Make Your Voice Count

For a while now I have been having my say through Get Up. Today I was thrilled to get an email from them that showed that masses of average Australians, speaking up CAN make a difference!

This week, over twenty thousand of you rallied and helped turn the tide to protect an area of priceless heritage many didn't even know existed: the ancient Indigenous rock art on the Burrup Peninsula.

Now we've got their attention. In a stunning backflip, both the Western Australian Government and Woodside have just dropped their opposition to heritage listing. This is a huge step towards saving the remaining rock art from destruction, and making Burrup what it should be - one of the world's most well-known and safely-visited heritage sites. The West Australian reported, "...Woodside director Keith Spence said yesterday the company had changed its position after being influenced by public opinion...".

Wow!! -- Guys, get involved and speak up. For more info on Burrup listen the audio.

Another matter that I am concerned to speak up about is the Howard government's new IR laws. They are the biggest threat to average Australians in decades. Thousands of people took to the streets today to protest right across Australia. I can speak from personal experience about individual contracts. At Telstra it was "no contract - no job". Within a few months of signing a contract, I was suddenly out of a job with one day's notice due to "operational reasons".

Now as a teacher, the Howard government is trying to link education funding to IR reforms including, you guessed it, individual contracts and "performance reviews" - how do you meaningfully measure effective teaching?. There will be pay cuts, but it will be illegal to discuss our salaries and conditions with our colleagues. John Howard is a master at promoting fear, uncertainty and doubt. What sort of education system is this going to create? What sort of future for our kids and for us?