Gas is a dangerous, polluting fossil fuel. It releases greenhouse gasses that contribute to the horrific bushfires and raging floods we’ve seen devastate communities across the country in recent years. And it isn’t just a disaster for our climate. It’s also bad for our health. Public health experts are concerned about the health risks of cooking with gas in our homes, which can have a similar impact on childhood asthma as living with cigarette smoke. And here in Victoria, we burn more gas per person than any other state. But the good news is that some local councils around the country are bowing to community pressure and taking matters into their own hands - promising to end new gas connections, and help people with the cost of switching to electricity and renewables. And with enough pressure from the community, our local council could join this movement today!

Glyphosate is currently broadly used across the Nambucca Shire by the council to manage weeds in a number of public spaces including playing fields and roadsides. Products containing Glyphosate are available for the public and commercial use within the Nambucca shire. These are broadly used in residential areas, non-organic farming and on golf courses. The use of these chemicals has been shown to be a major health and be directly linked to cancer and other diseases. The California state and the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) ruled glyphosate a carcinogen. The IARC said that along with other Monsanto chemicals Roundup could cause Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, autism, and cancer. Glyphosate is the key ingredient in Bayer/Monsanto’s signature herbicide Roundup. Globally, glyphosate use has risen almost 15-fold since so-called “Roundup Ready,” genetically engineered glyphosate-tolerant crops were introduced in 1996. The mass-spraying of glyphosate has led to the explosion of resistant weeds, which have evolved to survive despite being sprayed. Weeds resistant to the herbicide are now commonly found on local farmers’ fields. There have been many court cases in the USA are ruling against companies such as Monsanto and Bayer (leading companies in glyphosate products) saying that the glyphosate based herbicides sold by these companies caused cancer in the plaintiffs. Germany’s Bayer is now facing 42,700 U.S. plaintiffs blaming its glyphosate-based weedkillers for their cancer. Monsanto was recently ordered to pay $289 million in damages after a jury found the pesticide giant liable for causing a school groundskeeper’s cancer. Due to this Bayer is considering stopping private users. Companies such as Kellogg’s have committed to reducing the use of these harmful pesticides in food production as it was found within their products. Many countries, cities and local council areas such as Germany, France, San Fransisco and two Sydney LGA’s have banned the use of Glyphosate due to it’s links to cancer and environment damages. Studies have shown that glyphosate was found in most children’s cereals. Children exposed to potentially carcinogenic pesticides from use in homes, hospitals, schools, other buildings, lawns and gardens, through food and contaminated drinking water, from agricultural application drift, overspray, or off-gassing, and from carry-home exposure of parents occupationally exposed to pesticides. Parental exposure during the child's gestation or even preconception may also be important. Malignancies linked to pesticides in case reports or case-control studies include leukemia, neuroblastoma, Wilms' tumor, soft-tissue sarcoma, Ewing's sarcoma, non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, and cancers of the brain, colorectum, and testes. The evidence that these chemicals are harmful is substantial. It is irresponsible that a council overlook these risks to the public’s health and the contamination of our waterways and environment by these chemicals. We ask that the council be proactive and take action to be a leader in moving away from the use of these chemicals for all our families and our children.

"Natural" Gas is a dangerous and polluting fuel that contributes to the climate crisis. LNG or "Natural" Gas is largely methane, which as we know, can be even worse for the climate than coal because it leaks into the atmosphere. This leaked gas traps more warmth, increasing our risks of severe heat, drought, bushfires and sea-level rise. And it isn’t just a disaster for our climate. It’s also bad for our health. Public health experts are concerned about the health risks of cooking with gas in our homes, which can have a similar impact on childhood asthma as living with cigarette smoke. The City of Greater Geelong has stated in its Climate Change Response Plan that it will be discouraging new gas connections to households from this year onwards, but new planning legislation is required to make this possible. This is an obvious move, it's safer for the climate, safer for our community's health and an all-electric house is cheaper and easier to run. The good news is that some local councils around the country are bowing to community pressure and taking matters into their own hands - promising to end new gas connections, and help people with the cost of switching to electricity and renewables. And with enough pressure from the community, our local council could join this movement today! Geelong is also the location for a new proposed gas import terminal by Viva Energy. This new terminal will import gas from the Scarborough offshore gas field, which will produce some of the dirtiest gas in the world in terms of its emissions and be equal to over a quarter of Australia’s entire national emissions! So let's convince our local Councils to get off gas, so that we don't need dangerous and polluting projects like this in our city.

Gas is a dangerous, polluting fossil fuel. It releases greenhouse gasses that contribute to the horrific bushfires and raging floods we’ve seen devastate communities across the country in recent years. And it isn’t just a disaster for our climate. It’s also bad for our health. Public health experts are concerned about the health risks of cooking with gas in our homes, which can have a similar impact on childhood asthma as living with cigarette smoke. And here in Victoria, we burn more gas per person than any other state. But the good news is that some local councils around the country are bowing to community pressure and taking matters into their own hands - promising to end new gas connections, and help people with the cost of switching to electricity and renewables. And with enough pressure from the community, our local council could join this movement today!

LGBTIQA+ Pride is fundamentally linked to civil and humanitarian rights. Midsumma and Pride have both emerged from a long history of campaigns for recognition, respect and an end to abuse and discrimination of LGBTIQA+ people, and are a celebration of the progress that has been made in Victoria and Australia. However, in many countries, LGBTQA+ people face enormous and terrifying discrimination, abuse and torture, and are forced to seek asylum. LGBTIQA+ asylum seekers in Australia have been and continue to be held in detention centres run by private Multinational company SERCO. Detainees have been abused, medically neglected and forced to live under terrible conditions for up to 12 years in Australian prisons run by SERCO. SERCO had a stall at Midsumma Carnival in 2022 and has promoted it's support for LGBTIQA+ staff on its social media. However, this company profits from the abuse of asylum seekers, in which many SERCO staff are complicit, if not actively involved. Midsumma should be advocating for the rights of LGBTIQA+ refugees, not accepting money or aligning themselves with companies who profit from the torture of LGBTIQA+ people. We call on the director Karen Bryant and the board of Midsumma to develop and adopt a charter of ethics about which corporations and institutions you will work with.

The park is not only enjoyed by dogs and their owners but families and children, on bikes, walking who enjoy a natural ramble through the trees... not concrete paths. The local Blue Mountains community are not happy with what has been destroyed... including a turtles nest and other habitat.

Covid has created a cruel divide for many families and it has caused further separation in that immediate family members have not been considered as such and have been unable to connect. Australia’s population is multicultural and for all to thrive, immediate family members need to be recognised as such. We hope that if the government are willing to recognise parents of adult children as immediate family members, it will follow that they will give the same regard to adult children.

The severely immunocompromised are vulnerable to severe disease when infected with COVID19. Right now, COVID testing programs are insufficient to protect the immunosuppresed. Effective testing is difficult to access and costly to individuals. Supported COVID testing is needed. Severely immunocompromised people need to test those close to them regularly. They need to know when to shield themselves from others. Many severely immunocompromised people are unwell and not mobile and rely on support workers. Many live, study or work closely with others, and risk exposure to COVID, despite their best efforts to shield. Some, like the parents of children, are carers and find themselves in the impossible position of needing those in their charge tested, but can't because they simply can't risk sharing a car with a person with symptoms. It is simply not safe for the severely immunocompromised to line up for a PCR test. Time is of the essence for a severely immunocompromised person with COVID. This is because there are treatments available that can prevent severe disease, but these must be started early. They need ready and safe access to testing. Every day counts.

Dear Premier Malinauskas, As predicted, the pandemic has cost your frontline. We have lost mentally and physically exhausted colleagues to other roles, burnt out from the multi-faceted challenges that we've faced throughout COVID. On the back of the pandemic, hospitals are bursting. As we’ve all seen on the news, ambulances are still ramping; anxious and unwell patients are enduring long wait times in emergency departments, if they can wait at all. We still care for COVID patients every shift, but we are busier than ever and those of us left are burnt out. Simply hiring more fresh nurses is not the answer - it's great, sure, but who is going to guide them, lead them and train them? How long will they stay, once they know what it’s really like for us? Our workforce is critically junior, becoming more so with each experienced nurse that runs out of reasons to ‘stick it out’. Australia might be transitioning to a ‘COVID-normal’, but this problem isn’t going away. One of your very first actions as Premier was to visit Adelaide's hospitals, introducing yourself to and thanking staff. Last week, you spent time in our ambulances, seeing the reality of what our paramedics go through shift to shift, ramping with whoever they can, reshuffling rosters and working overtime to try to help whoever they can’t. Your party arguably won many votes for your promise to change our health system, and you have been very public in your moral support of South Australia's frontline. Now, we need you to invest in retaining the nurses that we have left and motivating burnt out colleagues to come back to the front line. Earlier this week, our colleagues in NSW were awarded a bonus payment in recognition of their commitment throughout the last two years, and Victorian frontliners were granted what was aptly called a ‘retention bonus’. This is in addition to their nurses receiving a ‘pandemic loading’ for each shift worked since last year - a bit of motivation to keep turning up and doing their best. This is what we need - some incentive to retain nurses and prevent the skill mix at work from becoming any more dangerous. Hospitals should be a safe place for everyone. Right now, our job is harder than it has ever been. Mr Malinauskas, Mr Picton, please hear us when your predecessors would not. Us - not only frontline nurses, but the clinical and non-clinical colleagues who support us, the >12,000 South Australians who supported our call for help this year, and the patients we serve every day. Sincerely, Viv (An Emergency nurse, on behalf of all tired nurses)

Our wildlife are dying because the Lake is diseased, and the water is toxic. The lake has been fenced off for 20 months, Council have done nothing. 22 baby signets have died over this time, dead birds surround the lake, resident turtles are coming onto land, dead carp are floating in the water. Another signet died last week, and my daughter has just received a call about another one dying. It's sad, and it's wrong. We need to let the Council know we need to get this fixed. please sign our petition and share with your friends - the more the better.

Until March 2021 kids in Chatswood West were in area for Chatswood Highschool - 20 min walk away. Now our local school is the Lindfield Learning Village. Two bus rides and a walk taking at least an hour, if you don’t miss your connection. Transport for NSW have suggested a walking path through the bush. This is not safe or practical with laptops and musical instruments. We’re excited to go to LLV, but we’d like to get there in under half an hour with a direct bus route. Given the school boundary changes were outside of our control and only announced at the last minute, we request a bus route for our kids that makes the school run quick, direct and safe.

Why are these kangaroos a problem? Aren’t they simply living their lives with their families in their home range? Yes. However, the City of Canning wants to construct a new road and a sports complex in the kangaroos’ home range. A new road, the Jandakot Eastern Link, will improve traffic flow to the airport. The road will dissect kangaroo habitat, leading to fears the kangaroos will cause vehicle accidents. Bushland will be cleared to build a new sports facility. The new road and sports facility will destroy much of the kangaroo habitat, leaving only 22-hectares of fragmented land for the kangaroo population. Habitat loss is a major problem for kangaroos. In 2007, 38% of Western Australia was used for agriculture. Urbanisation and agriculture are constantly expanding. The new Jandakot Eastern Link is yet another example of humans destroying habitat and forcing kangaroos into tiny, fragmented areas. The City of Canning is yet to seek a permit to cull and, right now, there isn’t a culling order in place. The City is engaging with the surrounding land owners as it plans the management of the kangaroo population. There is fear from the public that the kangaroos will be denied access to water. Australian Governments consider fencing to deny kangaroos access to water as a viable way of reducing kangaroo populations. This “management method” is cruel and shouldn’t be promoted by Government. Indeed, this inhumane method of kangaroo control should be illegal. We, the undersigned, implore the City to ensure the safety of the kangaroos. The immediate concern is that the kangaroos have access to food and water. Often during construction, kangaroos become restricted by fencing and unable to access water. We request guarantees from the City that the kangaroos will not be harmed by a lack of food or water. Furthermore, the undersigned implore the City to work with wildlife carers, to utilise the expertise and knowledge of wildlife carers accustomed to working with kangaroos. Many wildlife carers have offered to volunteer their services to ensure the safety of the Canning Vale kangaroos. We ask that the City contact us to provide names of wildlife carers willing to assist the City. Finally, the undersigned, implore the City to investigate the construction of wildlife underpasses or overpasses. Wildlife under-or-overpasses are achieving great results around the world. We implore the City to be a leader in creating safe passage for Australian wildlife. “You can get reductions of 85 to 95 percent with crossings and fencing that guide animals under or over highways,” said Rob Ament, the road ecology program manager at the Western Transportation Institute at Montana State University, to National Geographic’s Starre Vartan in 2019. Western Australia has constructed numerous successful fauna bridges. Wildlife was photographed using the bridges. Working with wildlife carers and building fauna bridges is the future for a great state like Western Australia. (For more information: https://annualreports.mainroads.wa.gov.au/AR-2019/overview/our-stories/animal-welfare-a-priority-with-our-first-fauna-bridge.html https://www.96fm.com.au/local/check-out-this-local-wildlife-using-perths-new-fauna-bridge) Australia needs to learn to co-exist with our beautiful, unique wildlife. The Jandakot Eastern Link is a chance for city officials to work with wildlife carers and, at the very least, to create over-or-under passes to ensure safe passage for wildlife and humans. The time has come for co-existence, not execution.