. Wishing the soldiers well, Defence Minister Brendan Nelson says there is a high risk associated with the mission.

“We know that this is a dangerous mission but it’s also an extremely important one,” he said. “They will go beginning this week and be deployed over the next few weeks.”

The group will work around the southern Oruzgan Province. Rising violence in the Taliban heartland province earlier this month prompted Australian Prime Minister John Howard to further strengthen the capability of the Reconstruction Task Force (RTF). Approximately 150 personnel will be added to the 240-strong force announced in May.

Defence says the RTF will form part of the Netherlands-led Provincial Reconstruction Team in the Oruzgan province under NATO.

More than 1800 people have been killed in fighting in Afghanistan this year, 92 of them foreign soldiers. A contingent of 190 Australian special forces, supported by a 110-member helicopter detachment, has suffered a steady flow of casualties since September year, with 11 wounded — a rate of one a month. The Age reports the Howard Government has “kept secret” how soldiers suffered the wounds, or the extent or nature of the wounds.

Dr Nelson said the soldiers would perform command, construction, communications intelligence, protection and logistics support. “We must stick with our allies and stand up for our values,” he said. He told the troops they would be “dealing with people who are fanatically opposed to our way of life and everything we stand for”.

Dr Nelson says the Australian contribution will also include skills training for the local population to “ensure the benefits of the deployment continue long after our personnel have returned home.”

• “Nelson farewells Australian troops“. Australian Broadcasting Corporation, August 21, 2006

• Lindsay Murdoch, Darwin “400 troops depart for Afghanistan mission“. The Age, August 20, 2006

• “FAREWELL OF AUSTRALIAN TROOPS BOUND FOR AFGHANISTAN“. Minister for Defence Media Release, August 20, 2006

• “Aussie troops injured“. Border Mail, August 15, 2006

No Legal Recourse for Burmese

August 21, 2006 Source: Wikinews

Eight Burmese boatpeople, who arrived off Western Australia’s Ashmore Reef last week, say they wish to claim refugee status. The group of 8 men, aged between 24 and 40, are being held in detention on Christmas Island by the Australian Federal Government. They will be sent to Nauru after identity interviews and medical checks are completed.

According to The Age newspaper, the men are from a refugee camp on the Thai-Burmese border, and may be from the Karen tribe, who are battling Burma’s brutal military Government. Karen rebels have been at war with the central Government for 57 years.

An Immigration department spokesman confirmed that the eight men claimed to be from Burma. Two of the men have contacted immigration lawyers seeking assistance with asylum claims. David Manne, from Melbourne-based Refugee and Immigration Legal Centre, said the other six were likely to do the same. “There’s a very strong likelihood that they are genuine refugees,” he said.

The men were first spotted by the Australian Customs Service at Ashmore Reef, 610km north of Broome, WA on August 13. They were sent by Navy vessel to Christmas Island – 2,400 km northwest of Perth, WA. The men have been held since Friday as part of the Howard Government’s Pacific Solution to keep asylum seekers out of the country.

In 2005, the Department of Immigration began construction of an Immigration Reception and Processing Centre on Christmas Island, due for completion late in 2006. The facility is estimated to cost $210 million, and will contain 800 beds.

The news of the boatpeople’s arrival became public last week as Prime Minister John Howard scrapped controversial new migration laws. The proposed laws would have excised the Australian mainland for immigration purposes.

Ashmore Reef, already excised from Australia’s migration zone, means the men have no legal entitlement to be brought to Australia for processing. They have no access to the Australian court system to argue their claims or contest the rulings of the Immigration Department.

Mr Manne said he was concerned that the circumstances of the men’s confinement could hamper their attempts to communicate with lawyers. He said the Burmese men should be afforded the same rights as the West Papuans or Vietnamese asylum-seekers who recently made it to Australian shores. “It’s absolutely crucial these people be given a fair go, so that they can actually speak with us properly about the issues,” he said. Mr Manne says he has made several requests of the Department of Immigration in Canberra.

“They’re asylum seekers… they believe that they’d be persecuted if sent to Burma, and we have agreed to act on their behalf,”. He was unable to say whether the group was dropped off by people smugglers, as Immigration Minister Senator Amanda Vanstone claims.

“What we do know is they’re seeking refugee status, that is, protection from brutal human rights abuse,” he said. The Burmese regime has recently waged an aggressive attack on Karen insurgents – forcing thousands of villagers to hide in the jungle or seek refuge in Thailand. There are 140,000 refugee camps in seven camps along the Thai-Burma border.

Australian Greens Senator Kerry Nettle says the government must allow the Burmese group to be brought to Australia to process the asylum-seeker’s claims. “The government needs to ensure that all asylum seekers are offered legal support,” she said. “The best way to ensure the Burmese asylum seekers have full access to their lawyer is to bring them to Australia while their asylum claims are assessed.”

Nauru

Meanwhile the near-bankrupt Nauru Government has urged Aust to “speed up asylum seeker processing” in their country. Nauru says Australia is taking far too long to process asylum seekers. Currently two refugees remain on Nauru – both Iraqi men. The men have been held in detention on the remote tiny island for five years.

According to The Age, the Nauru Government has approved a plan to impose financial penalties on Australia if asylum seekers are forced to languish on the near-bankrupt island. The report says if they have not been processed and either returned or resettled within three months, their visas will have to be renewed each month, with the cost increasing by $500 for each renewal.

Nauru’s Foreign Minister David Adeang raised serious concerns about the mental state of the detainees. He says Muhammad Faisal’s condition worsened sharply after he was re-interviewed by ASIO. Mr Adeang has asked for the Government to evacuate the Mr Faisal immediately, he says he is also concerned about the mental health of the other Iraqi man left on Nauru. The Australian Government claims advice from ASIO that the man may be a “security threat.”

Nauru is the world’s smallest island nation, covering just 21 km². Since 2001 it has accepted aid from the Australian government. In exchange for this aid, Nauru houses an ‘offshore’ detention centre for Australia.

Sources

• David King “Burmese boatpeople to be taken to Nauru“. The Australian, August 21, 2006

• “Burmese asylum seekers jailed on Xmas Island – Nauru wants speedier processing“. Perth Indymedia, August 19, 2006

• “Nauru to raise charges for asylum seekers“. The Age, August 21, 2006

• Samantha Hawley “Burmese asylum seekers appeal to Minister“. AM, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, August 19, 2006

• Jewel Topsfield and Michael Gordon “Mentally ill refugee may leave Nauru after five years“. The Age, August 17, 2006

Sources

Source: Wikinews, the free news source you can write! August 20, 2006

 

 

The Victorian government has announced plans to build what it says will be Australia’s “most powerful wind farm.” Rob Hulls has has given the go ahead to a new $380 million wind farm at Mount Gellibrand in the state’s south-west.”I’m pleased to announce that I have approved Australia’s most powerful and Victoria’s largest wind farm to date,” Mr Hulls said. “This project is expected to create anywhere between 110 and 120 jobs during construction and up to 25 full time positions during the life of the wind farm,” he said.

The massive windfarm will be located 120 km west of Melbourne, close to the regional centre of Colac. The windfarm comprises 116 turbines of the 2 MW class – with an overall capacity of 232 MW. The windfarm will produce over 700,000 MWh of clean energy which is enough to supply approximately 132,000 Victorian households. German company Pro Ventum International is undertaking the project

Minister Hulls said only nine objections had been lodged against the project. Local landowner Tim Gore, who plans to have 32 turbines on his property, said he was not concerned about potential noise from the turbines. Pro Ventum International say they will commence work on an Environmental Management report the next few weeks.

Wind farm critic Tim Le Roy said there was no environmental benefit from the project at all and the Victorian government would better spend its money on geo-thermal energy.

The turbines, each 125 metres tall, will produce 232 megawatts of power and would be visible from the Princes Highway between Geelong and Colac, sited at the foot of Mount Gellibrand.

In October last year, Colac Otway council’s chief executive officer, Tracey Slatter, said the proposal would benefit the shire: “…we’re looking at reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and with the demand of energy set to increase it is important that we do consider these renewable energy sources,” she said.

[edit]

• “Australia’s largest wind farm approved“. The Sydney Morning Herald, August 20, 2006

• “Victoria approves large new wind farm“. Australian Broadcasting Corporation, August 20, 2006

• Media Release “Mount Gellibrand wind farm gets planning approval“. Pro Ventum International GmbH, August 20, 2006

• “Panel hears wind farm submissions“. Australian Broadcasting Corporation, October 19, 2005

• Melissa Fyfe, Misha Ketchell “Canberra buys into wind farm battle“. The Age, October 14, 2004

“they’re seeking refugee status, that is, protection from brutal human rights abuse…”

Perth: 19 August 2006 – The eight Burmese asylum seekers who were found off WA’s Ashmore Reef last week, have made a request for legal assistance. The group are asking the Australian government to stop them from being sent to Nauru. Two of the eight Burmese nationals have issued a plea to refugee lawyer David Manne.

The group will ask Immigration Minister Amanda Vanstone to allow them to stay in Australia rather than be detained on Nauru as part of John Howard’s “Pacific Solution”.

Meanwhile the Nauru Government, concerned for the mental health of current detainees, has urged Aust to speed up asylum seeker processing in their country…

Refugee and Immigration Legal Centre co-ordinator David Manne, represented the 43 West Papuan asylum seekers. He told media this week that if the new asylum seekers were from an ethnic Burmese minority group, such as the Karen, there was a very strong likelihood they were refugees.

“Independent country evidence clearly indicates Burma has an extremely poor human rights record,” he said. “It’s notorious for brutally persecuting its own citizens, including religious and ethnic minorities such as the Karen.

“We can confirm that there are eight Burmese asylum seekers who have been taken to Christmas Island, and two of them have managed to fax us and have requested that we act as legal representatives for them,” said Mr Manne.

“They’re asylum seekers; we understand that they’re seeking refugee status… they believe that they’d be persecuted if sent to Burma, and we have agreed to act on their behalf,” Mr Manne told the ABC. He said he knows few details of the case and is unable to say whether the group was dropped off by people smugglers as Senator Vanstone has said.

“What we do know is they’re seeking refugee status, that is, protection from brutal human rights abuse.” He said it was crucial that the group are “urgently provided with the ability to seek independent legal assistance, and other support – and not be taken to Nauru…”

Mr Manne says he is asking Senator Vanstone to use her ministerial discretion and not send the group to bre detained on Nauru.

Australian Greens Senator Kerry Nettle agrees. She says the government must allow the Burmese group to be brought to Australia while their claims are processed. “The government needs to ensure that all asylum seekers are offered legal support,” she said. “The best way to ensure the Burmese asylum seekers have full access to their lawyer is to bring them to Australia while their asylum claims are assessed.

“These asylum seekers must not be taken to Nauru. A major problem with off-shore processing is that asylum seekers are isolated from legal assistance. In the past, lawyers have been denied visas to Nauru and have not been able to take instructions from their clients,” said Senator Nettle in a media release.

“Why should these Burmese asylum seekers be treated worse than the West Papuans? The Australian government has recognized the horrendous human rights abuses that continue to occur in Burma.”

The eight Burmese men are believed to be aged between 24 and 40. According to The Age newspaper, the men are from a refugee camp on the Thai-Burmese border, and were suspected to be from the Karen tribe, an ethnic minority that battle Burma’s brutal military Government. Karen rebels have been at war with the central Government for 57 years.

The Burmese regime has recently waged an aggressive attack on Karen insurgents – forcing thousands of villagers to hide in the jungle or seek refuge in Thailand. There are 140,000 refugee camps in seven camps along the Thai-Burma border.

Meanwhile the Nauru Government has urged Aust to speed up asylum seeker processing in their country. Nauru says Australia is taking far too long to process asylum seekers. Currently two asylum seekers remain on Nauru, both Iraqi men. The men have been held in detention on the remote tiny island for five years.

Nauru is the world’s smallest island nation, covering just 21 km². Since 2001 it has accepted aid from the Australian government. In exchange for this aid, Nauru houses an ‘offshore’ detention centre for Australia.

Nauru’s Foreign Minister David Adeang raised serious concerns about the mental state of the detainees. He says Muhammad Faisal’s condition worsened sharply after he was re-interviewed by ASIO. Mr Adeang has asked for the Government to evacuate the Mr Faisal immediately.

He also says processing should take months not years. Mr Adeang says he is concerned about the mental health of the other Iraqi man, Mohammed Sagar, remaining on Nauru. The Australian Government claims advice from ASIO that the man may be a “security threat.”

Psychiatry Professor Ian Hickie, a member of the Federal Government’s detention health advisory group, recently flew to Nauru to visit the two asylum seekers.

He warns ASIO’s repeated interviewing of the men will only exacerbate their medical problems. “If a person is in a situation where they cannot receive adequate care in Nauru or in any other detention centre then it is the responsibility of the Australian Government… to provide appropriate care,” Professor Hickie said.

Muhammad Faisal has been placed on 24-hour watch because of suicide fears. “Anyone who finds themself in a position of not knowing their status over a long period of time is at risk of developing a mental health problem… If there’s no certainty about your future then it is easy for people to slide into a situation of hopelessness and despair.”

The government of Nauru says Australia has sought authority to land a special chartered plane on Sunday, carrying 25 people.

SOURCES:
Nauru urges Aust to speed up asylum seeker processing – ABC
Burmese asylum seekers appeal to Minister – ABC
Greens Media Release
Mentally ill refugee may leave Nauru after five years – The Age
Australia to accept ill Iraqi refugee held on Nauru – Radio NZ 

From the newswire: The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society has purchased a bigger, faster and more powerful boat in its campaign to assert international law and stop Japanese commercial whaling. The ‘ice class’ vessel, ‘Leviathan’, is undergoing will join the ‘Farley Mowat’ in Melbourne ahead of the next Japanese whale hunting season in the Southern Ocean in December. President of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, Captain Paul Watson, said “We will be bringing two ships, a helicopter and about 60 volunteers to the Antarctic Whale Sanctuary. Quite a few of the crew will be Australian,”

“…the bottom line is that Sea Shepherd is not a protest organisation. We intervene against illegal activities…

Last whaling season the Japanese whaling fleet fled at high speed when the slower Farley Mowat intercepted them. The Greenpeace ships were able to keep pace and their protests hindered whaling efforts and brought graphic coverage to the world of the illegal commercial whale slaughter, done under the name of scientific research.

The 2006/2007 whaling season will see the whaling fleet chased by two Greenpeace vessels and by two Sea Shepherd vessels. Japan will be targeting 850 Antarctic piked (Minke) whales, 50 endangered humpbacks and 50 endangered fin whales. Ninety percent of the whales that are targeted will be in the Australian Whale Sanctuary.

It has been reported that the Japanese fleet will be increasing its defences. “I am unconcerned about whatever plans Japan has to defend their illegal activities,” Captain Watson said. “We are quite willing to instigate an international incident over this.”

The Japanese ’scientific’ whaling program has been repeatedly attacked for its poor science. The campaign to stop Japanese Whaling has widespread support in Australia…

READ MORE/Comment…

[ See also: Sea Shepherd - Perth Crew ] :: [ Sea Shepherd Previous Features: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | Sea Shepherd stories Perth Indymedia ]

SOURCE

Aid agency Oxfam is warning that generations of Aboriginal people could lose control of their land if contraversial changes to NT land rights laws are passed this week in the Senate.

The amendments severely weaken Indigenous people’s control of their land in the NT and have been dubbed the most significant attack on Indigenous rights in decades.

The amendments, forced to a vote in the Senate on Wednesday, will alter the 1976 Northern Territory Land Rights Act, which gives Aboriginal Australians control and communal ownership over their land in the NT…

Under the new regime, NT Aboriginal people will be offered loans and leases on their land in an effort to force private ownership and economic development.

The proposed lease provisions will effectively take away the rights of the traditional owners to decide who and what takes place on their ancestral lands for 99 years.

Companies, services and non-traditional owners will be able to lease land from the government rather than obtaining consent from the land owners on a case-by-case basis.

In what has increasingly become a Howard legacy, the federal government has again been criticised for failing to consult indigenous communities.

Oxfam Australia’s public policy director James Ensor described the legislation as deeply unpleasant. Oxfam worries that the Government may tie certain basic services, such as education, to the 99-year leases. “This could pressure traditional land owners to hand over their land,” Mr Ensor said. Oxfam is concerned the legislation is being rammed through Parliament with no consultation and little scrutiny, he said.

The NT Land Rights Act was the first Australian law under which land title could be claimed by Indigenous people. The law allowed control over mining and development on that land. The act also established four land councils to represent Indigenous people in the NT.

The Howard coalition argues that the amendments are designed to encourage an “enterprising” culture in Indigenous communities by giving them the power to lease their land to business. It also states that breaking up communal land titles will encourage individual homemaking and that giving the federal government the power to break the NT land councils.

The National Indigenous Times has described the amendments as “a white grab for black land, pure and simple. They are not in the interests of Aboriginal people, they are in the interests of government, developers and mining companies.” (NIT, July 27)

Australians for Native Title and Reconciliation (antar) state on their website: “Under the guise of promoting economic development, the legislation could see Indigenous people lease back their land for 99 years in exchange for securing basic services — such as housing and schools… this has the potential to lock generations of Aboriginal people out of effective control over their land.” ANTaR say a getup.org online petition to stop the bill was signed by more than 25,000 people in four days.

Labor’s Chris Evans has said: “the government’s actions… represent another paternalistic attempt to tell Aboriginal people what’s good for them” – (The Age, August 8).

The Greens, Democrats, many human rights organisations and individuals have also criticised the bill. The HREOC’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner Tom Calma says: “My concern about the amendments is that they will do the opposite of what they intend. They have the potential to create poverty rather than lead to its alleviation…”

The current attack coincides with the Coalition’s push for expanded uranium mining. Such an expansion would be facilitated by giving mining corporations greater access to resources on Indigenous land without the need for negotiations with or compensation to Indigenous owners.

Sean Brennan, the Director of the Indigenous Rights, Land and Governance Project at the University of NSW, highlights the importance of the Land Rights Act:

“This is Australia’s high water mark in land rights legislation. Whitlam introduced it in 1975 and Fraser ensured it went through the following year. For a long time it enjoyed bipartisan support and both sides of politics are rightly proud of what the law has achieved, including the return of half the Territory to traditional ownership.

“The Howard Government wants to make some of the most dramatic changes to that law in its 30-year life. Some of the amendments reflect the public policy process at its best. Some show a government using parliament like a doormat. It is ignoring advice on all sides to slow down and bring people on board over issues that everyone can agree on.

“The terms of the leasing deal are stacked against traditional owners, in favour of the government… other restrictions on the ability of traditional owners to get a fair deal remain. Why tie the hands of traditional owners in lease negotiations…?

“The NT Government, which is central to the whole plan, had only three days to comment on the legislation. Like all cases of policy on the run you have to wonder what the rush is really about.

“The Government used the guillotine procedure to cut off debate in the lower house, after less than three hours. A Senate committee had a one day hearing and a few days to write a report.

Government Senators said the process was “totally inadequate” and “such fundamentally important legislation should have bipartisan support with broad consensus among stakeholders affected.”

A parliamentary committee says the time it has been given to scrutinise laws overhauling land rights in the Northern Territory is “totally inadequate”.

The Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Amendment Bill 2006 was introduced to federal parliament in May. The government-dominated committee lent its guarded support to the bill, designed to usher in individual home ownership on communal land and change the way land councils operate.

Separate dissenting reports by Labor, the Australian Greens and the Australian Democrats recommended the bill be rejected. All reports made mention of the lack of time available to the committee to scrutinise the legislation.

The Democrats said the inquiry was a “grossly inadequate, truncated” examination of the proposed changes. According to the committee every non-government submission had opposed the changes.

Indigenous Affairs minister Mal Bough has denied the bill drastically changed the land rights of top end Aborigines. “There is nothing in the bill that alters the inalienable title rights of indigenous communities in the Northern Territory,” he said.

Get Up has a campaign:
http://www.getup.org.au/campaign.asp?campaign_id=36

Source: perth.indymedia.org

August 24, 2006: Japan has allegedly been over-fishing its bluefin tuna quota for the last 20 years. Australian officials say Japan has overfished its quota to the tune of more than $2 billion.

But Fisheries Minister Jim Anderton says Australia has also been caught catching more bluefin tuna than it is allowed to.

Greens leader Bob Brown has called on the Prime Minister to take up the issue of Japan’s illegal fishing of ‘threatened’ southern blue fin.

The Australian Fisheries Management Authority says Japan has a 6,000-tonne national quota and illegally catches between 12,000 and 20,000 tonnes per season and hides it. They say it is largely because the Japanese only ever allow Japanese observers on their boats…

In the 1980s, Australia, Japan and New Zealand set up the Commission for the Conservation of Southern Bluefin Tuna (CCSBT) to manage the fishery. The nations agreed on a quota system to prevent further depletion of overfished tuna stocks. But the CCSBT says Japan never stood by the deal.

Senator Brown is also calling for Australian observers to be placed on Japanese fishing ships. “The Australian Government should insist that Australian observers be on the Japanese ships and that we get an independent observation going on here.”

Greens Senator Rachel Siewart agrees. She took the issue to the Senate today.

“After questioning in the Senate today on illegal tuna fishing, it is obvious that all we will see is one of the Environment Minister’s talkfests, the same as he has given us with whaling,” she said. “This species is facing extinction before our eyes. The Minister’s obligations are crystal clear. Instead of platitudes about ‘win-win’ situations, it’s about time we saw action from this Minister, not words.”

Senator Siewert has urged Environment Minister Ian Campbell to do his job – list the species as ‘threatened’ under Australia’s EPBC Act, and nominate the species to be listed under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES).

In September 2005, the Minister’s ‘Threatened Species Scientific Committee’ recommended the species be listed under the EPBC Act. The Minister ignored this advice.

The revelations that the true Japanese catch was between two and three times higher than reported is grounds for a review of this decision, according to Senator Siewert.

In the Senate, Senator Siewert proposed some simple measures for the Government to protect rapidly depleting stocks of Southern Bluefin Tuna. “This is one of the rare cases where we have the means at our disposal, nationally and internationally, to take action to arrest the slide toward extinction,” she said in a media release.

Fisheries Minister Jim Anderton says new monitoring systems are working well, and that is how the issue of overfishing has come to a head. But he says that it is not just Japan.

Despite blowing the whistle on Japan, Mr Anderton says Australia has also been caught catching more bluefin tuna than it is allowed to.

Mr Anderton says now those countries know they have been caught, they must make sure the overfishing stops now. He says he will be pushing hard for the offending countries’ quotas to be lowered as punishment. He says he will be making his opinion clear at a regional meeting on the issue in Tokyo at the end of the year.

But Tuna Boat Owners Association president Brian Jeffriess says there is no hard evidence for overfishing. “That’s a huge amount of fish and a huge amount of money – it’s a bit hard to believe frankly,” he said. “Think again – people need to be careful to check some of that facts if they know them before they speculate.

“Pick on Japan happens to be flavour of the month and people need to be very careful about it.”

Source: perth.indymedia.org

12 August 06: As WA’s unemployment rate allegedly falls to a record low of 3.1 per cent, many employers are struggling to keep people at work. A spokesman for the WA Chamber of Commerce and Industry said smaller employers were losing staff because people were being “poached upwards”. Meanwhile exploited workers disagree with the very nature of work…

The Sunday Times reports that, as WA’s unemployment rate drops to a supposeed record low of 3.1 per cent, some employers are struggling to keep their underpaid, overworked employees.

The WA Chamber of Commerce and Industry said smaller employers were losing staff because people were being “poached upwards”. He failed to acknowledge that business only really exist to exploit people, and ultimately steal wealth from other people, without lifting a finger.

“They are now on mining and construction sites and where are they going to get replacements? It is very difficult for them,” complained the business lobby group.

Mainstreamed corporate media reports state that, at the moment, there are record job vacancies – but the dwindling pool of willing workers was too small to fill them. They say potential employees did not necessarily have the right qualifications and that most workers were not robotic or subservient enough.

Indeed, it has been recently noted that Jobs Vacant signs have begun appearing more frequently in shops lately, particularly outside fast-food outlets – a traditionally exploitative industry, where workers are paid little money in return for long gruelling, pressure-intensive shifts.

Such businesses are struggling to keep staff who are understandably migrating to better, higher paid and more attractive jobs.

“If employers were prepared to actually pay workers a decent real wage, and provide good working environments, perhaps people would stick around in these jobs. People are sick of being treated like shit,” said, Marcus Karls – a WA independent media worker.

“We all should realise in this day and age that the bosses have us by the balls. Until we own and operate the means of production itself – there will be no change. Its high time for radical overhaul of the system,” said Mr Karls from an unnamed location.

“No one should ever work,” says Robert Black, an autonomous industrial worker. “Work is the source of nearly all the misery in the world. Almost any evil you’d care to name comes from working or from living in a world designed for work. In order to stop suffering, we have to stop working…”

On the nature of property ownership itself, book publisher Mr Joe P Roudhon, said in an earlier statement: “The proprietor, producing neither by his own labor nor by his implement, and receiving products in exchange for nothing, is either a parasite or a thief. Property is theft!”

Gemma Oldman, another WA community worker agrees: “Any student of economics knows that the productivity of labor… far exceeds normal demand. But what are normal demands to an abnormal institution?” she asked. “The only demand that property recognizes is its own gluttonous appetite for greater wealth, because wealth means power; the power to subdue, to crush, to exploit, the power to enslave, to outrage, to degrade…”

Meanwhile those West Australians with the macro-capital power get more powerful by increasing their profit at the expense of WA workers. And those with massive mortgages and maxed-up credit cards, the nano-capitalists, will suffer until the State is smashed.

Thanks for listening.

Source: perth.indymedia.org

August 14, 2006 – Prime Minister John Howard says the Government will not be proceeding with its controversial migration Bill. The laws, under which all asylum seekers arriving by boat would have been processed offshore, passed the Lower House last week but numbers were tighter in the Senate.

It would have taken just one Coalition senator to cross the floor, or two to abstain from the vote, for the Bill to be lost. Mr Howard says he is disappointed the Bill will not go ahead, but it could not succeed…

Mr Howard said the whole amendment had been dumped. “The whole Bill is out. I’m not saying that at some time we won’t look at this or that aspect but there were a number of changes that were intended, but they are all out,” he said.

“The fact that the Prime Minister has conceded defeat over his Migration Amendment Bill 2006 constitutes a win for human rights, for decency and for the democratic process,” WA Rights group Project SafeCom said as the news broke today.

“The defeat is also a win for what remains one of Australia’s most powerful lobby groups that has operated since the Tampa standoff off Christmas Island,” Mr Smit said.

“The win over the Migration Amendment Bill can however not lead to complacency for the refugee lobby. Some right-wing sections in the Howard government remain determined to treat unannounced asylum seekers arriving by boat as vermin, whose human rights should be undermined if not taken away,” Mr Smit commented. “Knowing John Howard, it is imperative to remain vigilant, because 4600 islands remain excised from Australia’s migration zone, and the $380 million dollar project on Christmas Island remains of course one of the favoured options where unannounced boat arrivals will now be banned to if they would arrive.”

“This government remains a master-administration when it comes to spin and smoke screens when it is deemed suitable, as we have seen in the selling points around the Migration Bill – as if it would give equal rights to those who make landfall and those who only make it to one of the 4600 excised islands,” Mr Smit said.

Family First senator Steve Fielding had said he would vote against the Bill, while maverick Nationals senator Barnaby Joyce had threatened to follow suit.

Last week, Liberal MPs Petro Georgiou, Russell Broadbent and Judi Moylan crossed the floor of the House of Representatives to vote against the legislation, while fellow moderate Bruce Baird and Nationals MP John Forrest abstained from voting.

Australian decency is embodied in the decision by Senator Judith Troeth, Greens Leader Bob Brown said today.

“Perhaps more than anybody else, her diginfied stand against the immigration bills abuse of human rights, has marked a high point in Australian political history,” Senator Brown said.

Labor’s migration spokesman, Tony Burke, has welcomed the scrapping of the Bill. “You don’t protect Australia’s borders by surrendering them,” he said.

“That’s what this Bill did, it was about pretending as a nation that we had no border. It was about pretending as a nation that it is wrong to lock children up in Australia, but fine to cause them to be locked up in Nauru.”

The Refugee Council of Australia’s chief executive, Paul Power, says many people were worried about the impact of the Bill.

“There’s been a lot of community anxiety about the legislation for the past four months,” he said. “Many organisations have been raising concerns and, in fact, the list of concerns that people had were very, very long, there were lots of factors in the legislation that were particularly poorly thought through.”

Source: perth.indymedia.org

Tuesday 15th August 2006: Eight unidentified people – believed to be Burmese and discovered on Ashmore Reef of WA’s coast on Sunday night – are to be taken by naval vessel to Christmas Island. Because they did not reach the Australian mainland, they will be sent to Nauru for processing.

The Immigration Minister, Amanda Vanstone, says she has been told that the eight people found on Ashmore Reef at the weekend are all men. Defence say yesterday tah the refugees are Burmese…

Vanstone announced the group’s arrival yesterday, shortly after the Howard Governments’ failure to force harsh migration law ammendments through the Senate. Vanstone said offshore processing and indefinite incarceration of innocent people has somehow stemmed the flow of boats. However, she failed to explain how this may be the case.

Vanstone says the group of eight are being shipped to Christmas Island for medical checks before being processed on Nauru as part of Australia’s Pacific Solution – which sees asylum-seekers arriving by sea forced offshore, to remote islands for indefinite detention.

Senator Vanstone explained that the group were dumped on Ashmore by “people smugglers.” Senator Vanstone said she had few details of the eight and was not yet sure where they were from. “We know there’s eight of them,” she told ABC Radio.

“The information I’ve got at the moment is that they’re all adult males, but it is very difficult getting information from a boat that’s now travelling from Ashmore Reef to Christmas Island.” She said the men were speaking broken English to the Australian officials.

The Australian Greens say the eight people should be brought to the mainland for processing.

Ashmore Reef, north-west of WA, is outside Australia’s migration zone. Australia’s offshore islands were excised from the migration zone last year and Senator Vanstone said further changes, such as those in the new Bill, would have somehow helped keep refugees from trying to reach Australia.

Greens Senator Kerry Nettle has questioned the timing of the decision so soon after the Government scrapped its plan to expand offshore processing to include unauthorised boat arrivals who reach the mainland. “We’ve not seen anyone taken to Nauru by the Australian Government for over five years now,” she said.

“So I think it’s just too cute by half to have these asylum seekers being taken over to Nauru and it certainly looks to be a cynical and a cruel political move by the Government.”

Source: perth.indymedia.org

Aug 15: Buckeridge’s airport brickworks wins Feds approval: Swan Valley brickworks to go ahead.

Despite strong opposition to the development from both the State Government and the local community, who believe emissions from five other plants in the Swan Valley have affected the health of residents in the area…

Source: perth.indymedia.org/
Len Buckeridge’s battle to develop the brickworks has taken a big step forward following the approval.

The Federal Government has given the go ahead to a draft plan for a new brickworks factory in the Swan Valley. The $75 million dollar brick plant in Hazelmere is to be built on a site at Perth Airport and will be operated by BGC Australia.

There has also been strong community opposition to what will be the sixth brickworks factory in the Swan Valley area. They other 5 are in Bellevue, Caversham, Midland and there are two plants in Malaga, all within a 15-kilometre radius.

Critics believe nearby Munday Swamp, an important indigenous site, will be in danger of contamination and flora and fauna will also suffer. The effects of hydrogen fluoride on grapevines in the Swan Valley has been an issue since the 1970s.

In July, apparent pollution monitoring breaches came to light after the brickworks increased its hydrogen fluoride kiln stack emissions to five times the proper limits for the past two years. Midland Brick had increased its maximum emissions to almost three times the original limit.

The Department of Environment’s Brickworks Licensing Policy 2003 said “formal complaints to the DEP is compatible with the effects that could arise from exposure to contaminants characteristically emitted during brickmaking.”

The complaints received by the DEP ranged from itchy eyes and throat irritations to nausea, chest pains and respiratory problems.

Jane Bremmer from the Alliance for a Clean Environment, says “of particular concern to our organisation is the impact that brickworks emissions have on children. It absolutely blows me away that the citizens of Western Australia or anywhere in Australia cannot protect themselves, their health, their children’s health from noxious industry,” she told media in April.

The airport land adjoins the communities of South Guildford, Hazelmere and High Wycombe and is very close to Bassendean and Ashfield. Senator Rachel Wiewert said in February, “people are living within 200 metres of this site, and I am getting the message loud and clear that people have had enough of living under this kind of chemical fallout.”

The West reported in July that Mr Buckeridge already has his brick plant ready to assemble – he imported it from Germany in 400 sea containers in 2003. But for the past three years the brick plant has gathered dust in a Kewdale warehouse.

Planning and Infrastructure Minister Alannah MacTiernan has said allowing Mr Buckeridge to build his brickworks on the airport site amounted to “a fraud on the Constitution”.

Federal Transport Minister Warren Truss said the plant will be one of the most closely monitored of its type in Australia. He said said the proposal will help to alleviate the shortage of building materials in Western Australia.

Truss announced the draft major development plan which has more than 60 conditions attached to it, subjecting the project to strict environmental safeguards and other development conditions, based on advice from the Department of Environment and Heritage and the Department of Transport and Regional Services.

The project has been criticised by the state government because it bypasses normal state approval processes. Mr Truss said the Australian Government will seek to work with the State Government to ensure there is a consistent approach to environmental management for the development, particularly as there are five other brickworks situated in the Swan Valley.

“The Federal Member for Hasluck, Stuart Henry, has been relentless in putting forward the local community’s opposition to the development. I reassure him and the local community that the brickworks will be the most closely monitored operation of its type in Australia,” Mr Truss said.

Tragedy for Aboriginal Land Rights – Senate approves paternal bill
by Elliot Wednesday August 16, 2006 at 05:06 PM

August 16, 2006: “This will be marked as a tragic day for land rights in Australia,” said Senator Rachel Siewert today. Despite strong criticism the laws are “paternalistic and strip Aboriginal Australians of their property rights.” Amendments to Northern Territory Land Rights Act passed through the Senate today. The changes scrap the NT’s 30-year-old scheme of communal land ownership under land council administration…

john_howard_shame.jpg, image/jpeg, 440×295

Attempts by Labor and the Greens to have amendments, including the provision of 99-year leases on Aboriginal land and a reduction in powers for land councils removed from the Bill, failed.

“It became obvious during the debate that this is just part of the Government’s renewed paternalistic approach to Aboriginal Australians. They are simply telling communities of their intentions, not listening to their concerns or seeking agreement or compromise,” said Senator Siewert.

In some cases this involved merely telling the NT government or the land councils at a very late stage, and then claiming it was their responsibility to ensure the communities directly affected knew of these radical changes.

“The Government isn’t interested in economic development and improving living conditions in Aboriginal communities, it is only interested in its own agenda of undermining land councils and traditional owners” said Senator Siewert.

A United Nations expert has warned yesterday that the federal laws overhauling land rights in the Northern Territory are unwise and unworkable. UN Special Rapporteur on adequate housing Miloon Kothari says the laws could be unworkable. Mr Kothari, who has spent the last two weeks touring Indigenous communities, says the move is unwise.

“I’m quite sure that it’s not going to work,” he said. Mr Kothari said home ownership arrangements for non-indigenous Australians were not necessarily suitable. “I think you have larger issues of self-determination, you have issues of community title, land titling, you have issues of just the sheer lack of family or community resources to be able to engage in the housing market,” he said.

Australia could borrow from schemes in other countries, like community land trusts and cooperatives. Mr Kothari also said the government’s changes were largely unknown in the affected communities.

“I think that the act has been pushed through too hurriedly,” he said. “Whenever I visited places I asked both civil society groups working with the indigenous and the people themselves and nobody had even heard of the bill in the Northern Territory.

“I think there’s certainly a lack of information and for something so significant which so significantly changes the terms of land essentially from a community right and a question of identity to an economic good where money can be made from leases… I think needs to be very, very carefully considered.”

Some aspects of the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Amendment Bill 2006 could breach international law, like the Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, he said.

Federal Labor said the debate over changes shows the Government’s lack of respect for traditional owners. Labor Senator Chris Evans told the Senate the way the Government forced the amendments through is one of the most depressing processes he has been involved in.

“That’s why we’ve concentrated so much on process, on consultation because it creates the atmosphere in which the detail is debated,” he said. “They haven’t been engaged with the detail because they haven’t been given the opportunity. But the approach is what’s been so insulting and it fundamentally represents a lack of respect a lack of respect for traditional owners.”

perth.indymedia.org/index.php?action=newswire&parentview=25874

August 10, 2006: The US Navy’s gargantuan aircraft carrier “USS Kitty Hawk” docked in Fremantle this morning for what US officials described as “a routine rest and relaxation visit”

Meanwhile, during this supposed chilltime, the US are shooting up the environment and offending Lancelin locals with sustained bombing attacks on WA’s coastal rangelands…

The US Navy’s oldest active duty floating war-machine brought about 5000 US war-mongers into Fremantle. The 45-year-old hulk, sits over 60 metres above the waterline. Kittyhawk joins the cruiser USS Cowpens and destroyer USS Russell.

They docked in Fremantle on Monday, which means about 6000 sailors and support crew are in town. Officials were cagey about how long the ships will be in WA.

Phil Francois, WA representative for the commander of the US Southern Fleet, said theirs was a routine visit and sailors from the ships would take part in more than 15 community projects – including bombing the living shit out of Lancelin.

The Australian Greens say a US aircraft carrier conducting live fire exercises on a West Australian bombing range is unwelcome. WA Greens senator Rachel Siewert said at a time of heightened global tensions and the conflict in the Middle East, many people would object to Western Australia being used for what she claimed was target practice.

The Australian Defence Force (ADF) has approved the use of the Lancelin Defence Training Area (LDTA), 140km north of Perth, for training by aircraft and ships from the US Navy strike group led by the aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk.

Senator Siewert said Kitty Hawk wasn’t welcome. She said like many West Australians, she deplored the bombing of coastal rangelands at Lancelin by aircraft from this warship.

She called for “Australia to be a powerful and independent advocate for peace and dialogue…”

Defence said it had approved US use of the Lancelin range, 25km north of the town of Lancelin, for the periods of August 6-9 and 14-19. US aircraft will conduct flying operations, bombing practice, air-to-ground support training and recovery of downed helicopter pilots at Lancelin.

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Prayer for Peace
Thursday the 10th August 5:30 PM
As-salaam alaykum Shalom aleichem
Peace be with you

The USS Kitty Hawk battle group arrived in Fremantle this Thursday en-route to the Gulf. Join with your community to deliver a Prayer for Peace to the US Navy. Meet in the park at the corner of Market and Phillimore Street Fremantle (opposite train station) at 5.30pm then walk to the harbour for a peace vigil. Bring candles, flowers, peace banners and your positive, powerful intentions.
perth.indymedia.org

August 10, 2006: The most radical changes to Northern Territory Aboriginal land rights in 30 years are set to be forced through Parliament this week – despite major concerns they will remove Aboriginal control over their own country. The Federal Government’s controversial ammendment will give 99-year leases of Aboriginal townships, and will devolve powers from existing Land Councils – despite strong criticism that the government has failed to properly consult indigenous communities themselves…

The changes, being rushed through parliament this week, alter fundamental laws – handing Aborigines control and communal ownership over land in the Northern Territory and establishing land councils to administer that land.

As politicians momentarily debated changes to the 30-year-old Aboriginal Land Rights Act. The government is expected to use its numbers in the Senate to pass the Aboriginal Land Rights (Northern Territory) Amendment Bill 2006.

Meanwhile the UN is visiting indigenous communities expressed shock at their condition. “There is obviously a very serious crisis among indigenous housing,” the UN’s Milloon Kothari said, citing lack of water access and overcrowding as issues. There was no excuse as to why in “one of the wealthiest countries … thousands of families are living in these conditions,” he said.

There has been much concern that Aboriginal Australians will be forced into government leases to obtain basic services – services we all other Australians take for granted. Indeed, the Government has confirmed some indigenous communities had been offered funding for houses and a school building on condition of signing a 99-year lease.

Traditional land owners, Aboriginal advocates and opposition parties have savaged the Government for rushing through the changes, saying most indigenous people are not even aware of them and were not consulted.

Opposition parties will vote against the Land Rights Act, but it is still likely to pass. Under the new regime, Aboriginal people will be offered low-interest loans and 99-year leases on their land, in what the Government claim will encourage private ownership and economic development.

Labor and the minor parties say the changes are decidedly paternalistic, and will in effect strip Aborigines of their property rights. The major claim is that the ammendments are being rushed through parliament without adequate consultation or the support of indigenous leaders – or even the chance for proper debate. Opponents of the changes also warn that indigenous people will be coerced into leasing their land in exchange for services such as housing, schools and health facilities.

Opposition indigenous affairs spokesman Chris Evans said the government had not shown Aboriginal people any respect by forcing through the changes. “This is fundamentally about people’s property rights… and we’re going to change the arrangements that apply to them, on their land, without proper consultation,” he said. “I think we can do better and we must do better.”

Senator Evans said Aboriginal people in the NT would be pressured into agreeing to leases to receive essential services. “What we’ve already seen by the minister’s activities is an attempt to link provision of basic services, basic rights of citizenship like education and health services, to an agreement to enter into one of these leases,” he said to the corporate media.

NT Labor senator Trish Crossin said she had been inundated with constant complaints about the bill. She accused the government of using its control of both houses of parliament to bypass consultation and negotiation to impose its ideology on the communities.

Greens Senator Rachel Siewert says the Land Rights Bill is a recipe for more poverty – and 25,000 signatories agree. “If the Government is really concerned about economic development in Aboriginal communities it should listen to Aboriginal people instead of ploughing on with these rushed and misguided amendments to the Land Rights Act,” Senator Siewert said. “There are a range of impediments to economic development in Aboriginal communities, and the Government appears not in the least bit interested in any of them.” She cited the lack of economic development opportunities on Aboriginal land that need to be urgently addressed.

For example, the Greens have urged the Government to:
* Increase positive incentives to encourage business and employment opportunities for Aboriginal people.
* Increase education and training for people in Aboriginal communities
* Improve infrastructure in remote communities
* Streamline processes and get rid of unnecessary red tape.

“But the Government isn’t really interested in economic development in Aboriginal communities, it is only interested in its own agenda of undermining land councils and traditional owners” said Senator Siewert.

Various corporate sources..