Deakin University staff struck for the first time in a decade on Friday, 21 April. Around 50 workers rallied in the centre of Deakin’s Burwood campus, alongside student supporters. The strike was called with just four days’ notice in response to university management’s attempt to ram through an enterprise agreement that does not meet the demands of staff.
Police have arrested 47 people involved in an act of civil disobedience targeting coal trains in the New South Wales Hunter region.
The federal government’s announcement that roughly 19,000 Temporary Protection (TPV) and Safe Haven Enterprise (SHEV) visa holders will be eligible to apply for a permanent Resolution of Status visa fulfils a key election promise and has been met with relief and joy.
Several hundred abortion rights protesters mobilised against far-right Victorian state MP Bernie Finn’s March for the Babies on 8 October in Melbourne’s CBD.
Residents of Melbourne’s west took to the streets on 25 September to protest terminal neglect and environmental contamination of working-class suburbs. The protest was organised by Victorian Socialists alongside local community groups. The demonstrators demanded an end to the industrial fires that plague the area, a crackdown on industrial waste dumping, the halting of the third Tullamarine runway project and improved infrastructure, including public transport and green space.
Striking workers and supportive students at the University of Sydney shut down the campus with a 48-hour strike, called by the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU), on 11 and 12 May.