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Assange Belmarsh Tribunal In Sydney

March 4, 2023 Consortium News. , , ,
As the pressure mounts on the Australian government to intervene with the U.S. government, the Assange Belmarsh Tribunal in Sydney on Saturday heard some of Australia’s most prominent politicians, lawyers, journalists and whistleblowers testify in defense of imprisoned publisher Julian Assange. Guests include former Australian Foreign Minister Bob Carr; Assange lawyer Jennifer Robinson; former Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis; Assange’s wife Stella Assange; C.I.A. whistleblower John Kiriakou; whistleblower David McBride, as well as journalist Kerry O’Brien, lawyer Bernard Collaery, Kylie Moore-Gilbert, an Australian freed from Iranian captivity by the Australian government; Karen Percy, director of the Australian journalists’ union MEAA and more.

Climate Scientist Arrested For Demanding Stronger Climate Action

March 4, 2023 Kerry Smith, Green Left. , , ,
Five climate activists, including grandparents, a climate research scientist, were arrested on February 28 for blockading headquarters of the Australian Petroleum Production & Exploration Association (APPEA), the umbrella organisation for gas and oil corporations. It was the second day of coordinated actions across Australia. More than 30 supporters of Extinction Rebellion ACT and Stop Fossil Fuel Subsidies gathered at APPEA to disrupt and show solidarity with Lismore’s flood victims — 6000 of whom are still waiting to hear about rehoming, a year on. Activists barricaded the front doors with lifeboats while others dropped a banner which read: “We’re drowning in fossil fuels” and “You can’t offset a climate crisis”.

The US Is Preparing Australia To Fight Its War Against China

February 16, 2023 John Lander, Pearls and Irritations , , ,
A look at the ANZUS Treaty and the way it has been manipulated over time will explain why I have come to this conclusion. Originally defensive in concept, the ANZUS Treaty was seen by Australia from its very beginning as a means to “achieve the acceptance by the USA of responsibility in SE Asia” (Percy Spender) to shield Australia from perceived antagonistic forces in its region. It has, however, developed into an instrument for the furtherance of US ability to prosecute war globally – previously in Iraq and Afghanistan, currently against Russia and potentially against China.

Palestine Solidarity Conference Draws Widespread Support

February 8, 2023 Michael Bull, Green Left. , , , , ,
Melbourne, Australia - More than 150 people from across Australia and New Zealand attended the Palestine Solidarity Conference, January 27-29, in Melbourne. They included First Nations, progressive Jews, unionists, students, Labor, Greens, socialists and independent and Palestinian activists. Encouragingly many young activists attended and, notably, young Palestinian women. The conference, which included plenary sessions and activist workshops, was hosted by the Australia Palestine Advocacy Network (APAN) and featured renowned Palestinian guests from Australia and around the world, speaking via video link. Senator Lidia Thorpe, on the opening plenary “Organising for Palestine on Stolen Land” said both struggles are connected by “disempowerment, oppression, death, killings and grief” and the fight for land and justice is key.

Australia Has Not Written To US On Assange For Six Months

January 26, 2023 Joe Lauria, Consortium News. , , ,
A Freedom of Information request by a member of the Australian parliament has revealed that the Australian government has not engaged in correspondence with the United States regarding the case of imprisoned publisher Julian Assange for at least the last six months. Independent MP Monique Ryan filed the requests with the offices of Labor Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, Attorney General Mark Dreyfus and Foreign Minister Penny Wong and no documents were returned, indicating that there has been no written communication with the U.S. over the fate of Assange since at least last May, reported former Australian Senator Rex Patrick in the Australian publication Michael West Media. The absence of written correspondence does not exclude that Australian officials may have engaged in verbal communications with U.S. counterparts about Assange over the past half year, though written notes are normally made on such meetings.

New Zealand’s New Sectoral Bargaining Law Holds Lessons For US

January 15, 2023 David Madland, OnLabor. , , ,
In one of the more important advances in collective bargaining around the world, New Zealand recently passed an innovative sectoral bargaining policy, called Fair Pay Agreements. Labor supporters in Britain and Australia want to replicate elements of the policy in their countries, while for American audiences the most important lesson may be how New Zealand’s experiences highlight that sectoral bargaining — in conjunction with worksite bargaining — is necessary to improve working conditions in today’s economy and thus should be part of policy efforts to strengthen unions. Sectoral bargaining, sometimes called broad-based bargaining or industrywide bargaining, is a type of collective bargaining between unions and employers that sets minimum standards on issues such as wages, benefits, safety, and training for all workers in a sector or occupation.

Nothing Good Will Come From The New Cold War For Australia

December 9, 2022 Vijay Prashad, Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. , , ,
On 15 November 2022, during the G20 summit in Bali (Indonesia), Australia’s Prime Minister Anthony Albanese told journalists that his country ‘seeks a stable relationship with China’. This is because, as Albanese pointed out, China is ‘Australia’s largest trading partner. They are worth more than Japan, the United States, and the Republic of Korea… combined’. Since 2009, China has also been Australia’s largest destination for exports as well as the largest single source of Australia’s imports. For the past six years, China has largely ignored Australia’s requests for meetings due to the latter’s close military alignment with the US. Now, in Bali, China’s President Xi Jinping made it clear that the Chinese-Australian relationship is one to be ‘cherished’. When Albanese was asked if Xi raised the issue of Australia’s participation in several military pacts against China, he said that issues of strategic rivalry ‘[were] not raised, except for in general comments’.

Indigenous Australians Win Legal Fight Against Gas Project

December 4, 2022 DW.com. , , ,
A group of indigenous Australians hailed a "historic decision" by the country's Federal Court on Friday to delay plans for a massive gas project in the Timor Sea. Dennis Tipakalippa, a Munupi clan elder from the remote Tiwi Islands, has been fighting a legal battle against oil and gas producer, Santos, who has been drilling for gas off northern Australia. "We have fought to protect our sea country from the beginning to the end and we will never stop fighting," Tipakalippa said. Santos, one of the country's largest oil and gas producers, said it would apply for fresh approvals for the $3.6 billion (€3.41 billion) Barossa gas project.

Court Rules Against Waratah Coal Mine In Landmark Ruling

November 25, 2022 Jade Toomey, ABC Australia. , , ,
The Queensland Land Court has ruled human rights would be unjustifiably limited by a proposal to dig the state's largest coal mine in the Galilee Basin in Central Queensland. First Nations-led activist group Youth Verdict challenged an application by mining company Waratah Coal, owned by billionaire Clive Palmer. The group of young Queensland activists challenged the mine on the basis it would impact the human rights of First Nations peoples by contributing to climate change. The coal mine would remove about 40 million tonnes of coal a year for export to South-East Asia, with a forecast life span of 30 years. It is the first time a group has successfully argued coal from a mine would impact human rights by contributing to climate change.

Australia’s Jerusalem Reversal Marks Death Of Trump’s ‘Deal Of The Century’

October 28, 2022 Ramzy Baroud, Mintpress News. , , ,
US President Donald Trump’s so-called “Deal of the Century” was meant to represent a finality of sorts, an event reminiscent of Francis Fukuyama’s premature declaration of the “End of History” and the uncontested supremacy of western capitalism. In effect, it was a declaration that “we” — the US, Israel, and a few allies — have won, and “you”, isolated and marginalized Palestinians, lost. In the same way, Fukuyama failed to consider the unceasing evolution of history, the US and Israeli governments also failed to understand that the Middle East, in fact, the world, is not governed by Israeli expectations and American diktats. The above is a verifiable assertion. On October 17, the Australian government announced that it is revoking its 2018 recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

Lawyer Jennifer Robinson Gives Powerful Defence Of Assange

October 23, 2022 Oscar Grenfell, WSWS. , , ,
Robinson’s speech, which was broadcast live on the state-funded Australian Broadcasting Corporation, contained a sharp warning on Assange’s plight and the implications of the US attempt to prosecute him. Assange, she said, would not survive years’ more incarceration and “persecution by process.” And if he were extradited from Britain to the US and hauled before a kangaroo court for publishing true information, it would be a dagger blow to freedom of the press and democratic rights. The address was a rare breach in a wall of silence on the Assange case in Australia. His various court dates have been given cursory coverage, but there has scarcely been any television programming or substantive reporting on the persecution of an Australian citizen and journalist.

Melbourne: Thousands March For Julian Assange’s Release

October 9, 2022 SBS News. , , ,
Thousands have marched through Melbourne's city centre calling for the release of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. The 51-year-old Australian has been in London's Belmarsh prison since he was removed from the Ecuadorian embassy in 2019. Melbourne protesters marched through the city streets and formed a human chain across a Southbank bridge on Saturday morning as they called on the Australian government to intervene. "There's an expectation in the electorate that the prime minister and this government is going to get Julian out of jail," Mr Assange's brother Gabriel Shipton told AAP. "The prime minister's statements before the election - enough is enough, he doesn't see what purpose is served by Julian being kept in prison - those were seen as a commitment.

Coal Workers In Australia Are Taking Their Destiny Into Their Own Hands

October 7, 2022 Léo Roussel, Equal Times. , , ,
The coal industry is to Australia what the Second Amendment of the US Constitution (granting citizens the right to bear arms) is to the United States: it would be hard to imagine the country without it. With fossil fuels still accounting for 92 per cent of Australia’s energy mix, including 29 per cent for coal in 2021, the industry is still vigorously defended by lobbies, even in parliamentary circles and the corridors of ministries. Australia’s conservative former prime minister Scott Morrison famously held up a piece of coal in Parliament in 2017, when he was finance minister, admonishing his colleagues not to be afraid of it. When he became prime minister, he also directly surrounded himself with lobbyists like John Kunkel, former vice-chairman of the Minerals Council of Australia, who he appointed chief of staff in 2018.

Australian Labor Party And Assange: Burying The Politics

August 9, 2022 Kellie Tranter, Consortium News. , , ,
The difficulty for the Australian Labor government in deciding how to respond to the Julian Assange case is that once a prosecution is characterised as a political prosecution then, by its nature, there can be no expectation of due process. The U.S.-U.K. Extradition Treaty forbids extradition in the case of “political offences.” Former Australian High Commissioner to the U.K. George Brandis — who was commissioner for almost the entirety of Assange’s Belmarsh imprisonment since 2019 — doesn’t agree that Assange is a political prisoner. The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) and its new Minister Penny Wong have consistently stated a view that the case is not political but purely a legal matter:

Australia Finally Recognizes That The AUKUS Deal Makes No Sense At All

July 22, 2022 Moon of Alabama. , , ,
In September 2021 Australia, the UK and the U.S. announced AUKUS, a new alliance under which Australia would buy nuclear submarines from either the U.S. or UK and ditch its contract for French diesel driven u-boats. I spelled out the details and the negative consequence of the deal: To Protect Itself From U.S. Hostility Australia Decides To Buy U.S. Submarines This is a huge but short term win for the U.S. with an also-ran booby price for Britain and a strategic loss of sovereignty and budget control for Australia. It is another U.S. slap into the face of France and the European Union. The deal will piss off New Zealand, Indonesia and of course China. It will upset the international nuclear non proliferation regime and may lead to the further military nuclearization of South Korea and Japan. It was easy to predict that the deal would screw up the development schedule of the Australian navy. It would obviously also cost much more money than its budget can provide.
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