Lia Perkins, Shreyaa Sundararaghavan, Katherine (Haimingyue) Xu, Owen Marsden-Readford
Hello everybody! This is our last report for 3.5 months :(( so make sure you’ve liked the ‘USyd Welfare Action Group’ Facebook page to hear about what’s happening!
May Day
On May Day we supported the CFMEU’s green ban on the development of Willow Grove Parramatta. The student contingent brought the demands of Green Jobs, Climate Justice and Indigenous Sovereignty.
Housing campaigns
On 12 May we will bring a student contingent to the ‘Defend Public Housing’ rally at Martin Place. Our demands are: don’t sell off any public housing in NSW, return JobSeeker and other welfare payments to the original rate, and affordable housing for all students. Join our working bee on 5 May. We have formulated a list of demands for our student housing campaign and are in the process of contacting other groups who may want to be part of it or contribute demands.
Street kitchen
About 10 members of the Welfare Action Group attended and cooked for the CUDL street kitchen on April 25 and it was a success.
Education activism
Welfare officers attended the NO TO 12 WEEK SEMESTERS forum and rally. It’s important for students to understand that the 12 week semester proposal is a symptom of the corporatisation of the university, stretching us for profit and cutting staff pay. For these reasons we strongly oppose the proposal.
Other activism
We attended both CARR’s and QUAC’s protest and speakout against transphobic bills in state and federal parliament. These bills are political attacks from the right, attempting to devastate young people’s ability to speak about and develop their identity, with harmful consequences. We attended the Enviro collective’s Student General Meeting (SGM) to build to the May 21 climate strike. Look out for GMAR and WoCo’s ‘Sorry Day’ rally on May 26 – stolen generations continue despite the hollow gestures of the Labor party. I helped to organise the Students for Palestine forum on the Nakba and Palestinian resistence to occupation. The forum is building for the Palestine Action Group Nakba Day rally on May 15th. Another important upcoming rally is the Tamil Genocide Day rally on May 16th which I have been helping to build on campus. It is the first time this protest is happening in Sydney so I encourage everyone to attend.
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