March 2026 has been a busy time for the Annerley Branch with several events held during the month.

First up saw branch members help out in the annual Clean Up Australia Day, held Sunday 1 March. The Branch organised a site at Ekibin Park South in Annerley, with Hon Mark Bailey MP, Member for Miller, as a special helper (pictured).

Clean Up Australia Day is the nation’s largest community-based environmental event to remove litter from local parks, beaches, and streets and the Annerley Branch has been a continuous participant over the past 20 years.

Helping out with special events like Clean Up Australia Day have been an important hallmark that has kept Annerley Labor grounded firmly in its local community.

March 2026 also saw the Branch celebrate a special milestone, with a dinner held to mark the 25th anniversary of its founding. Branch members used the March general meeting, and subsequent dinner, to reflect on a quarter of a century of Labor Party activism, noting how the local branch has grown from 40 to 140 members over that time.

The Annerley Branch was originally formed from two previously established branches – Annerley/Fairfield and Annerley Central – to create one branch to more effectively service the local area, with the aim to be progressive, active and community connected. Since that time, the Branch has built a strong reputation as an organisation that values and encourages activism and a more democratic and progressive Australian Labor Party.

Finally, Annerley Labor hosted another of its popular cocktail functions to help raise money for the Griffith and Moreton campaigns for the next federal election due in early 2028. Held this year at the Wellers Hill State School, the event was well supported by members across Brisbanes southside who were keen to support our two new MPs – Julie-ann Campbell and Renee Coffey (pictured).

As a special treat, guests were also able to watch first hand, and celebrate, the historic South Australian re-election win for the incumbent Labor government.

Those who believe the reign of terror is over in Iran are sadly mistaken. The terror will go on just perpetrated by someone else. Last month Donald Trump said he stood with the Iranian people when they rose up in protest and then he watched on while they were massacred in their thousands by the regime.

Ayatollah Ali Khomeini had recently named Ali Larijani as his successor because although Trump said more talks were due to take place next week, he sensed with the US military build-up that this was eerily similar to the lead-up to the attack on Iraq in 2003. Except Trump did not bother to make a case before the United Nations or even his own Congress. Even his deputy J.D. Vance has gone very silent.

Just as in Zimbabwe, the tyrant Robert Mugabe was replaced by Emmerson Mnangagwe, a leader who also had blood on his hands, Khomeini’s successor played a huge role in the recent slaughter of protesters.

Trump thinks the American military is a toy with which to play. Putin thought the same about the Russian armed forces in 2022. They have both mired themselves in ongoing conflict the consequences of which the rest of the world will have to bear.