Is Townsville a racist city? A lot of PR by the Chamber of Commerce and the City Council has been put out to say it isn't. The Liberals certainly think it is, backing Jessica Webber for the state seat of Townsville. Jessica, former president of the James Cook University student association was an active part of delegation of Young Liberals, who last year attended the National Union of Students meeting, and marched around chanting "We're racist, we're sexist, we're homophobic".

I struggle to see how this endorsed position fits into John Howard's statement of values which he claims is missing from Australia these days. Perhaps he needs to make sure his own house is in order first, before picking on public schools, and aboriginal communities.

This weekend will saw a public forum on the Alumina Refinery proposed for the Townsville State Development Area by the Aluminium Corporation of China. The forum is happening because, once again a city in Queensland is having a development dropped in it's lap without any real public consultation, and a lot of people are not happy. The fact is that the TSDA is dangerously close to the CBD of Townsville, and boarders on residential areas, new and old, such as Wulguru, Fairfield Waters, Oonoomba, and Idalia. Other industries, such as a meat works, and cement factory, which are in the same area closed down years ago because of the impacts they were having on the residential community.

Last week James Cook University announced it was closing the Library on it's Vincent (visual and performing arts) campus. This is part of a larger plan to restructure the facility, “...moving from a traditional form of art-making to a digital form of art-making.” Director of the Collage, Professor Des Crawley claims that this is because of the low employment rate of visual arts graduates.

There is a few important points in this. Firstly, is what is deemed to be employment. From what I can gather self-employment, ie working for commission, etc. isn't considered employment.

The second point is what do people expect out of a fine arts degree?