Our group of early childhood educators will be meeting with the Minister for Early Childhood Education, Jenny Mikakos, on the 1st of December. We need to take this opportunity to show Premier Daniel Andrews and Minister Mikakos how important preschool education is to our children’s future. Currently we rank 33 out of the 36 OECD countries for participation in 3-year-old preschool education – this is disgraceful and we need to make a change. Together we can send a strong message to the Andrews Government to make sure they deliver funding for 10 hours of 3-year-old preschool per week, to give all children the best possible start in life. Please sign the petition to tell Premier Andrews and Minister Mikakos that all Victorian children deserve 10 hours of 3-year-old preschool.

Stealing is wrong. Yet every year hundreds of thousands of hospo workers in Australia are robbed. We are victims of wage theft. Wage theft, where companies deliberately underpay workers or refuse to pay superannuation, is also hurting people working in retail, farms and fast food. If workers stole from the till, we could go to jail. But if bosses steal from us, all they have to do is pay it back, if they’re ever caught. How is that fair? The rules are broken. The current laws make wage theft too easy and the punishment is too light. It’s now so common it’s become a business model. Venue owners right now are getting rich by stealing from their staff. WE NEED TO CHANGE THE RULES Prime Minister, if you are serious about upholding the law, make wage theft a criminal offence and introduce much bigger fines. We need to hold companies to account for their theft.

These allegations follow those launched against Harvey Weinstein in the US by numerous women in the entertainment industry, and the #metoo campaign on social media, which highlights the pervasiveness of sexual harassment and assault. For young women in particular, sexualisation, harassment and objectification are all too common. Sexual harassment in the workplace isn't just harmless flirting - it is an issue of fair working conditions. The Wom*n’s Collective stands with women who have experienced harassment and assault, whether at work, at university, on the street, or in the home.

Edith Creek workers and their families deserve to know whether they will have secure jobs for 2018 before Christmas. While Murray Goulburn is working through what its future looks like, workers at Edith Creek have already been told they are not part of that future. To give Edith Creek workers security and hope going forward it’s important that Murray Goulburn sell the factory site and equipment to a new owner committed to continuing dairy manufacturing and secure jobs in the region.

Dylan Voller suffered horrible torture in NT youth prisons from 11 years of age. Incredibly, he has come out of prison and played an inspiring role advocating for justice and positive alternatives for Aboriginal youth caught in the system. His family, particularly his mother Joanne, and sister Kirra, campaigned prominently for Dylan’s release and have played a continuing, prominent role in the campaign to close youth prisons that has taken place through the NT Royal Commission process. Through all of this, the family has been persecuted by the NT police. They are attacking what the Voller’s represent - resilience and power in the face of extreme state violence and a growing movement for change. On Friday September 29, NT police targeted both Joanne and Dylan for arrest at a peaceful demonstration calling to shut youth prisons and for justice for victims of Aboriginal deaths in custody. This was a provocation that led to further arrests, including of black youth simply participating in the rally. The protesters broke no laws and police were unable to lay criminal charges, instead they issued fines for “disorderly conduct”. This arrest of Dylan is being used by NT Corrections to argue that he has breached his suspended sentence conditions, just three days out from him finishing supervision. He must not be allowed to return to prison as a result of participation in a protest, a basic democratic right. Meanwhile, on three separate occasions over a two week period, large numbers of police have come to Joanne’s house, each time in response to a small fire being used to cook kangaroo tails in the backyard. Joanne has broken no law - this is blatant harassment and intimidation. We the undersigned stand with the Voller family. We call for an end to the persecution of the family by the NT Police and other authorities. We call for all fines resulting from the recent protest to be dropped and for NT Corrections to stop any further action against Dylan. We are extremely concerned that there has been no action taken by the NT government to bring the perpetrators of torture on Aboriginal youth in NT prisons to justice, or make any fundamental changes in the way the system is operating. We will stand with all families suffering as a result of this system and fight for Aboriginal self determination in youth justice issues - build communities not prisons! Supporters can contact the office of NT Justice Minister Natasha Kate Fyles on (08) 8999 6743.

Amazon is coming. We expect Amazon will be open for business in Australia on October 31 and we need to make sure that, from day one, Amazon workers have a job they can count on with fair wages and conditions.

Council-run home care enables those in need to live independently at home for as long possible. Being able to retain a sense of independence is so important for mental and emotional health. Our ageing relatives, friends and neighbours deserve to retain the quality care they get from our highly trained Council workers.

The people of the Hinkler region ( Hervey Bay-Bundaberg) are feeling threatened , scared and worried for their financial futures and inclusion in our communities. Our population of people on legal eligible centrelink payments across the board, from youth allowance, newstart, dsp, carers etc should not be feeling like they are being excluded from our society and fear losing their sense of self. The insults that we cannot manage our funds, that we are all drunks, druggies and pedos are unjust and not true. People cannot be held responsible for gov't failures to create sufficient jobs and training for people who are isolated and are limited in their prospects. People with addictions need the funding put back into the services that have been removed and treated under the health system, not pushed onto a fantasy card that is being touted as the cure all for all of social ills, at the same time the mantra being pushed that only people on centrelink suffer those ills! Common sense is to provide help to those who need it, and not allow the privatisation of our Social Security sector to a private corp, ready to make big $$ off of the backs of our battlers. The added costs to the tax payer per person per year could be better spent in inclusive public service funding, not a punitive, segregating punishing, dehumanising boot being put down on people who have committed no crime. Australian citizens deserve to feel safe from their own gov't The current gov't is attempting to split our citizens into segments who are judged by their circumstance as to what level their citizenship counts for them. People on Centrelink payments are not "lessor" people just because they receive their rightful payments. Workers who cannot access enough hours are not lessor citizens, and current workers should not be placed in situations where they accept lessor protections at work, in order to stay employed in fear of , if they lose their jobs they will be on the card ! This card threatens our small business, markets and public events . Tourism cannot support these regions alone and the "cash flow" that circulates through our regions economies keeps people going, it keeps our centrelink recipients from becoming destitute, as they have access to secondhand items, cars, and are able to pay their cash rents. We have a large amount of older workers doing their mutual obligations, free labour hours to receive their payments, our younger out of work workers are also doing their work for the dole, part time work and studies, The cashless welfare debit card will completely destroy people on so many levels and we don't have the mental health services to cope with the loss of self and autonomy. This is not how any gov't should be treating any of it's citizens. The card does not care what colour your skin is, your religion, or your circumstance, it is about profits for private business. Indue Terms and Conditions show no mention of any persons health, mental health or general well being, it only has terms and conditions that remove peoples' right to privacy, contract and consent laws, it is about control. If the gov't was serious about helping people overall, they would lift the amounts of centrelink payments to make sure people can keep up with the modern costs of living and provide the health services that all of our community should have access too. The moral of the people is important to how a country works, removing the worth of so many and then the media and the gov't backing of the media "welfare bashing" is causing a great deal of distress across the country as whole. We in the Hinkler region want JOBS not CARD ! Training and PAID work for able bodied people, for older out of work workers and DSP need to be treated with respect too, Dignity NOT Poverty. The card will segregate people and cause more than just financial difficulties for recipients . Stop the Card!

It is the worse time in Australia's post-war history to be unemployed, yet the government and the media continue to blame the unemployed. It is clear that the problem is the system (of which mainstream media is a part) which is upheld by the politicians. The focus needs to be on them, not the unemployed. Politicians and media need to be held to account. Where are the jobs? What are the government doing about the Newstart rate which is $380 per fortnight below the poverty line? What are the politicians doing about the disaster of work for the dole, cashless welfare, job search agencies, drug testing and so on. They profit, while the unemployed suffer. Sign this petition and demand the unemployed are given a voice!

The University of Sydney must owns up to its colonial history, to truly move forward we must first truthly acknowledge the past. William Wentworth is a colonial figure whose notability came through his "discovery" of a crossing through the Blue Mountains. In 1838, 7 white stockmen were convicted of murdering a large number of Gamilaraay people at Myall Creek in north-west NSW. A further 4 participants were identified by an Aboriginal witness, but the law of the time did not allow Aboriginal people to give testimony in court. A bill was introduced to the Legislative Council to rectify this and allow the white men to be tried, but the bill was defeated after Wentworth gave a speech describing Aboriginal people as “wild men” and comparing their testimony to “the chatterings of the orangutans.” At many other points in his legal and political career, Wentworth vociferously argued against Aboriginal people’s right to justice and expressed a hateful bigotry against them, providing a legal cover for the brutal dispossession and genocide occurring in the state at the time. This campaign is about more than Wentworth, it is about decolonising our university and our education. We must challenge our own complicity in the ongoing colonial oppression of Indigenous people. Decolonisation demands an Indigenous framework and the centering of Indigenous land, Indigenous sovereignty, and Indigenous ways of thinking. We call upon the University of Sydney to decolonise their buildings, practices and teaching. We call upon this institution to remove the statues of William Wentworth, remove his name from the building on City Road, and consult with local Indigenous communities on finding a replacement name.

SA Unions represents more than 160,000 working South Australians and their families and they deserve to safely come home from work every day. South Australia's work health and safety laws need to be toughened to match criminal penalties. Under existing law, a person who has a duty of care that exposes someone to a risk of death or serious injury of illness faces five years jail and a $300,000 fine. This should be matched with existing criminal law to insert a new offence - Causing Death Through Recklessness or Negligence - with a 15-year maximum.

It tastes ridiculous.