Pharmacists are taking industrial action to fight off these draconian cuts. We're asking for your support so we can show Mater that the community values the care provided by pharmacists, and that it's not ok to cut pay.

An independent Auditor-General report released this month found political bias in how $100 million worth of sports grants were awarded by Sports Minister Bridget McKenzie.*1 The grants were awarded on the basis of which seats would benefit the Liberals and Nationals at the election. Many of the grants were awarded to wealthy sports clubs, rather than grassroots community sports. For example, one grant was given to a golf club in the wealthy Adelaide Hills to upgrade its foyer to make more money from wedding bookings.*2 Bridget McKenzie failed to disclose her membership of a shooting club which she then awarded taxpayer money.*3 Allocating money to benefit your political party and your own benefit is an abuse of power. The only reasonable course of action is for Bridget McKensie to resign now. 1 https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-01-16/sports-club-angry-at-bridget-mckenzie-government-grants/11873320 2 https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/jan/21/upmarket-tennis-and-golf-clubs-among-recipients-of-major-sports-grants 3 https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/mckenzie-approved-36-000-for-shooting-club-without-saying-she-was-a-member-20200121-p53tbf.html

Extracurricular activities aren’t just a fun way to teach kids skills and help them burn off energy – they help kids feel included, build resilience and develop talent. They get kids active while increasing social and developmental skills. They are another place to fit in and thrive, if school or home are tough. Yet for children in low income families, participation in sports or music is out of reach.

The Prime Minister has shown a level of incompetence and inability to effectively lead our country in a time of need and crisis.

We are in a state of disaster. We need a proper PM. We need Jacinda Ardern ... not Scotty from Marketing.

Grill’d has been caught out using government subsidised, low-paid "traineeships" to suppress the wages of their workers to below award rates. These traineeships allow Grill'd to pay their workers less than the minimum wage on the basis that they will get to spend 20% of their work time training, except research done by Canberra Students for Fair Work found that 95% of the staff they surveyed were not given any time for that training. Not only are they using their dodgy "traineeship" program to underpay their workers, but they've also removed all of their penalty rates in their enterprise agreement. Grill'd is doing everything they can to suppress the wages of their workers. It's even been reported that store managers have been given bonuses of up to $12,000 if they keep wages low enough to hit their 'wage targets'. Grill'd workers have had enough of the traineeship scam and the wage suppression. Sign this petition to fight back against Grill'd's dodgy business practices. If you're in Victoria you may be interested in signing Patrick's (Grill'd worker) petition too at the following link: https://www.megaphone.org.au/petitions/grilldunhealthywages-stop-using-dodgy-traineeships-to-screw-young-workers

Workers at Grill’d are sick of scraping by while our hugely successful employer is busy building a global empire. Grill’d employs about 4000 workers around the country across 140 stores, and aims to hit an annual turnover of $1 billion in the next few years. They've tried to build their image as an ethical, community-minded business. But they don’t even pay penalty rates for working on weekends or public holidays, and they're pressuring us to do dodgy traineeships so they can pay us even less. We demand Grill’d restore full Award penalty rates. We demand Grill’d stop using dodgy traineeships to screw its workers even more. And we want an independent audit to ensure Grill’d is not abusing the traineeship system. Grill’d must abide by the industry standard that trainees get a minimum of twenty percent of work time to complete the traineeship.

Kylie is an important Australian icon. She would warm the hearts and souls of the Meredith community with her sweet choons.

On Monday, the Gold Coast Young LNP posted a video that has been widely condemned as racist and offensive. The Empower team was shocked and horrified by the statements made in the video, and did not hesitate to condemn them unconditionally. No such condemnation, or comment, has been heard from Barclay's electoral group - Real for UQU. The attitudes promoted by this video and by Barclay are the kind of attitudes that keep racism against people of colour well and truly alive in Australia, and should be met with outrage, not silence. Unfortunately, Barcaly's behaviour in this video mirrors what many students reported witnessing from multiple Real campaigners during the 2019 UQU election: casual racism and discrimination. Empower stood up to this behaviour then, and we will stand up to it now. These beliefs have no place at our university, or in our student union. Barclay Mcgain must resign.

Less than a week after being rejected in the Senate Scott Morrison has delivered on his promise to big business and put his union-busting bill through the House of Representatives again. But before it can be law it must go to the senate. The senate rejected union busting only a week before Morrison has rushed the same law back into parliament. These union-busting laws will hurt working people in this country. These laws will make it harder to win pay rises, harder to keep workplaces safe and will make it easier for bad bosses to do the wrong thing. These laws continue a double standard that targets unions with deregistration over minor errors, like filing paperwork late, yet the big banks continue to get away with outrageous, ongoing criminal behaviour. Morrison’s laws are union-busting pure and simple. Morrison has no plan to stop the criminality of the big banks, no plan to end wage theft and has one set of rules for banks and big business and another for working people and unions.

Educators’ work is guided by the National Quality Standards for early childhood education. These standards are founded on research and international best practice. These seven standards cannot be reduced to a 4-star rating system. High-quality early education cannot be reduced to a 4-star rating system. This rating is being promoted as a process that educators have been consulted on, even though no evidence of this has been provided. It’s imperative that educators have their say - so please sign and share this petition to show the NSW Government that quality early education is worth more than 4-stars!

Treasurer Tim Pallas is investigating the sale or part-privatisation of VicRoads. Bringing the private sector into VicRoads will mean job cuts, erosion of services, the closing down of regional offices, and risks to the security of our personal data and the integrity of our information. And workers have seen too many times what happens to wages and conditions of those who keep their jobs when the private sector takes over the management of public services This isn’t what anyone voted for when this Government was re-elected in 2018. Daniel Andrews acknowledged the failures of privatisation just last year, reflecting with the benefit of history on the problems caused by past sell-offs of public assets. We’re asking him to rein in his Treasurer and protect these workers and their communities.