Within the last 18 months, teachers in NSW have had to monumentally shift how they approach their practice, with COVID leading to a change in how their work is done. This is why the consideration of the Education Legislation Amendment (Parental Rights) Bill is most deprofessionalising for school staff across NSW. Fundamentally, this Bill is an attack on the professionalism and deep knowledge and skills possessed by NSW teachers and support staff, and is a distraction from the key work of teaching and learning undertaken in NSW.

All people should be treated equally wherever they work, study or access goods and services, regardless of who they are or who they love. But Victorian laws currently allow faith-based organisations to refuse service to someone based on their sexual orientation or because they are transgender, and allow religious schools to dismiss or expel LGBTQ+ students, staff and teachers. People can also be discriminated against based on their marital or parental status. The Victorian government has announced it will be changing these laws this year and we know the conservative Christian lobby will fight to have the proposal watered down. We must come together in our thousands to show our community supports the changes, and to ensure the strongest possible reform. Will you sign our petition today?

As university teachers and support persons, casuals represent and maintain the reputation of the university, as it is casuals who interact with students in the classroom and in providing support services every day.

Australia needs to be vaccinated as soon as possible. But we’re running last in the race to get it done. We won’t reach the required levels of COVID vaccination without more vaccine supplies and a faster roll out. We can’t rely on a system where workers have to get their jab on weekends or during lunch breaks. Monash University allows full-time workers to get vaccinated on work time. But it won’t pay casuals to do the same. No worker should have to choose between getting vaccinated and paying the bills. The latest plan from the Morrison government will see 2 million jabs per week being administered from September. We need paid leave to attend vaccination and recover from routine side effects. Last year workers in our Union campaigned for and won paid pandemic leave and one day a week carer’s leave for staff caring and home-schooling. This year, together, we can win paid vaccination leave. But we need to work together. We need a strong voice to demand nation-wide paid vaccination leave. We need it for the University, and we need it for our colleagues and students. Sign the petition for paid vaccination leave. Join your union.

*update* National Cabinet is due to meet on August 27 and apparently discuss this issue however we will keep this petition up until our demands are met. Your voice matters. Please share this petition widely. Scott Morrison has said we must ”learn to live” with COVID-19 once we reach an 80% vaccination threshold of adults. This leaves 36% of the population unvaccinated, including most young people under 16 years old. The health toll on young people could be a disaster. Learning to live with the virus poses an unacceptable health risk until all ages under 16 are vaccinated. The National Plan and vaccine thresholds must be updated and include young people. We are concerned about young people returning to school unvaccinated for the following reasons; 1. Compared to previous variants, the delta variant is more virulent in young people. The Western Australian AMA former President Andrew Miller in WA Today states "The other real worry is that about 40 per cent of kids still have symptoms at four months, and 7 per cent have disabling physical or mental issues at six months, which can lead into long COVID syndrome." 2. Compared to previous variants, the delta variant has a 10-15 times higher transmissibility in young people. To date, young people are disproportionately affected. In Victoria, 45% of infections are in children and teenagers. In New South Wales, the figure is 30%. (22/8/21) Note these disproportionate infection rates are occurring in the context of remote learning in Victoria and NSW. Concerningly in the regional area of Shepparton, where school remained open for some of the current statewide lockdown, every school has become an exposure site and is now closed with multiple children, young people and their families now infected. The infection rates could rise further if students return onsite before being vaccinated. Unlike most workplaces, once students return to classrooms, social distancing will be practically impossible. Furthermore, adequate air ventilation, filtration and monitoring infrastructure, at this stage, does not exist. 3. The Doherty report was written before the recent evidence that indicates that the transmissibility of the Delta variant is much higher in young people. The Doherty model's rationale for excluding young people in their vaccine quotas rests on the assumption that "[e]xpanding the vaccine program to the 12-15 year age group has minimal impact on transmission and clinical outcomes for any achieved level of vaccine uptake". This is outdated.  More recent epidemiological modelling indicates that the necessity for heavier social distancing measures will be reduced if 5-15 year olds are included in the vaccination strategy (McBryde et al. 2021). Both the NSW and Victorian Chief Health Officers have recognised that young people are now a vector for broader community transmission. 4. As school staff we are acutely aware of the mental health challenges that students face under lockdown. However, returning students to onsite learning as a predominantly unvaccinated group and into an unsafe environment is not a solution.

I’m a proud union member/supporter of the public sector. Public servants dedicate their work to providing quality services and support to our communities. When you won the election in 2017, you asked public servants to support urgent budget repair, and accept a wage increase of $1,000 per year. Now, we are asking you to support them. We are asking you to support the WA public sector that keeps this state running.

Every day, ES staff work to keep our schools running, support our students to learn, and our teachers to teach. Their work is diverse, complex, and vital, but it is undervalued. The salaries of Education Support workers in public schools do not match their contribution. Too many ES are considering leaving the profession and will continue to do so unless the Premier and Education Minister act now. It’s about time our ES staff were paid properly for the important work they do.

Urgent vaccination of education staff is essential for their protection as well as the protection of students and their communities. It will also reduce the need in future to move to remote learning, which is so disruptive for students and parents. Most importantly, it is a key public safety measure to slow the spread of future outbreaks. Childcare, kinder and pre-school workers are, in many cases, continuing to work in very high-contact workplaces even when schools and TAFEs move to remote learning. The slow pace of the vaccine rollout, the lack of supply of vaccines and the failure to heed the call to prioritise education workers is putting staff, students and the broader community at risk.

In the midst of the COVID crisis and its effects on universities’ finances and the pressures on many universities to cut jobs we can only hope that a broad public interest lens is applied to universities future rather than a simple cost reduction lens.

The Covid-19 situation in NSW is extremely concerning. Once again, the failure to build proper, dedicated quarantine facilities has resulted in a serious local outbreak, this time of the incredibly contagious Delta strain. Vaccination rates remain woefully low. The NSW Government has acted far too slowly and half-heartedly in relation to the current outbreak. Nobody enjoys lockdowns, but the failure to enact a serious lockdown soon enough has let this outbreak grow, and now means that the lockdown must be extended and strengthened. Allowing the virus to spread would be a health disaster, not just for NSW but for all Australia.

This has been part of a broader trend of universities outsourcing the provision of services to external companies at a lower cost, usually involving an attack on workers’ wages and conditions. With the potential collapse of the Co-op imminent, it’s possible that its ANU clinic will be taken over by another external company. This is no solution for staff or patients. Despite being a registered charity, the Co-op has had to compete with private billing clinics. It’s inability to do so is what has thrown the future of its staff and the patients who rely on its services up in the air. Unless the ANU steps in to run the service directly there’s nothing to stop this from happening again. Seeing a doctor is already more expensive in Canberra than almost anywhere else in Australia. Canberra has the lowest bulk-billing rate of any electorate in the country, with only 32% of patients having their GP appointments bulk-billed - well below the national average of 86.2%. Canberrans also pay higher out-of-pocket costs at mixed-billing clinics. Free, accessible healthcare should be a right, not a privilege. Let’s end the outsourcing of vital university services.

Many people believe that these test results DO NOT represent our ability to teach, in education there are far more important factors to be an effective teacher such as behaviour management, relationship building, resilience, organisation, passion, judgments and drive. There are also flaws in this test. With the majority of questions being multiple choice it has been heard of that students will sit it for 30 minutes, guess the answers then receive their results to find that they have passed. Whereas students and myself who have achieved HDs in their assessments, and have passed exams, may fail this test. Therefore achieving nothing and leading to a low sense of worth!