Children are vulnerable and need to be protected not only with their current health but also future health. COVID is disruptive to ECC and parents and both require financial support. If the government does not provide this support you will see people leave jobs and ECC settings which will have ramifications on tax revenue and impact many small businesses. Women have been disproportionately been impacted in this situation from both the ECC which had a large female demographic to working mothers taking on a disproportionate load when keeping children home in addition to continue working from home for over 2 years.

Workers deserve fair wages and conditions are working throughout the pandemic.

The governemnt has given relief packages and tax benefits to businesses to tide over this crisis period. Free food grains are distributed through public distribution systems and a small relief was given to people under poverty line in direct benefit transfer. But what about the workers? The workers in urban areas have no money to pay the rent or school fees for their children. Paid leave for COVID 19 affected workers will ensure that their families do not go hungry during the breadwinners illness. It is important to have proper nourishing food to recover from COVID 19. If the wages during the COVID 19 illness are not paid then not only the worker but his/her family members will be victims of the pandemic. It is to ensure food on the plates for the family that we demand Paid Leave for COVID 19 Affected Workers.

Your focus is a barrier to fair education and evidence based information. You promote the dumbing down of any broad opinion and evidenced information with your cheap headlines and nonsense content articles. The Clayton's ‘ I love Victoria ‘ opinions space is just deliberately dumb hate speech opportunities. It’s cheap and an ignorant deliberate poor focus. Is it anarchy you want? Do you want to trump Trump at being irresponsible mob inciters.

It's really important

This week, the Victorian State Government passed a bill through Parliament that made it illegal to try and change or suppress a person's gender identity or sexual orientation. Gay conversion therapy is a harmful practice that can have dire consequences. The therapy can involve forcing people to undergo electric shocks and drink substances to induce vomiting when shown homoerotic images. There are also role-playing exercises where men are forced to do stereotypically 'blokey' things like chatting about football and tinkering with cars, while women are told to wear feminine clothes and apply a full face of makeup. This practice is cruel and bigoted. It is dangerous and unsafe. It is, at it’s very simplest, a violation of human rights and equal opportunity. The practice sends a message to the LGBTIQ+ community that gay isn’t “right” and that therapy will “fix” them. The handful of sitting Members of the Western Metropolitan region in the Legislative Council who voted against this bill should not be considered as dignitaries to Cities like Brimbank, Maribyrnong, Hobsons Bay, Melton, Hume, Wyndham and Moonee Valley; the council areas that make up our Community. As per their adopted policies, defined in the Annual Plans of every one of these councils, creating a safe and inclusive, diverse and proud community is vital to ensuring that everyone can live their own life, as they choose. If these Councils aspire demonstrate strong leadership, promote healthy and inclusive communities, develop strategies to enhance the inclusion and engagement of the LGBTIQA+ community every possible way, and creating welcoming environments, then removing those who promote bigotry and hate from your invitations and ceremonies should be top of their list. I call on each of these Councils to cease spending rate-payers money on hosting these members and to publicly declare that they will not pander to these bigots any longer.

MAJOR CUTS PLANNED: Macquarie University's Vice Chancellor and Executive are drawing up plans to restructure the University. The result will be major cuts to course offerings, cuts to casual staff and a large number of redundancies. We are deeply concerned that such major job losses in the middle of a global recession will not only cause significant hardship, but also compromise Macquarie University's ability to provide quality education for students and world-class research for the Australian community. WORST STUDENT-STAFF RATIOS ALREADY: Macquarie University is already one of the most poorly staffed universities in the world: Macquarie's staff to student ratio is the worst in Australia, and ninth worst (of 1,400) in the entire world [1]. WE ARE WORTH PROTECTING: Despite these workloads, Macquarie is remarkable: in recent weeks we just broke through the top 200 on Times Higher Education rankings [2]. WHY NOT SHOW US THE EVIDENCE? While the university declares a financial emergency, they have also refused independent scrutiny of the university's financial position. DON'T RUSH WHEN SO MUCH COULD CHANGE: Moving into 2021, so much could change. Now is not the time to make major, hasty cuts. Slow down! Open the books! Don't put our great institution at risk! [1] The Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2020. https://www.timeshighereducation.com/world-university-rankings/2020/world-ranking#!/page/0/length/25/sort_by/stats_student_staff_ratio/sort_order/desc/cols/stats [2] Macquarie gains highest ever world ranking, 23 Sept 2020. https://www.mq.edu.au/newsroom/2020/09/03/macquarie-gains-highest-ever-world-ranking/

In the music industry there is very little hope that any form of normal operations will be possible for a long time and even teaching a musical instrument especially a woodwind instrument will only be possible on line, which is not satisfactory for advanced students. Soloists, Ensembles, Chamber Music Groups and Orchestras will have no way to provide any work for the many outstanding freelance instrumentalists probably for years rather than months even after a vaccine has been rolled out especially the impossibility of overseas touring which many artists rely on.

This is a fundamental workplace right and shows a clear lack of care for staff to ignore and erode workers rights during this time of crisis whilst hundred of Deakin staff are made redundant.

Literacy and Numeracy Test for Initial Education Students [LANTITE] and the administration of LANTITE. We can understand your frustration given Education and the COVID-19 pandemic; We believe you can understand and appreciate our frustration in regard to the LANTITE and our inability to graduate. As a result, we implore you for your support in removing the Literacy and Numeracy Test for Initial Education Students (LANTITE) administered by ACER as a graduate requirement. These students have successfully completed the units in their degrees, as well as professional practise in the form of placements. Throughout degrees and placements, the importance of literacy and numeracy is highlighted. We implore you to support the removal of LANTITE as a graduation requirement. In doing so, you will be contributing and assisting Australia’s economic return through this pandemic.

This should be recognised and compensated for since it is unjust treatment of international students who are paying a high price for something they are not receiving, and who in addition are not eligible for Job keeper payments or Centrelink (but are still expected to pay full tuition fees which is causing extreme financial distress). The University is offering Emergency Support grants for students who have lost their income. However these are not guaranteed and are addressing another issue. They are not a recognition of the change in quality of the teaching and learning experience; a change which should be reflected in the pricing of impacted semesters. For approximate pricing per year for international students see: https://study.unimelb.edu.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0033/84399/2020-tuition-fee-tables-for-international-students.pdf

The recent Covid 19 income support package has resulted in an imbalance. A hospital cleaner working full time is earning around $1000 per week before tax, and usually takes home around $750. The worker must meet all personal expenses including housing, transport, food, childcare, education and medical costs. The essential services workforce is being severely affected by the current crisis as many workers are having to stay home to care for families. We are not going to be able to recruit new workers to replace those who are unable to work. Potential employees would be better off on Centrelink benefits, safer and wealthier.