On a drizzly Sunday morning in early March, around 200 people gathered in Yarraville Gardens to protest air pollution in Melbourne’s western suburbs. Kids held placards that read “Clean our air”, “Protect our health” and “Filter the stacks”. 
The protest was organised by the Maribyrnong Truck Action Group (MTAG) to demand the state government and Transurban (the private company building the West Gate Tunnel) install proper filtration systems on the tunnel’s ventilation stacks. Without filtration, the ventilation stacks are nothing more than primitive chimneys releasing untreated exhaust fumes. MTAG has been organising protests like this for decades. Martin Wurt, rally chair and MTAG President, told the rally he could recall taking his now 30-year-old son to these rallies as a child.
As a transport, industry and logistics hub, Melbourne's inner west is subject to very high transport emissions, especially from trucks. The West Gate Tunnel will reroute trucks away from residential streets in the area. But the toxic diesel exhaust fumes of an expected 16,000 daily trucks will be released into Footscray, Seddon, South Kingsville, Altona North, Newport and Spotswood.
The technology and infrastructure to install filtration systems in the vent stacks already exist and could be used. But former planning minister Richard Wynne decided not to impose this costly burden on the two major construction companies building the tunnel, instead opting to gamble with residents’ health, vaguely committing to future filtration installation only “if needed”. 
Diesel fumes are a group one carcinogen, according to the World Health Organization, on par with cigarette smoke and asbestos. No exposure to diesel fumes is “safe”, and any dose causes damage. They contain a cocktail of at least 450 toxic chemicals, including arsenic, benzene dioxins, formaldehyde and the two most carcinogenic chemicals ever discovered, 3-nitrobenzanthrone and 1,8-dinitropyrene. They cause inflammation, oxidative stress, immunosuppression, and mutagenicity in cells. The ultrafine particulate matter is small enough to be absorbed through the lungs into the blood, which delivers it to our organs, including the brain.
The urgent necessity of measures that will improve air quality is evidenced by a shocking litany of health issues caused by air pollution impacting the inner west. According to Social Health Atlas data from 2019, the City of Maribyrnong has a 26 percent higher risk of premature mortality from respiratory diseases, a 41 percent higher risk of heart disease and a 40 percent higher risk of stroke compared to the national average. It has the highest rate of stroke of anywhere in Victoria, despite having a relatively young population and low smoking and obesity rates. 
Children are among the most vulnerable to the harmful effects of air pollution. A 2020 report by the state government revealed that childhood asthma rates are higher in Melbourne’s west than anywhere else in the state, and hospital admission rates for respiratory illness among children in Maribyrnong are 70 percent higher than the Victorian average. In May 2023, the Maribyrnong City Council voted unanimously to declare an official health emergency. 
Rally speakers highlighted the ongoing neglect of the western suburbs by state governments, which allow greedy capitalists to treat the area as a toxic dumping ground, leaving residents to deal with the consequences. The area sees frequent factory fires that blanket surrounding suburbs in toxic smoke, including the chemical factory fire in Derrimut last year which took four days to extinguish. Brooklyn, a suburb further west, is Melbourne’s most polluted.
The prioritisation of profit over people is doing immeasurable damage to human health. Residents of Melbourne’s west have been neglected for decades and deserve better. 
To show your support for this campaign, <a href="https://www.change.org/p/stop-the-west-gate-tunnel-vent-stacks-from-poisoning-us">sign the MTAG petition</a> to demand the installation of filtration systems on the West Gate Tunnel ventilation stacks.

Ella Sjodin

Pollution is killing people in Melbourne’s west

Victoria’s Labor government has rammed through new bail laws that will send hundreds of children to prison. The move is a capitulation to the frenzied campaign about a supposed crime wave in Melbourne. Started by the Liberals and sustained by the corporate media, the campaign has included relentless coverage of a small number of crimes committed by disenfranchised young people.
It would be easy to conclude from the reporting that Melbourne was beginning to resemble a warlord-run failed state. But Australia remains one of the safest places on earth, and the number of offenders per capita continues to fall. To the extent that there is a slight uptick in reported crime, it primarily relates to retail theft and vehicle-related crimes. 
More than one-third of car-related thefts involve people stealing number plates. The next biggest issue is power tools taken from the back of utes. Eighty-three percent of these car-related crimes show no sign of forced entry. As desperate as TV studios are for content, even they couldn’t spin a police procedural out of this stuff.
And when it comes to retail theft, it’s obvious to anyone with two brain cells to put together that it is a result of poverty and disadvantage. If that sounds too much like socialist propaganda, listen to Deputy Police Commissioner Neil Paterson.
“We know that research shows that when there are higher cost-of-living pressures [and] higher interest rates, that is directly linked to crime rates”, he said in December. 
Much of the crime discussion has centred on a small group of kids, about 300 or so, who are repeat offenders. Paterson described this cohort as “living lives of pretty serious disadvantage”. Indigenous kids and those from working-class and oppressed migrant backgrounds are more likely to get trapped in these kinds of destructive cycles. 
Without knowing the details of these children, we can reasonably assume that they need support, including financial security, permanent housing, assistance with education and vocational pathways, ongoing therapy and more. 
The problem is that support costs money. For decades, the government has refused to invest properly in public schools, either in the facilities or the teaching and support staff who can assist troubled kids in getting settled and learning. It has steadily undermined public housing stock—and now plans to demolish the major towers across the city—which means there’s nowhere for these kids or their families to go in an emergency. 
And everyone knows that it is nearly impossible to get regular access to mental health services unless you can afford a fortune in fees. Abysmally low welfare payments set by the federal government regularly leave teenagers and their families in terrible situations, without access to healthy food and other essentials. 
Rather than addressing these things, Premier Jacinta Allen is sacrificing these kids on the altar of public relations. The ALP’s legislation, with the deliberately villainous title “Tough Bail Laws”, is an attempt to silence the Liberal Party’s criticism of the state government. But like every ALP concession to Liberal Party bigotry, it will simply encourage the right to demand even more draconian policy. 
In the meantime, our most vulnerable and traumatised children will be condemned to a lifetime in and out of the prison system.

Omar Hassan

Victorian Labor passes law to imprison more children

The New South Wales Labor government has issued the first round of eviction notices to 150 public housing residents in Sydney’s Waterloo South Estate. On 27 February, tenants received a letter from Homes NSW informing them that they would be “relocated” within six months as part of “Stage One” of the estate’s eventual demolition and redevelopment. Seven hundred and fifty households will be evicted. 
“Evicting people from their communities and homes in a housing crisis unprecedented in modern times is an appalling act of cruelty”, Karyn Brown, a Waterloo South tenant and spokesperson for Action for Public Housing, said to Red Flag.
The Waterloo South redevelopment, first proposed under the Coalition government, has been embraced by Premier Chris Minns and Housing Minister Rose Jackson, despite pre-election promises to “Save Waterloo”.
The fate of Waterloo South follows a familiar script: demolish government-owned public housing, displacing tenants, and replace it with a “mixed tenure” development where most new homes are private, for-profit apartments. While Minns insists the redevelopment “doesn’t meet the definition of privatisation”, it is a massive land transfer to property developers.
At Waterloo South, fewer than one-third of the redeveloped homes will be “social housing” (run by private companies who will receive government subsidies). There will be no new public housing (owned and administered by the government). 
There are currently 64,280 households on the NSW public housing waiting list. Yet the government is demolishing existing public housing while fast-tracking luxury developments on public land. Labor’s housing policies aren’t about housing those in need; they’re about guaranteeing profits for property developers and landlords. 
“The state government promised before and after the election that they would stop the privatisation and sell-off of public housing”, said Karyn. “In Waterloo, they specifically said that voting for them would save our homes. Instead, they are going to demolish 749 homes in Waterloo. This long-standing diverse community will be shattered and scattered. All the time and effort that have gone into making the largest public housing estate in the country a secure and comfortable place to live will be discarded.”
Meanwhile, thousands of private properties sit empty across Sydney, hoarded by investors waiting for land values to rise. At a federal level, last month’s Senate estimates revealed not a single new home had been built since the creation of the Housing Australia Future Fund in 2023. The 340 homes said to have been built due to the scheme were existing properties “acquired and converted” from developers.
The fight to defend Waterloo South is not over. Tenants and activists are determined to resist these evictions. Action for Public Housing will <a href="https://www.facebook.com/events/1148208447091875/?rdid=JovL4N51WwJUTLpJ&amp;share_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Fshare%2F18gt4cK9jc%2F">take to the streets</a> on Saturday, 12 April, 1pm at Redfern Community Centre to rally against Labor’s attacks on public housing.

Cherish Kuehlmann

NSW Labor evicts more public housing tenants

Queensland University of Technology (QUT) has put the future of its creative arts programs at risk. The university paused the 2025 undergraduate dance intake to conduct a review, which quickly expanded to include all performing arts courses. The review’s terms of reference note that performing arts degrees are “experiencing fluctuating student demand, attrition and research performance ... amid increased competition and national decline in interest in these study areas”. 
Meanwhile, performing arts students received an email framing the review as a way to “support our commitment to continually improving our courses and to meet student expectations and aspirations”. The reason for the review is likely to justify attacks on QUT students’ right to study specialised degrees.
QUT has been on the attack against performing arts courses and staff conditions since 2021, when it cut the dance performance degree and merged three faculties. QUT sacked up to 1,500 staff during the pandemic due to expected lost profits. In reality, QUT’s annual report recorded a $139.9 million operating surplus in 2021, $17.85 million of which came from reduced “employee-related expenses”. In other words, QUT saved millions through staff cuts and wage freezes.
QUT is the only public university in Queensland to offer specialised degrees in subjects like dance and technical production, which was cut to a minor this year. Cutting the dance degree would mean students in Queensland would be forced to travel interstate or pay for training at expensive private studios.
Staff at QUT are also under threat. After years of transitioning towards prerecorded lectures, bigger class sizes, and with staff squeezed by just ten minutes of paid marking time, QUT has turned its sights on the performing arts staff, too. 
The teachers and the staff who maintain the state-of-the-art facilities are now at risk of redundancies. Dance students are taught at a $60 million facility at the Kelvin Grove campus, which boasts specialised dance studios, black box drama theatres, concert halls and recording studios. Margaret Sheil, QUT’s vice-chancellor, seems willing to throw all of this away to prioritise profit-making. 
University managers are looking at other cost-cutting measures. The QUT Art Museum has had all planned 2025 exhibitions cancelled. There is no better explanation for this than the one provided by Sheil herself at a staff forum last year: “It’s looking at some of the nice-to-do things that had more benefits for the community than QUT”. 
This is the problem with university education being run for profit. For QUT managers, creative arts are “nice-to-do” and good for society but are not big moneymakers. Compare the treatment of the arts to the brand new $7.8 million Space Technology Precinct. There is cash to burn when the university can guarantee large research grants and outside funding.
The cuts are not isolated to QUT; cost-cutting is on the agenda across Australia. The threat posed to performing arts degrees is the canary in the coal mine. They set a precedent for future cuts in other faculties.
Students facing course cuts at any university have a responsibility to stand up. We should not only study whatever we want, regardless of how profitable, but also defend the rights of the staff that facilitate it. 
University education should be free, publicly owned and funded, and run for the benefit of students and society, not for vice-chancellors and administrations to make millions of dollars.

Erin Milne

Queensland University of Technology takes aim at performing arts degrees

Maurice Blackburn Lawyers prides itself on its connection to the trade union movement. But it’s fighting the union that represents its own staff. 
On 6 March, about 100 lawyers instituted a historic ban on time recording, which means not charging for their work. In response, Maurice Blackburn issued non-payment notices, effectively preventing us from working or being paid for the duration of the ban. Legal assistants, paralegals and other staff stopped work in solidarity for up to three hours, shutting down teams and offices around the country. 
We are fighting for wage increases that keep up with the cost of living and address a 6.4 percent decline in real wages over the life of the last agreement due to high inflation. We are also fighting for ten days of paid reproductive leave for all staff—a condition the firm boasted it helped win for workers in other workplaces, only to turn around and tell its own staff that they do not deserve the same entitlement. 
Maurice Blackburn Lawyers represents many of the biggest trade unions in Australia. Its brand emphasises a commitment to the values of the workers’ movement, but apparently, those values don’t apply internally.
Since December, union members have engaged in three one- to two-hour stop works and other industrial action as part of the campaign, but this latest action was an escalation. 
The ban on time recording is a first for unionised lawyers in Australia. By recording the time they spend performing work for clients, lawyers allow the firm to recover legal fees. Stopping the practice costs the firm hundreds of thousands of dollars per day. 
The lawyers were willing to work—just without recording the time. This is a lawyer’s equivalent of a bus driver refusing to check tickets. The firm responded by saying that if we would not charge for our work, they preferred we didn’t work at all, revealing that they care more about their profits than their clients.
At Thursday’s rally, union members enjoyed the solidarity of various unions (including Maurice Blackburn clients) and others from around the legal industry—including barristers and unionists in community legal centres and other plaintiff firms. 
Meanwhile, management received the solidarity of business lobbyists such as Steve Knott from the notoriously anti-union Australian Resources and Energy Employers Association. Knott was quoted in the Australian Financial Review, revelling in Maurice Blackburn’s use of tactics that are so anti-worker that the ACTU recently called for them to be outlawed. 
A law firm is not just a bunch of lawyers. It requires the work of many support staff, especially legal assistants. These highly skilled professionals work under the pressure of deadlines and deal with traumatised clients every day. Yet most are paid an annual salary of between $55,000 and $70,000. 
Maurice Blackburn also has a gender pay gap problem. This year’s <a href="https://www.wgea.gov.au/">Gender Equality Report</a> notes a 33 percent gap between the median base salary of men and women at the firm. This reflects that 90 percent of the legal assistants are women whose work is grossly undervalued, which is even more of a reason to fight together to win the highest possible wage increases for the next three years. 
The firm is offering 5.5 percent for workers earning less than $100,000 per year in the first year of the agreement, 3.75 percent for those above that, and 3.5 percent and 3.25 percent for everyone during the second and third years. This does not make up for the ground lost during the high inflation over the last three years. 
An explosive leaked email from someone seemingly in the know about last year’s enterprise agreement at Slater and Gordon—another firm that boasts of its representation of unions—alluded to the firm’s CEO squeezing the lowest-paid workers in their recent pay negotiations. 
Maurice Blackburn also claims that it cannot afford higher pay increases. However, managers have repeatedly refused to provide modelling of projected profits over the life of the agreement to substantiate this claim. 
Maurice Blackburn has the strongest union membership of any private firm in Australia. We are the only law firm to take industrial action in recent years and pride ourselves on setting conditions (such as health and wellbeing days) that have then been adopted in other firms. We hope that our campaign will set a new benchmark for pay and conditions for current and future workers, especially with respecting women workers. 
Union members will meet next week to discuss the next steps in their campaign.
Colleen Bolger is an Australian Services Union delegate at Maurice Blackburn Lawyers.

Colleen Bolger

Union law firm attacks union members

Hundreds of manufacturing workers at a Nestlé factory in Campbellfield, Melbourne, are striking to defend and improve their pay and conditions. After months of negotiations with a management team that seems determined to attack them, the workers have resorted to industrial action. 
Led by the Australian Manufacturing Workers’ Union, they take a one-hour stop-work at the start of each of the factory’s three shifts. The strikes are the first industrial action at the factory for nearly 30 years.
As the action started on Thursday, well over 100 workers from the afternoon shift gathered in groups outside the gate. Dozens of AMWU flags and banners greeted cars and trucks driving past on Sydney Road, with plenty of beeps and waves in solidarity. Another group of workers gathered near the main entrance, ready to argue with those refusing to participate in the strike and to greet their comrades finishing their day shift. Managers hid in the office behind tinted glass, monitoring the scene but powerless to intervene.
The industrial campaign is focused on three issues. First is the attempt by the company to rewrite existing rostering arrangements, introducing compulsory twelve-hour and weekend shifts for all workers. One maintenance worker explained that the proposal includes the possibility of working five twelve-hour shifts in a row! This would be gruelling in any work, let alone blue-collar labour. Many railed against the compulsory weekend overtime: “Sometimes we take the overtime shifts for the extra cash”, one of the factory’s twelve union delegates told Red Flag. “But it needs to be our choice—we gotta have time to spend with our families.”
Second is the issue of pay. The rising cost of living hits these workers hard, just like everyone else. Many workers said that supermarket prices, mortgages and bills keep them up at night. Management is offering a 3.5 percent pay rise, but the union is fighting for “substantially more”, according to AMWU organiser Chris Spindler.
The final issue concerns the union being consulted about workplace changes before they’re introduced. The current agreement basically allows the company to implement changes first and ask for permission later. Workers want more of a say.
Spirits were high on the first day of what looks to be a serious fight against a multinational corporation that makes squillions each year. Yet this strike shows that without the efforts of workers in factories and farms across the world, Nestlé would be nothing. 
Show your support for the Nestlé workers by turning up to the strike on weekdays at 6:30am, 2:30pm or 10.30pm: 1585 Hume Highway, Campbellfield.

Nestlé workers deserve the cream

Over the last few weeks, Tesla has become the target for a growing, largely social-media-organised campaign across the United States. This past weekend alone, CNN <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2025/03/01/business/tesla-takedown-musk-doge/index.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">reported</a>:
“Demonstrators gathered at more than 50 Tesla showrooms across the United States on Saturday in protest of CEO Elon Musk’s role in slashing government agencies as part of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency established by President Donald Trump.”
This was probably an undercount. If you follow the mainstream media alone, you’ll miss out on some protests. Our protests in <a href="https://www.facebook.com/groups/568634392836661" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Chicago</a> have received no media coverage, and there has been scant coverage of protests in the suburbs. While many protests have been organised by <a href="https://indivisible.org/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Indivisible</a>, a nationwide campaigning group of liberal and progressive Democrats, the outpouring of protests at Tesla showrooms is much greater than one organisation.
Musk is despised by millions of people around the globe. The world’s richest man and best-known Nazi, Musk personifies everything that is wrong with the world today. <a href="https://www.teslatakedown.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Tesla takedown</a> is a positive development in the struggle against the Trump regime and fascism in the United States. <a href="https://www.americanjewisharchives.org/snapshots/henry-ford-and-antisemitism-the-notorious-dearborn-independent/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Henry Ford</a> comes to mind as the last major auto industrialist who was identified closely with fascism. In many ways, Ford thrusted political antisemitism into the mainstream of US society through his newspaper the Dearborn Independent. But Ford was on the wrong side of the New Deal and preparations for WWII.
Today, <a href="https://prospect.org/power/2025-01-06-ford-musk-made-cars-backed-fascists/">according to Harold Meyerson</a>:
“Fast-forward now to Elon Musk, who today has no qualms about neo-Nazis ruling Germany. Quite unsolicited, Musk has tweeted (X-ed?) his way into Germany’s parliamentary election, which will be held next month, beginning by arguing that ‘only the AfD can save Germany’. 
“The <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_for_Germany" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Alternative for Germany</a> is a far-right, vehemently anti-immigrant and racist party that has grown in strength, particularly in the economically depressed states that were formerly part of East Germany, since it was founded a dozen years ago. Musk has argued that it’s not a neo-Nazi party, but a number of self-professed neo-Nazis and Holocaust deniers have been in the party’s leadership, while the German government views it as a potentially violent threat to German security.”
Yet, unlike Ford, Musk had attained political power that a few years ago would have been unimaginable. Musk is, however, vulnerable. His interventions in European politics have led to plummeting Tesla sales. Tesla’s stock has declined significantly. Major pension funds have dropped their ownership of Tesla stock, and prominent people have sold their cars. The various Tesla models have gone from being seen as saving the environment to being viewed as Nazi vehicles, like the <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/hitler-and-his-volkswagen-tracing-the-80-year-history-of-the-beetle/a-43942998" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Volkswagen</a> in the 1930s.
Like Henry Ford, Musk is a fanatical opponent of unions in his workplaces from California to Sweden to Berlin. We see Tesla workers as our allies. Ford was the last of the Big Three US automakers to be unionised by the United Auto Workers (UAW) in 1941, following a bitter strike on the eve of US entry into the Second World War. Musk’s political power can ultimately only be curtailed if the workers in his car and battery plants are organised.
There is still much to do in the United States to combat Elon Musk, but more needs to be done internationally. Tesla takedown is a rare opportunity for anti-fascists, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0XLGvH8h7U" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">climate change activists</a>, and supporters of trade unions and democratic rights across the globe to come together with one target. We should make the most of this opportunity now. Organise or join protests at Tesla outlets in your country. Our international unity will make a difference.
Joe Allen is the author of The Package King: A Rank and File History of United Parcel Service.
Bill V. Mullen is Professor Emeritus of American Studies at Purdue. He is co-author, with Jeanelle K. Hope, of The Black Antifascist Tradition: Fighting Back From Anti-Lynching to Abolition, and, with Christopher Vials, of The US Antifascism Reader.

Joe Allen

Bill V. Mullen

An appeal for an international anti-fascist campaign against Tesla

A student at the University of Sydney has been threatened with suspension for writing Palestine solidarity statements on a whiteboard using a non-permanent marker. It is the latest of dozens of misconduct charges levelled against activists by the university over the last year.
Luna,* a postgraduate international student, received a notice of misconduct from the academic registrar on 3 February, alleging that she engaged in “inappropriate and unreasonable conduct” by writing the following slogans in January:
USyd invest in weapons manufacturing (Thales, Lockheed Martin), USyd supports genocide in Gaza.
USYD Vice Chancellor Mark Scott supports Gaza Genocide.
From the river to the sea Palestine will be free.
As of 13 January 2025, 46,600+ dead in Gaza. USyd cut ties with genocide.
The university appears to have used CCTV footage and electronic student card tracking to identify Luna.
The Registrar claims that the conduct breaches several university policies, including clauses in the Campus Access Policy introduced at the end of last year in response to the Palestine solidarity campaign. 
In addition to purportedly prejudicing “the good order and government of the university” and “good name or academic standing of the university”, writing on a whiteboard also allegedly constitutes “protest activity on university lands”. Such activity must be “orderly and peaceful”, cannot be held inside any building, and requires 72-hours advance notice to the administration. 
The alleged conduct is also said to be an act of graffiti, which is defined as “the placement of posters, notices, advertisements and similar items” on any area that has not been “designated for official notices” by the university.
Basically, the administration has ruled that students who want to exercise their democratic rights to freedom of speech, freedom of assembly and to protest must organise something that is nothing like a protest using means of communication that prevent any meaningful mass communication. Even writing on a whiteboard is beyond the pale.
The administration has told Luna that she will likely be expelled, suspended or receive a reprimand if she is found guilty of the alleged misconduct. It also warns that “the penalties applied will be more severe [bold in original] in the event that you deny the conduct, which is ultimately found to be substantiated, than if you admit the conduct at this stage”.
This threat—an attempt to pressure Luna not to defend herself against the allegations—is far from empty, given her visa status. As a transgender woman from a country that criminalises and punishes non-binary expressions of gender, she is currently seeking asylum in Australia. For now, she holds a student visa, which means her right to remain in the country depends on her continued enrolment. 
Luna wrote to the university on 24 February asking for more time to respond to the charges. Specifically, she requested an extension until after 21 March (when she will gain a bridging visa) so that she can “assess this matter in a clear-headed fashion without worrying about being deported to danger”. The university refused the request the following day, reaffirming that the “likely penalty if the conduct is admitted at this stage is suspension”.
In its initial misconduct notice, the university insisted that the entire process “must be kept confidential”; otherwise, it “may take disciplinary action”. This clause is ubiquitous in misconduct charges at Sydney University, supposedly to stop victimisation against complainants. It might make sense in cases involving accusations of serious abuse or violence. But it is illegitimate to include the clause in cases where the administration itself levels misconduct charges against activists. One can only assume the intention is to keep the spurious misconduct process opaque and free from external scrutiny. 
After the details of the complaint were made public on 5 March, the university quickly entered crisis management, publishing two responses on its website. The first claimed that the suspension threat was a simple “administrative error” and, finally, granted Luna a time extension to respond. 
The second stated that the administration had contacted Luna, “confirmed the likely penalty range does not include potential suspension” and “apologised”. The university refused to relent following private communication with Luna but quickly backed down (partially—the charges still stand) after being forced to answer publicly for its behaviour. 
This entire case is a farce. Student activism has historically included acts far more rebellious than scrawling solidarity messages on a classroom whiteboard. Sydney University appears determined to wipe out criticism of its dirty deals with weapons manufacturers and suppress support for the Palestinian cause—or at least to extraordinarily limit how such support can be expressed.
* Name has been changed at the student’s request to protect them from retaliation.

Eleanor Morley

Sydney University threatens to suspend student for writing on a whiteboard

Moreton Bay City Council, just north of Brisbane, is attacking its homeless residents. Last week, the council overwhelmingly voted to repeal a measure that allowed camping in public spaces. From next week, camping on public land will be illegal. Council workers, with the assistance of Queensland Police, are being dispatched to evict anybody still camping—two encampments have already been cleared. 
The move is the latest in a string of attacks on Moreton Bay’s homeless. In December, the council banned sleeping in vehicles, already a last resort option for many who can’t find housing. For this supposed “crime”, you can face fines of up to $8,000. Patrick Weir, 76 years old and a Vietnam War veteran, is one resident now threatened by the repeal. 
“They’re saying we can’t stay here overnight. I mean, that’s just bullshit. When you’re homeless, where else are you going to go?”, he told the Guardian. Equally as cruel, the council has banned homeless people from owning pets, which, for many, provide companionship in lonely and difficult circumstances. 
The council has cited “public health and safety” to justify the measures. But this surely doesn’t refer to the health and safety of the homeless themselves, who are now effectively banned from living in the town at all. The attacks seem to be more about protecting Moreton’s wealthiest from having to view people living in poverty. 
It’s “sad and shocking that these people feel compelled to live like this”, according to Councillor Jodie Shipway. Councillor Adam Hain laments that the council “just became the soft touch” and that it’s not all bad because “a lot of these people have got smartphones”. 
Moreton Bay has Queensland’s longest social housing waiting list—4,421 people are registered. Homelessness has increased by 90 percent in the last decade. In the last five years, house prices have risen by 80 percent; statewide rental vacancies remain at 1 percent, on average. In Redcliffe, within the Moreton Bay area, the vacancy rate is 0.6 percent. 
The media and politicians focus on housing supply as the primary cause, but there is another factor. “An average of 34 percent of homes were unoccupied in [Brisbane’s] top 20 suburbs with the highest percentage of empty dwellings on Census night [2021]”, journalist Viva Hyde reported in the Courier Mail last year. “The figure soared to 60 per cent for the top 20 areas across Queensland.”
Many of the vacancies were due to short-stay holiday accommodation such as Airbnb, holiday investment properties and land-banking by property developers.

Edward Cahill

In Moreton Bay, homelessness is a crime

A raft of new laws, purportedly to combat the antisemitism “crisis” in Australia, have been passed federally and by some state governments. The Human Rights Law Centre <a href="https://www.hrlc.org.au/reports-news-commentary/2025/02/21/hate-speech">summed up</a> the situation, saying that the laws have “been introduced under the guise of protecting against hate speech and vilification [but] on closer inspection, these laws are likely to have a chilling effect on our democracy while failing to stamp out hate speech and discrimination”. 
The same political leaders who in sucking up to Donald Trump have refused to condemn his calls for ethnic cleansing in Gaza, or the recent Nazi salutes by Elon Musk and Steve Bannon, are now pontificating about “racist hate” to pass laws that undermine our democratic rights. This is occurring in the context of a McCarthyite-style witch-hunt of Palestine supporters across media, educational and cultural institutions.
At a federal level, the new laws mostly increase sentences for existing offences, while also introducing new offences of threatening to use force or violence against protected groups, and either advocating or threatening damage to, or destruction of, places of worship. The Labor government performed a spectacular backflip, capitulating to Peter Dutton and the Liberal opposition by including mandatory minimum sentences of up to six years’ imprisonment for some offences, while ramming through the legislation in less than 24 hours. This is despite Prime Minister Anthony Albanese just weeks earlier describing mandatory prison terms as “fraught” and “unproductive”. 
Mandatory sentencing explicitly goes against the Labor Party’s own official policy platform, given its disastrous history of resulting in mass incarceration of marginalised and oppressed people. This didn’t stop Albanese and every Labor MP voting for these laws.
In NSW, the Chris Minns Labor government has gone further, passing three new sets of laws. The first targets the display of Nazi symbols and graffiti near synagogues, Jewish schools or the Sydney Jewish Museum. The second and third are explicitly targeting protesters, despite there being no link between protests and the recent spate of antisemitic attacks—which the police have theorised were likely coordinated by organised crime networks.
The NSW government’s Crimes Amendment (Places of Worship) bill 2025 creates an offence with a potential two-year imprisonment and/or a $22,000 fine for blocking, impeding or hindering access to places of worship. It grants NSW police the extraordinary powers to arrest and move on people in or near a place of worship for any reason. As the NSW Council for Civil Liberties <a href="https://www.nswccl.org.au/news">argues</a>, “these offences could be used to charge members of the faith protesting their own organisation, sexual abuse survivors demanding justice and any snap rally or assembly that happens within a vicinity of a place of worship, such as Town Hall”. The laws are extraordinarily broad, especially given that almost everywhere in the Sydney CBD is “near” a place of worship, all of Sydney’s most common protest locations being close to a church. 
Minns has made no secret of the fact that he is a staunch supporter of Israel and wants to stamp out the mass Palestine movement that has mobilised tens of thousands against the genocide in Gaza for more than sixteen months. These laws follow a wave of other anti-protest laws passed in NSW in recent years, many targeting climate protesters, and could be used against people protesting for any cause, including the union movement.
The third law passed by Minns makes it a criminal offence to incite racial hatred, with a maximum penalty for an individual of two years’ imprisonment and/or fines of up to $11,000. In Victoria, new anti-vilification laws have also passed, although they include other protected categories besides race, and potentially some protections from the laws for political speech.
The danger of these laws is that a concerted effort is being made by supporters of Israel to define criticism of or opposition to the state of Israel as inherently antisemitic. Pro-Palestine activists have been falsely accused of antisemitism for decades to silence opposition. Now they want to make opposing Israel a crime. In a similar vein, Universities Australia recently adopted an official definition which says that calling for the abolition of the state of Israel is antisemitism, potentially opening up thousands of academics and students to disciplinary proceedings.
Decisions about who should be prosecuted under these laws will be in the hands of the police and public prosecutors—that is, the very institutions of power that uphold racist inequalities and the interests of Australian capitalism. For that reason, no-one should be under any illusion that these laws will be used to prosecute vicious racists like Peter Dutton, Sky News or the pro-Israel lobby, who have dehumanised the Palestinian people, supported Israel’s genocide in Gaza and systematically demonised the Arab and Muslim population. In fact, all these racists are clamouring for even more draconian “hate speech” laws to try to outlaw dissent. 
All progressive causes, including the union movement, should unite in opposing these undemocratic laws.

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