Category: Campaigning for change

As part of the mid-year budget outlook (MYEFO), the government yesterday announced a third cut to the aid budget of $3.7 billion. This brings the cuts to aid announced by this Government to $11.3 billion in just one year. Read more »

With just two days to go at the UN Climate Conference in Lima and in the biggest march in Peru in the last 20 years — thousands of people took to the streets yesterday to demand action against climate change. Read more »

As representatives from more than 195 governments around the world come together in Lima, Peru this week to work on drafting a global treaty on climate change, they should heed the words of Peruvian farmer Marisa Marcavillaca: “Climate change is not just about the climate, it is about our lives.” Read more »

Last weekend activists unveiled a banner at Huaca Pucllana, the site of an ancient pyramid in Lima, Peru ahead of the UN climate conference starting this week. The message to leaders and rich countries like Australia is clear — we must do more. Read more »

Together, we’ve been campaigning for six months to have Australia’s Big 4 Banks change their policies to land grabs. In the past two weeks both NAB and Westpac have taken steps to reduce their risk of backing companies involved in land grabs. Now, the pressure is on the Commonwealth Bank of Australia and the ANZ Bank. Read more »

Westpac and National Australia Bank (NAB) have become the first of the big four banks to release a policy on land grabs — a significant step forward to stop unfair land deals that leave people around the world homeless and hungry. Read more »

Over the course of a year, Oxfam has spent hundreds of hours researching and documenting links between Australia’s big banks and multinational agriculture and timber businesses that are land grabbing in some of the world’s poorest communities. Since our report was issued both the NAB and Westpac have developed policies to better respond to the issue of land grabs. Read more »

Steve Price-Thomas, G20 Summit Team Lead It’s been hot in Brisbane today, with temperatures of up to 40 degrees Celsius and the day has felt heavy with a sense of anticipation: how much, if any, progress would world leaders make here in Brisbane? Hundreds of thousands of people have called for action from this summit […] Read more »

The two great challenges of our time — inequality and climate change — are threatening to undermine the efforts of millions of people to escape poverty and hunger. By concentrating wealth and power in the hands of a few, inequality robs the poorest people of the support they need to improve their lives. Read more »

Remarkably more than half of the people in G20 countries, the economic powers of the world, live below the poverty line of $2US per day. These people are mainly in China, India and Indonesia, large countries and major trading partners of Australia, this year’s host. The G20 can do something about this. Read more »