Newcastle bus drivers need your help. Newcastle’s private bus operator, Keolis Downer, doesn’t think these essential workers deserve pay rises that will keep up with the rising cost of living. Keolis Downer has offered drivers a meagre 10.5% pay increase over four years, despite inflation looking set to hit 7% just by the end of this year. Following a four hour strike on June 3rd, management told workers if they wanted extra pay they could work Sundays. Newcastle bus drivers just want to have their pay keep up with the cost of living and to be able to afford to live in the city they work in. Yet Keolis Downer refuses to accept RTBU’s very reasonable request of a 7% pay rise over 2 years. Continuing the fight, drivers went on strike for 24 hours yesterday and have turned off ticketing machines indefinitely. Now we need your help to support these essential workers. Sign the petition now to call on Keolis Downer to meet RTBU's demands!

It's important to acknowledge AV staff years of service and provide fair entitlements to all staff. A mother who has worked fulltime in Ambulance Victoria for 9 years returns to work from maternity leave to undertake 20 hours of work per week. When she takes her LSL, she will not receive payment based on her years of service within Ambulance Victoria but the 20 hours per week she has most recently worked. This discrepancy impacts women, care-takers, and staff who are working part-time even though they have worked fulltime for many years within the service. AEAV members believe it is discriminatory and unfair to not acknowledge staff years of service simply because a staff member has more recently worked part-time.

When properly funded, student unions can be both staunch advocates for young people and providers of essential services that many students depend on. As food insecurity continues to grow among young people, student unions can oversee subsidised canteens and free breakfasts. They can provide legal services, physical and mental health clinics, and support services. Since student unions are democratically run by students, they are also best placed to manage clubs and societies. They know university is about more than the classroom, and can deliver the student experience many of us have missed due to the pandemic. At the same time, student unions can continue their tradition of being an important political space, organising grassroots campaigns for things like climate justice, LGBT rights and free education. However, active and dynamic student unions are impossible without the proper funding, and across Australia, universities have been systematically underfunding student spaces for years. In 2006, the Howard Government outlawed Universal Student Unionism (USU), where students were required to join their student union and pay a membership fee. This change decimated funding for student unions and caused many student organisations to fold. In 2012, the Federal Labor Government introduced the Student Services and Amenities Fee (SSAF) to mitigate the damage to student unions. SSAF is like USU in that students are forced to pay the fee, however importantly, this money no longer goes directly to student-controlled organisations. Instead, the university charges it and has no obligation to fund student unions. Today the vast majority of funding for student unions comes from SSAF revenue, however, universities have made it clear that they are fully prepared to reduce or fully withdraw funding on a whim. Without financial independence, their ability to fight for student interests is systematically undermined. Under threat of reduced funding, our organisations are told that a stable relationship between the student union and the university is vital. As in, don’t make trouble, don’t cause scenes, don’t do anything to ruin our relationship with management because we can’t afford it. This system is an easy fix - the current legislation can be amended to mandate that all SSAF funds be directed to democratic student unions. Students pay these fees. So students, not university management, should decide what they are spent on.

As residents we are entitled to safe roads.

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.

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.

It’s very hard to survive Only aged care workers are targeted There is no new case in South Australia and even in aged care This restriction is only for cares don’t understand the reason why only Carers Mask being mandatory for all personal care workers including the nursing staff so why still the care workers can’t work at multiple site

As revealed in the 60 Minutes' expose on Sunday the 23rd of August, the Federal Member for Deakin and Minister for Housing, Michael Sukkar, has been accused of being complicit in an extensive and fraudulent scheme to increase his ideological influence through the Victorian Branch of the Liberal Party. This scheme was also alleged to have helped install Marcus Bastiaan and himself into influential positions between the state and federal branches of the Liberal Party. If true, Minister Sukkar’s involvement with Marcus Bastiaan is reprehensible. It’s been alleged they collaborated and organised together, and used high paying ministerial offices of various members of Parliament to funnel taxpayer money and resources to help increase the internal influence of the Bastian-Sukkar political faction, as well as externally influence political donations. They’re accused of employing a network of friends, and even Minister Sukkar’s immediate family, and the pair were able to utilise taxpayer funds to pay these accomplices for the organising and branch stacking. These insurgent operatives in electorate offices have been employed to purchase votes, and register fake members, in order to stack branches within the Liberal Party of Australia. As a likely participant in this insidious plan, Michael Sukkar has allowed his office to host an unknown number of Party recruiters and organisers in fake political jobs. Minister Sukkar is lacking any shred of personal integrity, as he has overseen part of these criminal actions, employing a graphic designer with the express purpose to create flyers that were used to either solicit political donations to the Liberal Party or discredit political opponents within the Party. This position was also funded by taxpayers. It is an utter embarrassment and disgrace that the current Liberal Prime Minister, Scott Morrison has failed to properly address and respond to these allegations. Any politician alleged to have been involved in the misuse of public funds should be temporarily stood down, and doubly so when that same politician is implicated in alleged fraud related to branch stacking. Minister Sukkar, if any integrity resides within him, would happily volunteer to stand down from his positions until a full investigation takes place, and his lack of action speaks volumes about the validity of these claims.

Bolt writes one of the widest distributed columns in the nation. He always uses this platform to promote his anti-science agenda. Maybe you can argue that is free speech. But when he is blatantly pedalling falsehoods on public health during a pandemic he must be refused a platform. Mr Weir needs to pull Bolt into line before people die.

The new social media policy is draconian and unfair. It would allow managers to fire and discipline staff they don't like, just for perceived crimes online. Some of these crimes would be as miniscule as liking a comment or graphic online. Public servants have a right to free speech too. We demand transparency and that the new social media policy is discarded.

South Australians deserve safe public roads. If the maintenance of our roads, traffic signals, level crossings and street lighting is privatised, safety will be at serious risk, and will result in more costs to taxpayers. Public servants working in the Department of Planning, Transport and Infrastructure (DPTI) have decades of experience in maintaining our public roads -- there is no logical reason to hand what is a key government responsibility to the private sector, which is renowned for cutting corners to increase profits. There are hundreds of publicly managed roads around in South Australia. Privatisation will lead to reduced quality roads -- slower turnaround time for repairs to malfunctioning traffic lights and signals, a deterioration of road quality, particularly in regional areas, and a loss of industry expertise. Private companies are only interested in generating profits for shareholders. This means any workers who are employed by the new private provider will eventually suffer reductions in wages and conditions. The Public Service Association is opposed to privatisation, which always costs the community more at the expense of quality services. We ask you to tell Premier Marshall to end his government's ideological obsession with privatisation and to start investing in our public services, not cutting them.

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.