This is not just about a building. It is about protecting the dignity, comfort, and wellbeing of some of our most vulnerable community members.  Please sign this petition to tell the government that mental health services deserve better, and that consumers, their families, staff and the community deserve a say.

Coliban Water workers are the engineers, hydrologists, scientists and managers who keep safe, reliable water flowing to 180,000 people across the Bendigo and Castlemaine region. They’re delivering a $500 million infrastructure program to upgrade water and sewer systems that communities depend on every day. For five years, these regional professionals have watched their real wages go backwards while Coliban charges its customers the highest water prices in Victoria. Bills went up 4.5% last year alone, but the workers who keep the system running were offered just 2% annual increases. In real terms, that’s a pay cut of more than 10%. Now, instead of bargaining in good faith, this state-owned corporation is trying to bully workers out of exercising their legal right to take protected action. Threatening to stand workers down for setting an email auto-reply is not the behaviour of a responsible public employer. It’s union-busting, and it’s happening in the Premier’s own backyard.

We all deserve a good life – a roof over our head, food on the table, fuel in our cars, and the security of knowing our pay will cover the basics.   But for too many of us, that’s no longer the reality.  Instead of relief, we are being squeezed from every direction.  The Reserve Bank keeps raising interest rates, fuel prices are soaring, and big business is pocketing millions – while we are told to tighten our belts.  Workers didn’t cause the cost-of-living crisis – but we’re being asked to pay for it.  In the ASU’s Wages and Cost of Living Survey, almost 80% of workers surveyed have gone without meals because they couldn’t afford it. This is not ok.  Wages aren’t keeping up while corporate profits keep climbing.  When rent jumps, when groceries soar, when bills skyrocket – there’s only one solution that works: a real pay rise.  And pay rises don’t happen by accident. They happen when we come together and demand better. Pay rises start with us.  That’s why ASU members are campaigning for a 5% pay rise in this year’s Annual Wage Review – a rise that reflects the real cost of living and doesn’t leave workers behind.  The ASU is your voice for better pay - but the strongest voice is a united one. Join the campaign to win the wage increase you deserve. Become an Australian Services Union member today. 

We believe all survivors of sexual assault should be able to safely access counselling without fear of their offender ever eavesdropping in on the conversation. Yet our legal system currently undermines confidence in vital counselling services by enabling offenders and other third parties access to these files.  That is why we are calling on the Federal and all State Attorney Generals, starting with Michael Daley (NSW) and Michelle Rowland (Federal) to amend legislation so that sexual assault survivors can access counselling, safe in the knowledge that their notes and related files are completely protected, much the same as if they had spoken to their own lawyer. Sign and then share our petition. ‘Don’t Subponea Our Support: Keep Counselling Confidential’, is a campaign led by news.com.au journalist and survivor advocate, Nina Funnell, in partnership with Unions NSW, Rape and Sexual Assault Research and Advocacy, Marque Lawyers, along with survivors, advocates and experts. By signing the petition, you may hear from our campaign partners about this campaign. Rebuild community confidence in confidentiality. Sign the petition. If you or someone you know has been impacted by sexual violence support is available at:  Full Stop Australia: 1800 385 578 (24/7 sexual domestic and family violence counselling service) 13YARNfor Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people: 13 92 76  Rainbow sexual, domestic and family violence: 1800 497 212

Queensland Rail is trying to force through an extreme cut to stations across South East Queensland, leaving stations without any staff on them after 1 PM on weekdays and on weekends. Unstaffed stations create environments where passengers feel vulnerable, particularly at night or in quieter periods. Without staff present, incidents of antisocial behaviour, harassment, and crime are harder to prevent and respond to. Vulnerable passengers and school students will have no one to turn to for immediate help.  Students, particularly younger ones, will have no adult railway employee to turn to if something goes wrong, a missed train, a lost go card, a medical issue, or a frightening encounter with another passenger.  School students, especially teenage girls, are disproportionately targeted for harassment on public transport. Staffed stations act as a visible deterrent and provide immediate recourse. Removing that presence during peak student travel times creates environments where harassment is more likely to occur and less likely to be addressed.  Passengers who rely on staff assistance include people with disabilities requiring help with ramps, gap bridging, or navigation; elderly passengers unfamiliar with ticket machines or needing physical assistance; tourists and visitors unfamiliar with the network; and people with low digital literacy who can't self-serve via apps or machines. Cutting weekend and afternoon staff effectively locks these people out of public transport, which is a human rights concern, not just an inconvenience.  Public transport exists to serve the whole community, not just tech-savvy, able-bodied peak-hour commuters. Reducing service quality by removing the human element signals a retreat from that social contract. 

Young people in the Hume and Riverina regions currently have no access to local, age-appropriate acute inpatient mental health care. When adolescents experience severe mental health crises, they are too often admitted to adult wards, left for extended periods in emergency departments, or transported hours away from their community by family or patient transport, even when there is an immediate danger to themselves. These arrangements are clinically inappropriate, distressing, and inconsistent with trauma-informed standards of care. They disrupt schooling, separate families, and increase the risk of further harm - emotionally, socially and physically. Albury–Wodonga is centrally positioned to reduce unsafe travel distances across both Victoria and New South Wales, while easing pressure on already stretched metropolitan services. This is about safety, equity, and ensuring crisis care is available close to home when it is needed most.

Without the work Sustainability Victoria does, we won’t reach Net Zero. Abolishing Sustainability Victoria is a betrayal of the state government's own commitments to the community and climate. This is happening during a time when other key environmental agencies are being gutted, diminishing Victoria’s capacity to address biodiversity decline, waste reduction and climate action. To reach the Victorian Government’s target of Net Zero by 2045, Victoria needs to reduce emissions and waste– 36% of Victoria's emissions come from the extraction and use of manufactured goods and material products. A circular economy is integral to ensure the long-term repurposing, reusing and recycling of our resources. Why Should We Save It? • Sustainability Victoria is Independently Governed. For over 20 years, Sustainability Victoria has delivered the programs and expertise for Victoria to design out waste, under the guidance of an independent board and CEO. Without this independence, Victoria loses one of the only institutions that has a mandate to pursue sustainability outside of the electoral cycle. • Sustainability Victoria has its Own Funding Model. It is funded by the Municipal and Industrial Waste Levy (MILL), collected through council rates; by law, this levy must go to sustainability initiatives like waste reduction. If unspent, this fund sits idle, used by the government to prop up its budget bottom line. The fund, meant for agencies like Sustainability Victoria, is on track to have $700 million sitting idle by July 2026. • Sustainability Victoria benefits climate, community and the economy. By working with industry, schools, local governments and communities, SV provides evidence-based solutions that allow Victoria to reduce, reuse, and recycle. Modelling shows a circular economy, advanced by Sustainability Victoria’s team of experts, could increase Australia’s GDP by $26 billion in the next 10 years and add 150,000 new jobs to the Australian market by 2048. Sign our petition and send a clear message to the Government:  We cannot afford to go backwards. We cannot afford to lose Sustainability Victoria.

Local Government services in Victoria are in crisis because of chronic underfunding by the Allan Labor Government. Council workers across metropolitan Melbourne are under constant threat of outsourcing and have seen their real wages cut by between 7-12%. High rates of vacancies and turnover are endemic across the sector, and workers are more exposed than ever to occupational violence and unsustainable workloads.   This also means lower quality services for the broader community. It means understaffed libraries. It means graffiti being left up for weeks and subcontracted street sweepers racing through too many streets and leaving rubbish behind. It means youth workers preventing crime by providing vital early intervention services losing their jobs.   Our communities can’t afford a race to the bottom.

Our workplace laws need to catch up to the reality we're living and working in 2026. If you support changes to protect our work from the damaging new aspects of AI and workplace surveillance, think long service leave should follow you and not your boss, and want those who can to be able to work from home, sign this pledge.

Legs Lane is a small laneway that runs between Leamington Street and Barton Street in Reservoir. It is a popular walking route to and from Reservoir Primary School for hundreds of trips each day. It is also used by many other residents going to and from the Reservoir shops, the train station, and the library. Despite heavy foot traffic, Legs Lane has been neglected by the Council and remains a muddy dirt path that fills with water in winter. It regularly features weeds like blackberries that have been known to scratch kids and has become a hotspot for rubbish dumping due to its neglected condition.  It is difficult or impassable for smaller kids on scooters and bikes, as well as wheelchair users and parents with prams, depending on the weather and the depth of water and mud.  Despite this, it is promoted as part of the Victorian Government's Octopus Schools Program, which aims to encourage active travel options for school families. The Reservoir Primary School community has raised this issue with Darebin Council, but there has been no progress in securing a commitment to complete this important active transport route in a busy part of our suburb. Reservoir kids - and the whole community - deserve better. It would not take much money or time to seal Legs Lane and maintain it as other popular non-car thoroughfares are managed throughout the rest of Darebin.

The Victorian Catholic Education Authority (VCEA) is seeking to ignore the nearly 19,000 staff who signed a Statement of Support for fair bargaining last year – a clear majority of the 35,000 staff that the VCEA has claimed work in Victorian Catholic education. No good explanation has been provided for this anti-worker stance, and this continued denial of our basic rights is causing deep concern amongst staff in Catholic schools right across the state. As educators, we don’t want to have to take industrial action – but as workers, we know that the internationally-recognised right to do so is what gives us power at the bargaining table, and that without this right we are negotiating with one hand tied behind our back.  

A lot of Victorians in all sorts of industries can’t work from home - but our whole community wins when those who can work from home are given the option. It means fewer cars stuck in peak hour traffic and less congestion on public transport. Local small businesses benefiting from increased lunchtime demand. Families with someone around to pick up the kids up after school. That’s why I support moves by the Victorian Government to legislate a right to work from home for two days per week for people who are reasonably able to do so. I want all politicians, and all Victorians, to get behind this simple proposal that will improve the lives of millions of Victorians and their families.