The Department of Education and Training Victoria today advised school principals to oppose leave for teachers who wish to participate in the Walk Off for Refugees on November 20. Teachers For Refugees (TFR) has called on teachers and education support staff to walk off the job on Universal Children’s Day and demand that the federal government remove all children and adults from offshore camps and resettle them in the community.
Australia has not had a socialist parliamentarian, at the state or federal level, since the 1940s. But this may change at the November 24 Victorian state election, writes Jack Stickney.
Green Left Weekly hosted a free speech forum in Melbourne on October 25, featuring Jeff Sparrow, journalist and author of a new book Trigger Warnings: Political Correctness and the Rise of the Right, and Sally Goldner, media liaison for Transgender Victoria.
The Australian Education Union (AEU) Victorian Branch Council has endorsed a planned Walk Off by teachers and education support staff in support of refugees on November 20, Universal Children’s Day.
Under the slogan “Australia needs a pay rise”, an estimated 170,000 trade union members and their supporters filled Melbourne’s CBD on October 23 for the Australian Council of Trade Unions-initiated Change the Rules rally.
More than 4000 young people and adults packed into Birrarung Marr park on October 21 for a Children’s March for Nauru, to demand all refugees imprisoned on the Pacific island be resettled in Australia. Chanting “nurture not torture” and “kids out, all out”, participants marched into the city.
There is a medical emergency on Nauru, where many physically and mentally ill refugees are being detained without proper medical treatment, according to Kathy, a refugee on the Pacific island.
About a third of Victoria's firefighters have experienced bullying in the workplace and more than 95% believe that negative media coverage of their campaigns for new enterprise bargaining agreements had profoundly damaged workplace morale and led to "public aggression" and a "reluctance to disclose their occupation".
Refugee advocates are campaigning to stop the deportation of Huyen Tran, a Vietnamese woman who fled her home country by boat due to religious persecution in 2011.
About 100 people attended an election forum on transport in the Moreland local council area with some candidates on September 27. The Victorian election is on November 24.
