Thousands of local government workers in Melbourne have signed on to bargain collectively, across 10 councils, for better pay and conditions. This is an early test of recent changes to the Fair Work Act by the federal government that should enable unions to more easily bargain—and take legally protected industrial action—across multiple employers. 
According to Tash Wark, secretary of the Australian Services Union (ASU), “this is the largest worker-initiated multi-employer agreement proposed in Australia”. The ASU intends to use an industrial and political campaign across multiple councils to put pressure on the state Labor government to modify or scrap the neoliberal “rate capping” policy that limits council budgets. 
In response, local government employers have <a href="https://www.asuvictas.com.au/VICTAS/News/ASU_multi-employer_bargaining_update.aspx#:~:text=This%20has%20the%20practical%20effect,by%20the%20Fair%20Work%20Commission.">gone on the offensive</a>. From Brimbank to Darebin to Yarra to Port Phillip, employers are launching sham (non-union) single enterprise “negotiations”. These are designed to pave the way for non-union ballots to keep bargaining at a council level, thus avoiding multi-employer bargaining. Employers are also mounting legal challenges against the ASU, despite similar challenges <a href="https://www.heraldsun.com.au/leader%2Fballarat%2Ffederal-court-rejects-central-goldfields-shires-appeal-of-multicouncil-bargaining-with-ararat%2Fnews-story%2F66f6c2c1b3797b2c670c6ffa3cf6fdb7?amp&amp;nk=95c7c698a7cc5f92b3b45e378f1ce6d3-1749453407">losing at the Federal Court</a> earlier this year.
Local government workers provide a wide range of essential services that keep our communities running. From removing waste, cleaning streets and beaches, maintaining parks and roads, to running libraries, immunising and educating children, and providing in-home care for elderly and disabled community members. 
But over the past few years, these essential workers have been falling behind—their wages consistently failing to keep up with inflation. Since 2021, council workers across Melbourne have lost anywhere from 5 to 10 percent of the real value of their wages. The vast majority of us are now hundreds of dollars a fortnight (thousands of dollars a year) worse off than we were in 2020.
There’s one exception to this: senior council executives. Council CEOs across Melbourne <a href="https://www.councilwatch.com.au/general-5">typically earn more than $400,000 a year</a>. That’s on par with federal government ministers ($403,000) and the Prime Minister of the UK (£172,153 or $360,335). Last year, it was revealed that Alison Leighton, CEO of the City of Melbourne, pockets a whopping $534,000 annually—almost as much as the prime minister. These are the same people crying poor and threatening job cuts in response to workers’ demanding a liveable wage.
In the face of real wage declines, increasing numbers of local government workers have been <a href="https://www.heraldsun.com.au/leader%2Fnorth%2Fdarebin-council-workers-begin-strike-taking-protest-to-the-streets%2Fnews-story%2F3c6d0399f41489f72f46ce32377890e5?amp&amp;nk=95c7c698a7cc5f92b3b45e378f1ce6d3-1749443789">going on strike</a>. Despite heroic efforts from workers, <a href="https://brunswickvoice.com.au/council-industrial-dispute-ends-as-staff-vote-yes-to-pay-offer/">gains have been minimal</a>. This is partly because a few hundred workers in a single local government area have limited industrial power. The Victorian government’s rate cap also provides an excuse for management to cry poor. And previous bargaining strategies of the ASU have failed to challenge these limitations. 
Multi-employer bargaining represents, at least potentially, a means to change all that. There’s certainly sentiment for a fight. At a packed meeting of council workers from across Melbourne recently, one worker put it this way: “We are the ones who run this city. If we stop work, the city stops: bins overflow, services disappear, streets and beaches get trashed, parks and sporting fields become overgrown. Imagine what we could achieve if council revenue begins to dry up, if small businesses start to suffer, and if state infrastructure projects grind to a halt.” 
Council workers are coming together to <a href="https://www.asuvictas.com.au/VICTAS/News/MEB_update_Have_your_say_on_our_draft_Log_of_Claims.aspx">demand</a> a 22 percent pay rise over four years—consisting of a 10 percent “recovery payment” in the first year and 4 percent in the following years. This will go some way to redressing the decade-long decline in council workers’ real wages. Most of us haven’t seen a pay rise of more than 2 or 3 percent for 10 years—since the re-introduction of rate caps in 2016. That’s why, as part of this round of bargaining, we’re gearing up to rally against the Victorian state government’s neo-liberal rate capping policy.
The rate cap dates back to the Kennett government of the 1990s. Liberal premier Jeff Kennett directly copied this neoliberal measure from former UK prime minister Margaret Thatcher, who used it to coerce local councils into implementing local austerity, regardless of the wishes of the people who elected them. Compulsory competitive tendering of all council services, with councils legally obliged to accept the lowest bid, was used by both Thatcher in the UK and Kennett in Victoria as a way of cutting workers’ wages and essential services to the bone. 
Though rate capping was abolished when Kennett was thrown out of office in 1999, it was reintroduced by Daniel Andrews’ Labor government in 2016. The current system limits councils’ ability to raise revenue, including through measures such as charging higher rates for major corporations and property developers that are making millions in our communities.
The consequences? As the <a href="https://australiainstitute.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Putting-a-Cap-on-Community-WEB.pdf">Australia Institute reported</a>, less than half of Victorian local government workers now have permanent, full-time jobs, as councils respond to the cap by outsourcing and casualising work. For too long, the rate cap has functioned as a wage cap for local council workers—and it’s about time it was seriously challenged. 
Multi-enterprise bargaining is the means workers are hoping to use to mount this challenge. Australia’s top CEOs are <a href="https://www.afr.com/policy/economy/top-ceos-lash-multi-employer-bargaining-20221218-p5c79c">hostile</a> to it for a reason. If paired with a militant union strategy, they know multi-enterprise bargaining has the potential to put money and power back into the hands of ordinary workers. They say they’re worried about <a href="https://redflag.org.au/article/70s-werent-bad">“a return to the 1970s”</a>—a time when wages in Australia consistently outpaced inflation and workers enjoyed a much higher share of national income.
No wonder council employers are <a href="https://www.asuvictas.com.au/VICTAS/News/Fair_Work_update_Metropolitan_Melbourne_multiemployer_bargaining.aspx">doing everything in their power to divide us</a>. They know multi-employer bargaining could help shift the goal posts by giving workers in our sector greater industrial power. Last Friday, Brimbank council won a fierce campaign to get a non-union single enterprise “agreement” voted up before their employees’ multi-enterprise bargaining application could be authorised by the Fair Work Commission. 
Workers at Brimbank reported intimidation and standover tactics from management, with managers going as far as <a href="https://www.asuvictas.com.au/VICTAS/News/Brimbank_literally_called_the_cops_to_prevent_you_hearing_about_your_rights.aspx">calling the police</a> on union officials, censoring communications, and <a href="https://www.theservicesunion.com.au/VICTAS/News/Brimbank_Aquatic_Centre_employee_targeted_for_speaking_up_about_No_Vote.aspx">sacking employees</a> for communicating with their co-workers about management’s offer. Thanks to Brimbank council’s <a href="https://www.asuvictas.com.au/VICTAS/News/Vote_No_to_Brimbanks_single_EA_Fight_for_a_better_deal_through_MEB.aspx">dirty tactics</a>, 1400 workers there are likely to fall further behind the cost of living and their colleagues in local government for years to come. 
While it’s a disappointing outcome, Brimbank workers never would have received a 4 percent pay rise this year (their highest in 13 years!) if it weren’t for the threat of large-scale industrial action via multi-enterprise bargaining. “I have no doubt in my mind,” said a Brimbank worker, “that once a multi-employer agreement gets up in local government, everyone will want in. We know that taking large-scale industrial action is the only way for us to claw back wages. We just need an opportunity to demonstrate that we can win. It’s up to workers in the nine other councils now to lead the way.” 
Like Brimbank, employers at City of Darebin, Yarra, and Port Phillip are currently preparing to put non-union single enterprise offers out to vote in the coming weeks and lock their employees out of multi-enterprise bargaining. Workers at all of these councils need to mobilise members and non-members to vote no to any employer ballot aimed at dividing council workers.
In good news, at Maribyrnong council, a non-binding ballot organised by the employer saw a thumping majority of workers vote for multi-enterprise bargaining, rejecting the employer’s attempt to split the workforce away. And just a week later, on 12 June, news came in that 74 percent of eligible City of Melbourne employees had voted in a non-binding ballot organised by the employer. Management was hoping for a rejection of multi-employer bargaining. Instead, an amazing 80 percent of those who voted wanted to stick with the union campaign. This puts the lie to the managers’ claims that workers are being “tricked” into supporting multi-enterprise bargaining. A majority of workers at Maribyrnong and Melbourne have now voted for it twice!
If Brimbank teaches us anything, it’s that our side needs to be better organised. We need to mobilise our members, we need to be more proactive in countering management’s bribes, scare tactics and misinformation, and we need to patiently explain to our co-workers what’s at stake. 
This is not just about cutting better deals in our individual work areas for the next three years. Knocking back employer efforts to keep us divided in our individual councils is an act of solidarity. It’s saying that we’re prepared to use our industrial power to win a solid pay rise for childcare and day care workers, for clerical staff and librarians, for parking officers and garbos all over Melbourne. 
Over the coming weeks, the employers will aim to wear us down and convince us that what they’ve got to offer is the best we can hope for. But we know better. Ten thousand local government workers, acting together, have significant industrial and political power. 
A multi-enterprise bargaining campaign, paired with an industrial strategy that uses mass action to pressure the state government to loosen its hold on council purse strings, could potentially win a very different outcome. This will not be an easy fight. But we owe it to ourselves, our colleagues and our communities to pursue this course. 
After all, if we don’t fight, we lose.

ASU member

Council workers battle to bargain together

The University of Melbourne has expelled two student activists and indefinitely suspended two more for a 2024 occupation of the office of university academic and pro-Israel campaigner Steven Prawer. The expulsions follow a pattern of management attacks on Palestine solidarity activism. 
Since 3 March, the administration has banned indoor protests, those at building entrances and any that are “unreasonably disruptive”. The university previously tried to intimidate nineteen students by issuing misconduct notices after the Gaza Solidarity Encampment last year. When students camped out in the Arts West building to demand divestment from Israel and arms manufacturers, the university secretly spied on their movements via the Wi-Fi system. 
Management also threatened to defund the student union if it paid Palestinian speakers at a forum raising awareness about conditions in the West Bank. As well, in 2022, the university condemned the union for adopting a pro-Palestine and Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions position. 
To legitimise its crackdown on campus free speech and activism, the administration has cynically weaponised the issue of antisemitism. In 2023, the university adopted the International Holocaust Remembrance Association’s definition of antisemitism. The definition is hotly contested because it includes, as an example of antisemitism, “criticism of the state of Israel”. 
Like the government and media, the university deliberately conflates support for Palestine and an end to the war in Gaza with hatred of Jewish people. There are several anti-Zionist Jewish organisations, such as Jewish Voice for Peace in the United States, that vocally oppose Israel’s war in Gaza. Indeed, JVP’s slogan at demonstrations is “not in our name”; a pointed rejection of the idea that Israel acts in the interests of Jewish people when it starves and massacres Palestinians. 
Recently, the university published an “Anti-Racism Action Plan”, supposedly to combat antisemitism on campus. Twelve complaints of antisemitism were lodged with the university, it says, “concentrated in Semester 1 2024 ... during the period of the encampment and occupation [and] largely related to posters, slogans and stickers which could not be attributed to a specific person”. 
The only evidence provided of antisemitism is pro-Palestine slogans and protests calling for an end to the war in Gaza. Under the guise of fighting racism, the university has punitively targeted anti-war and anti-genocide student campaigners. 
Universities are attacking freedom of speech and anti-war protesters in part because they are a key pillar of defence research in Australia. The University of Melbourne alone collaborates with thirteen weapons companies, including Lockheed Martin, Boeing and BAE Systems. 
It aims to cement its place in weapons research by establishing a <a href="https://www.thecitizen.org.au/articles/at-fishermans-bend-university-of-melbourne-angling-for-defence-contracts-relationships">weapons research hub at the new Fisherman’s Bend campu</a>s, currently under construction in Port Melbourne. The university will partner with Boeing, Siemens, and the Australian Department of Defence. The administration has already spent $2 billion on the project and is attempting to establish more contracts with other weapons companies. 
The decision to discipline students coincides with the devastating escalation in Israel’s war. Israel is systematically starving Gazans. In the past week, a US “aid” organisation, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, has repeatedly gunned down Palestinians desperately seeking food at distribution sites. Israeli politicians boast openly of making the Gaza Strip so unliveable that Palestinians will “voluntarily” leave. It’s open ethnic cleansing. And at this moment, the university administration has come out stridently on Israel’s side. 
The expulsions set a dangerous precedent for free speech and the right to protest on campus. But they can be challenged. Last year, <a href="https://redflag.org.au/article/how-deakin-university-tried-to-trample-on-students-rights-and-failed">a Deakin student was suspended</a> for her involvement in the Deakin Gaza Encampment, but was reinstated on appeal. Similarly, <a href="https://honisoit.com/2024/09/pro-palestinian-anu-student-wins-expulsion-appeal/">an ANU student won their expulsion appeal</a> after being disciplined. Those cases show that it’s possible to challenge university discipline and win civil liberties on campuses. The movement won’t be cowed or intimidated by those trying to silence us.

Emma Dynes

Melbourne University expels Palestine solidarity activists

The call went out at 10pm on Sunday, 1 June—workers in hazmat suits would enter a public housing tower in North Melbourne the following morning to begin work. It’s the first step in demolishing the homes of the 50 families still living inside.
Ten hours later, 50 people gathered outside the 33 Alfred Street tower, ready to block any work. We didn’t have to be there long. Within fifteen minutes, three workers in high vis walked out of the precinct, telling community members they had been told not to begin work and citing “hygiene issues”.
The next morning, Tuesday, we were back at 7am with a crowd twice as big. The workers respected the picket, and Homes Victoria, the government department in charge of public housing, soon updated residents that the planned works had been delayed for the week.
It’s a small victory. And it’s a sign that we can build a campaign to resist Labor’s destruction of public housing.
Along with two towers in Flemington, 33 Alfred Street is part of the first tranche of public housing up for demolition as part of the Victorian government’s “urban renewal project”. Ultimately, the project will destroy all 44 of Melbourne’s public housing towers. The plan was one of the final policy announcements of Labor Premier Daniel Andrews in 2023, and is now being carried out by Jacinta Allan’s government.
The government claims an increase in social and affordable housing will offset the units lost in the towers. But behind the spin, the plan is really about the privatisation of Victoria’s public housing stock. It was announced after extensive talks between the government and developers, who will take over the sites to build private apartments. 
Only a small portion of all the housing built on the sites across the city will be reserved for privately owned “community and social housing”—in which tenants have fewer rights and more expensive rents than in public housing. Some of it will be touted as “affordable” housing—to be rented privately slightly below the market rate.
The government has admitted that there will be no public housing rebuilt at the Flemington and North Melbourne sites, where the first demolitions are scheduled to occur. The sites will be handed over entirely to private developers. Resisting these demolitions then, as we did last week, is an important first battle.
In many ways, the towers are reminders of the past. Their construction was a product of decades of campaigning by communities and reformers from the 1930s. Today, their 1950s facades have become an iconic part of the inner city skyline, but inside, maintenance has been neglected thanks to restrictions on spending by successive governments. The idea they represent—that the government ought to provide housing at least to society’s most vulnerable—has long been abandoned by the major parties. 
Being up close to the towers puts Labor’s spin in perspective. As we stood in the rain and prevented work from beginning, kids from the building were heading out the front door, off to the school up the road. Real families live here, a real community full of migrants and workers and disabled people, who all deserve public housing and a whole lot more. For the government and developers, they are simply in the way: poor people taking up prime inner-city land that could be used to make some cash.
What’s to be done with these people? As soon as the plan was announced, Homes Victoria began knocking on residents’ doors, pushing them to sign contracts agreeing to move out of the buildings. Many residents are migrants who weren’t provided with translations of what they were signing. Those who have moved out already have found themselves in privately owned community housing, with reports of mould and faulty heating. 
Many who remain in the towers are holding out for a better deal—relocation to public housing, or the right to return once the redevelopment is complete. Others simply want to continue living in the towers and don’t want to be displaced from their communities and support services. “They want to put us in private housing. But we only know commission housing”, one resident told the rally on Tuesday.
Opposition to Labor’s demolitions has been building since the first announcement.
A central feature has been the class action lawsuit brought against the government by residents of the Flemington towers and progressive lawyers. 
Over months of hearings, Homes Victoria argued that it had no obligation to consult residents about the demolitions and admitted that, even if it did, it wouldn’t have listened to their concerns, because the residents had no legal rights that were affected by the decision to demolish their homes! The department also made clear that it was acting completely under the orders of the Labor government.
The court found that the demolitions would have a significant impact on residents’ human rights, but concluded that the government was under no obligation to do anything about this. After the case was dismissed, the government pushed ahead with the demolitions.
The loss in court was a setback, and the residents are considering an appeal. However, we were never going to defeat the government’s plans solely in the courts. The case has held up the government, delayed the demolition and, importantly, sent a signal that people are standing up and fighting back. Residents in the second tranche of towers marked for demolition—in Richmond and South Yarra—have begun organising to resist pressure from Homes Victoria to vacate.
Organising by residents will be key. Defending the towers will require a big campaign on the ground. Last weeks’ mobilisations, bringing together the Greens, Victorian Socialists, renting and housing activists and other community campaigners, were a good start. 
Building links with unions will be another important factor: the demolition contract has been handed to construction company John Holland, whose workforce is represented by the construction union. Ultimately, it will be workers who are sent in to destroy this housing. Building a big campaign can help make a case to them that they shouldn’t.
Labor’s drastic plan to knock down all 44 towers presents us with a big challenge. Every step of the way we will have to fight it—from preventing testing and surveying, to building confidence among residents to resist Homes Victoria, to mobilising to stop the actual demolition. But as last week shows, each of these steps presents an opportunity to mobilise, grow our support and put pressure on Labor.

James Gallagher

Resistance grows to Victorian Labor’s demolition of public housing

Reconciliation Day in Canberra last year was ice cold, the air thick with fog. For 232 days, Israel had been indiscriminately bombing the people of Gaza. For 28 days, hundreds of students and staff had maintained a protest encampment on Kambri lawns, the heart of the Australian National University campus, demanding that the administration cut ties with Israel and condemn the genocide. ANU managers had spent the month slandering the protest and <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-05-16/act-palestine-anu-gaza-encampment-members-ordered-to-vacate/103858184">suspending student activists</a> involved in the encampment. 
It was Monday morning, 27 May; the university bosses finally decided that they could no longer tolerate the encampment in such a prominent position. Their official justification was that we were blocking a fire evacuation point, and the backup evacuation point just would not do. In truth, they wanted the protest out of sight. 
Dozens of security guards and a handful of police officers arrived to serve the students with an evacuation notice. Those awakened by this order initially complied. Ambushed and outnumbered at 7am, they began dismantling the tents. The media soon arrived to witness the supervised self-destruction. 
Yet, as the morning fog cleared and the sun came out, a handful of students sat down in defiance and began chanting: “Disclose, divest, we will not stop, we will not rest!” More spontaneously joined, sitting around the camping gear, which had now been packed down, linking arms and chanting. The circle of hi-vis security guards retreated as supporters surged closer to the first movers and joined in the chanting. 
More police arrived. Blue and white chequered vans, cars and motorbikes pulled up across the creek to establish a “command centre” about a hundred metres away. Security was no longer fit for the task, so ANU had called in the cavalry. 
Meanwhile, the students had now convened a meeting. Did we want to stare down the police, risking arrest, to defend the camp? After a brief discussion, we took a vote. The decision was close to unanimous—we would not move. 
Some volunteers sifted through the crowd to write the phone number of a supportive lawyer on the arms of everyone willing to get arrested. Those who preferred not to face arrest stepped off the grass and formed a human chain around the camp. About a hundred sat ready to be dragged off in a divvy van, and a few hundred more stood with their arms linked in an unbroken chain around the perimeter. People with megaphones were stationed throughout the picket line, leading songs and chants to keep spirits high. 
We shall not, we shall not be moved
We shall not, we shall not be moved
Just like a tree that’s planted by the water
We shall not be moved.
But after several hours, the ultimatum finally came. Two of us were given the job of police liaisons. We walked to their “command centre” next to the creek and were told that the university was prepared to offer a second location for the camp, a few hundred metres up the path. If we refused to move there by 3pm, we would be arrested. We went back to the camp and relayed what the officer had said. We took another vote. “Knowing what we just told you, who is committed to staying?” Everyone cheered. I passed their message back to the officer. 
The deadline came and went. We kept checking our watches. Eventually, at 4pm or so, an officer marched to a spot across from the camp and placed a small speaker on the ground to announce an official directive: that everyone must vacate Kambri lawns by 11am Tuesday or face arrest. 
We had forced the police to back down—for now. Every cop van, car and bike left the campus, and we were left to debrief. We fought the law and, for a moment, we won. 
Later, we heard that the university had issued a directive to all students to avoid the Kambri precinct the following day, and that businesses in the precinct were instructed to shut down in preparation for a major police operation. But we also heard from some unionists that workers on ANU construction sites were organising to walk off the job in solidarity with us. 
We put a call out to every community group we could think of to mobilise the next day and support us against mass arrests. The university managers were preparing to escalate the situation—but we had won once, and the mood was that we could win again. 
Yet, after hours of debate, several votes and a thinning out of people in the camp, the scared and tired few who remained at around midnight finally voted to accept the university’s directive. The anticipated showdown never came. Construction workers still walked off the job. Students, community members and reporters still showed up the next day in expectation. But the police didn’t need to return—they scored their victory through intimidation. 
This wasn’t the end, however. The camp continued in its new location for 83 more days. By the end of the year, there had been several general meetings, countless rallies, a referendum and one of the longest campus protest encampments in the country—all demanding divestment from Israel and weapons companies supplying the Israeli military. 
Under pressure, the university reversed the suspensions and expulsions of student activists and <a href="https://www.woroni.com.au/news/anu-to-divest-from-controversial-weapons-manufacturers-but-questions-remain/">promised to divest</a> from “controversial weapons companies”. Exactly which companies were “controversial” was never clarified, and no updates have been provided since that promise was made. They have not yet condemned the genocide in Gaza or cut ties with Israel.
The fight for a free Palestine continues, but the strength of our side is nourished by small acts of defiance and partial victories like the one we scored last year on Kambri lawns.

Nick Reich

When Palestine solidarity protesters defied police at the ANU

To stifle growing pro-Palestinian activities on Australian campuses, university authorities are developing and applying disparate techniques of control. Consequently, the university as a place of free speech, political activism and the right to protest is under attack.
The universities of<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2025/jan/21/university-of-sydney-criticised-for-plan-to-ban-protest-banners-being-displayed-without-prior-permission"> Sydney</a>,<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2025/jun/03/university-of-melbourne-two-students-expelled-pro-palestine-protest-ntwnfb?utm_term=683e574093202591af7057f2c5ad560f&amp;utm_campaign=GuardianTodayAUS&amp;utm_source=esp&amp;utm_medium=Email&amp;CMP=GTAU_email"> Melbourne</a> and<a href="https://redflag.org.au/article/university-of-wa-bans-statements-that-cause-harm-disciplines-student-for-defending-free-speech"> Western Australia</a> are particularly punitive. The intricate intrusiveness and hyper-vigilance of their techniques of control are well known and widely criticised. 
All these techniques have been identified by members of Educational Researchers for Palestine—a group I belong to. Such patterns are evident in the views and material we have gathered from universities and from our own experiences, observations and communications with other staff and students. While the following techniques are not equally evident in all universities, various combinations are evident in many.
1. Control through double-speak
Universities claim to uphold free speech and academic freedom. But on matters related to Israel/Palestine they shut both down. They also claim to balance free speech with their anti-racism agendas. But these agendas are selective. Antisemitism is their focus. Anti-Palestinian racism, including their own, is not. Anti-<a href="https://apan.org.au/media_release/apan-aman-report/">Palestinian</a> racism involves “actions that silence, exclude, erase, stereotype, defame, or dehumanise Palestinians and their narratives”. 
They say they balance free speech with ensuring a safe environment. But their main concern is the political backlash associated with purported complaints about the safety of Jewish students and staff. In contrast, the university itself creates an unsafe environment for Palestinian staff, students and their allies including their Jewish allies. 
2. Control through distraction
By focusing on antisemitism, universities distract attention from anti-Palestinian racism on campus and from Israel’s dreadful treatment of the Palestinian people. This distraction involves endless debates about what constitutes antisemitism. And universities’ ambiguous definitions of antisemitism allow them flexibility in classifying hateful and threatening speech. 
In February 2025, Universities Australia released its highly ambiguous “working definition of<a href="https://universitiesaustralia.edu.au/media-item/statement-on-racism/"> antisemitism</a>”. This was endorsed by all 39 members. How individual universities will embed their endorsement is not yet clear but further distraction is guaranteed. 
3. Spatial control
Restrictions are placed on the spaces where Palestinian supporters might gather to prepare banners and posters, distribute materials and hold events. Students are not allowed to announce events in classrooms or lecture theatres, to leave fliers on desks or posters on walls. These who don’t “belong” to the university are prohibited from involvement in protests on university grounds and threatened with trespass. 
4. Language and image control
The campus is to be cleansed of posters, fliers, flags, chalked messages. Almost any image, phrase or slogan may be deemed antisemitic. Hence, all images of Palestine or messages of Palestine advocacy or solidarity can be defined as contravening university rules. 
5. Political control
Student and staff activities relating to Palestine are strongly discouraged—clubs, film screenings, speakers’ forums, petitioning, distributing leaflets, chalking—even fundraising. University approval can be sought but such approval is largely a delaying and censorship ploy involving microscopic bureaucratic hurdles. 
Some academic staff are expected to become agents of the university’s political control in their classrooms. They must ensure that nothing is said or seen that is unrelated to their immediate teaching topic. 
When linked to Palestine/Israel, certain research, teaching and learning are considered dangerous—justice and ethics, human rights, international law, settler colonialism, apartheid, imperialism and the history and geopolitics of the Middle East. Those pursuing such “dangerous knowledge” may feel the need to water down their curriculum and research. 
6. Technological surveillance
In some cases, if they are to use a university account, staff and students must agree to being monitored. Whether they agree or not, technology is used to monitor pro-Palestinian activities, to identify “ring leaders” and participants. Pro-Palestinian activists may also have their technology use restricted, thus making it difficult to share information. Certainly, over time, universities have increased their surveillance of all staff and students—usually with little or no follow-up. However, their surveillance and follow-up have intensified in response to pro-Palestinian activism.
7. Discipline and punishment
Students and staff are subjected to various forms. Their self-defence is time-consuming, costly and emotionally draining. 
Peaceful events are often redefined as potentially threatening and violent. Hence security staff and police are used to “keep the peace” and to identify and report “leaders” and “troublemakers”. They have been used to shut down encampments and protests. At encampments, they have not protected students from violent attacks by extreme right-wing groups. Their presence is implicitly threatening, and their behaviour is sometimes physically violent. 
Undergraduate and graduate students have been “spoken to”, warned, suspended, fined and expelled. Staff have also been “spoken to” and warned, had their teaching and other activities monitored and reported by pro-Israeli/Zionist students and other staff. They have had their research questioned and some have had their grants suspended. 
8. Climate control
A climate of fear and distrust is created. It has a chilling effect on everyday university activities and relationships. Fear causes self-censorship. Events are relocated or re-badged. 
Staff feel their opportunities for jobs, tenure, promotion and academic leave are at risk. Students feel at risk of suspension and expulsion. They often don’t know if their peers, lecturers or supervisors will support or report them. Palestinian, Muslim and Arab staff feel extra visible and vulnerable. 
The result: universities of bad faith and ethical emptiness.
They have allowed themselves to be intimidated by politicians and special interest groups. They have tried to bury the discussion of an inexcusable tragedy involving genocide. They have sacrificed the notion that knowledge must be free and fearless—corrupting truth and undermining trust and collegiality. Timid and small-minded, they implicitly encourage staff and students to be the same. 
Were they not so ethically empty, universities could have practised an ethic of care, courage and compassion in response to the ongoing horrors visited by Israel on Gaza and the West Bank. They could have developed this into a sector-wide ethos. They could have responded to the desperate <a href="https://www.gazauniversities.org/">calls</a> for help from universities in Gaza. They could have explored, with staff and students, ways to help Gaza recover from the educational obliteration of <a href="https://euppublishingblog.com/2025/05/27/scholasticide-memory-power-of-pedagogy/">scholasticide</a>. They could have mobilised their knowledge and expertise to contribute to an understanding of the issues and to consider how university members might help alleviate the Palestinian people’s terrible suffering. 
Could have? Should have.
First published by the <a href="https://blog.aare.edu.au/these-are-deeply-disturbing-patterns-of-censorship-across-australian-universities/?jetpack_skip_subscription_popup">Australian Association for Research in Education</a>. Jane Kenway is an elected fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences, Australia, emeritus professor at Monash University and professorial fellow at the University of Melbourne.

Jane Kenway

The patterns of censorship across Australian universities

Victorian public sector workers are taking on the useless union leadership in elections to be held next month. The state branch of the Community and Public Sector Union (CPSU) has repeatedly failed to stand up for its members. The challengers’ election team, called A Voice for Members, wants to rebuild a fighting, member-led union. 
This is the first time in more than 30 years that all executive positions (secretary, assistant secretary, president and two vice-presidents) will be contested. The current state secretary, Karen Batt, was first elected in 1993, when Jeff Kennett was premier. 
Last year, CPSU leaders excluded members from any meaningful involvement in enterprise bargaining negotiations. They eventually pushed through an agreement that includes a real wage cut. <a href="https://avfm.au/cpsu-rank-and-file-news/edition-7-wages-cap/">By the time the deal expires in 2028, real wages are expected to have returned to 2018 levels</a>. 
The union leaders insisted that there was no point in trying to push the government on its “wages cap”, as it would not budge from its three percent per year offer. But they were proven completely wrong when the paramedics’ union and the nurses’ and midwives’ union won pay increases of 17 and 28 percent, respectively, over four years. Firefighters are also pushing for a 25 percent pay increase.
The CPSU leaders have long hampered members’ ability to organise: they do not hold members’ or delegates’ meetings, and members frequently report difficulty finding other members, or even their workplace delegates. During last year’s negotiations, for example, most members did not even see, let alone vote on, the union’s proposed list of demands. 
The seed for the rank-and-file electoral challenge was planted during CPSU for Palestine meetings, which provided a rare space for members to get together and organise, given the union’s lack of democratic structures. 
At first, A Voice for Members was established as a progressive caucus inside the union, recognising that a union’s power comes from its members, not its paid officials. Consistent with this goal, the group will continue fighting for a democratic, member-led union, regardless of the election result. 
When Treasurer Jaclyn Symes in February announced <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-02-20/vic-govt-public-sector-job-cuts-spending-review-budget/104958948">Labor’s plan to slash 3,000 public sector jobs</a>, A Voice for Members immediately called a rally opposing the cuts. Longtime union members are hard-pressed to recall the last time the CPSU made such a call. But, four days later, undoubtedly feeling threatened by the campaign, union leaders called a separate rally, scheduling it for the day before the rank-and-file rally.
Under Batt, the CPSU’s membership has languished at around <a href="https://avfm.au/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/AVFM-policy-platform.pdf">15,000 for decades</a>. This is understandable: why would anyone be motivated to join a union that doesn’t stand up for its members? 
But A Voice for Members is taking action to rebuild a union that’s worth joining, that’s ready to take industrial action to defend living standards, that thinks it’s union business to take a stand against genocide, and that opposes laws restricting workers’ ability to organise and take collective action. We are holding regular organising meetings, public events, and rallies, and conducting daily workplace leafleting to recruit more workers and mobilise existing members. 
To learn more about AVFM, the candidates, and to join the fight, visit <a href="https://avfm.au/">the website</a>. You can also <a href="https://chuffed.org/project/a-voice-for-members-cpsu">donate to the campaign</a>.

CPSU member

Rank and file group set up in Victorian public sector union

Michael Hiscox, the acting secretary of the ACT branch of the CFMEU, was removed from his position and replaced by an unelected bureaucrat on 13 May. This came nine months after the union’s national office was put under <a href="https://redflag.org.au/article/labor-set-to-impose-dictatorial-powers-over-construction-union">administration</a>
by the federal Labor government, which removed the right of union members to elect their officials. 
Labor justified its attack on the union by referring to media reports about alleged criminal behaviour in the union. There have been no allegations of such behaviour in the ACT branch, which, along with Western Australia, was not placed under administration last year. 
The consequences of Mark Irving’s appointment as administrator are clear to anyone in doubt. Replacing elected officials with appointed administrators across every branch has brought restrictions on organisers’ and members’ rights to raise criticisms within the CFMEU and shape the union’s direction—an atmosphere unconducive to the kind of confident and militant organising that construction workers need to defend their working conditions and rates of pay. 
“Labor has learned [from the deregistration of the BLF] how to best attack our union through this administration system: by passing a law that removes any unfair dismissal law for officials who get sacked for no reason”, Dusty Miller, a local CFMEU member and former member of the Builders Labourers’ Federation, told Red Flag. “Under the administration, there is no democracy. There is no ability for the union to have their own elections.” 
The union’s former national secretary, Zach Smith, recently proposed a restructure to expand the role of the CFMEU’s national office. Less than two weeks before being removed from his position, Hiscox cosigned a <a href="https://www.facebook.com/share/p/16NnxuTg4v/">statement</a> opposing the restructure, stating that it “would only deprive rank and file members of having a voice in the way that their Union is run”. 
So, what reason has Irving given for his intervention in the ACT branch? There are no charges of criminal activity, credible or otherwise, and no accusations of corruption or misconduct. The reason given was a drop in membership and a small budget deficit. But the union has plenty of cash reserves and a solid, loyal membership base—hardly a crisis.
Even if the branch were in crisis, government intervention would not be the solution. Its most likely effect will be the same as administration has had in every other branch: putting compliant organisers in positions of power while promoting fear and passivity in everyone else. 
Miller said that many members have voiced their disgust at the move. 
“We now have a person called Ben Davison sitting in the branch secretary’s office in Canberra, who doesn’t have a clue about anything with our industry, who doesn’t understand construction”, he said. “To me, it’s a payback to Michael and our branch because we stood up to this [centralisation] plan.”
The demotion of Hiscox should stand as clear proof that “cleaning up criminal or corrupt behaviour” was not the overriding purpose of the sackings, restrictions and centralisation. It was about disciplining a union with some industrial strength by punishing anyone speaking out. 
Zach Smith announced on 22 May that he would step down as national secretary, presumably because of backlash against the proposed centralisation plan. It’s unclear what this means for the plan’s viability, but there will undoubtedly be ongoing pressure on people like Hiscox who speak out against the administration. 
Miller has a clear message for members facing the degradation of their union’s democracy: “Stay strong and united. Stay strong and push back”.

Attack on democracy in the ACT CFMEU

The mood on the picket line at the Allied Pinnacle factory in the Melbourne suburb of Altona North is infectious. Although there have been strikes at the facility—which is a major producer of baked good for supermarkets and bakeries—in 2017 and 2022, for most of the workforce, this is their first experience of industrial action. 
The workers sing and dance, get to know each other, fire up the barbeque and have a great time. “If you ever get the chance to, go on strike! It’s a once in a lifetime feeling of everyone you know coming together, and when you feel the support it’s an amazing experience!”, one worker says. 
Allied Pinnacle produces chocolate mud cakes, donuts, muffins and bread loaves for Coles, Woolworths and Bakers’ Delight amongst others. The factory usually has nine production lines running night and day, all but one of which were shut down by the strike, with one being partially operated by non-union casuals. 
The 48-hour strike, which began on 14 May, involved around 150 United Workers Union members across three shifts. Their demands included improved conditions, better allowances and a pay increase. For all the high spirits on the picket line, the stakes for the workers are high. Management made visits to the picket to issue warnings or make complaints, and threatened to call the police. When they did, the workers surrounded them chanting “Union power!” until they left. 
When delivery trucks tried to enter the Allied Pinnacle site, the first thing they saw was the picket line with dozens of workers. After a friendly conversation, the most drivers turned around and drove off with a supportive honk of the horn. This was met with cheering and clapping on the picket line. 
Allied Pinnacle workers are paid between $26 and $35 per hour. They are fighting for a 15 percent pay increase over the next three years and increased penalty rates for nights, weekends and public holidays. At the moment, the vast majority of the workers rely on overtime and weekend penalties to earn a liveable wage, with many working six-day weeks or multiple jobs just to get by. The ongoing housing crisis and cost-of-living crisis has made this situation untenable for many of them. 
To make matters worse, management recently made scheduling changes to reduce the amount of penalty rates workers receive. Previously, the standard work schedule was Tuesday to Saturday with eight hours work per day. That has been changed to a Monday to Thursday schedule with 10-hour days, with no overtime included and avoiding Saturday penalties. This has amounted to a significant cut in take home pay for the affected workers.
Another grievance workers have is to do with casual conversion. Management has an arbitrary system for granting permanent jobs to the workers in the factory. Some have reported being on casual contracts for up to six years before being offered permanent work, despite doing regular hours, and performing the duties of other permanent staff.
Striking workers have also reported that when the outside temperature is 30 degrees or more, the inside of the factory, particularly near the ovens, can reach more than 40 degrees, with only a few floor fans provided for relief from the heat. Management is aware of the heat issue in the factory, but instead of resolving it, they responded by authorising a $100,000 upgrade to the air conditioning in the managers’ offices.
One worker detailed to me how safety rules are commonly flouted to speed up production. Workers are frequently expected to lift 25-kilogram bags of sugar and butter by themselves, contrary to the safety guidelines. Repetitive lifting of heavy weight causes risks to these workers over the course of the day and many complain of back and leg pain at the end of their shifts.
The two-day strike is just the beginning of this campaign. Workers expect further industrial action in the next few weeks. Supporters are encouraged to come and visit future picket lines at 23-29 Pinnacle Road, Altona North.

Jack Gardner

Bakery workers strike for more dough

The most authoritarian campus in the country looks quite nice. The University of Western Australia, situated at the edge of the Swan River in Perth, features Japanese, sunken and Shakespeare gardens, peacocks that strut through the tropical grove, and Romanesque sandstone buildings. 
Yet, far from an idyllic haven of critical inquiry and free debate, UWA managers are turning the place into a sort of Trumpian protectorate. They are imposing a suite of bans and restrictions that undermine progressive activism and free speech on campus—even banning some factual statements—while riding roughshod over clubs and societies in the process. 
The initial rules were announced before first semester began. On 12 February, the student guild and the university sent a joint letter to the Students for Palestine and Socialist Alternative clubs, announcing that putting up posters, handing out leaflets, using chalk on pavements and hanging banners were banned almost everywhere on campus. <a href="https://www.uwa.edu.au/about/leadership-and-governance/integrity-and-standards/conduct-and-integrity#:~:text=In%20doing%20so%2C%20the%20University,the%20Director%20of%20Student%20Life.">Lecture announcements were also forbidden</a>, with a few minor exceptions. 
Many rules were already on the books; the novelty is the move to enforce them. By doing so, university managers outlawed activities fundamental to political activism in one fell swoop. Students have engaged in these activities to promote support for the plebiscite on marriage equality, campaign for a Yes vote in the Voice to Parliament referendum and promote student climate strikes. 
Like any Trump-style offensive, the attack was sweeping and resulted in much collateral damage: the university inadvertently imposed severe restrictions on other clubs and societies that rely on posters, leaflets and lecture announcements to promote their events. 
New rules were also imposed on Students for Palestine and Socialist Alternative clubs. The university informed us that events need approval not just from the student guild but also from campus security and a senior university manager. Applications to hold events must be submitted with at least ten working days’ notice and must include a list of “measures that will be taken to ensure the safety of others” (political discussions now being treated like some fire-throwing festival). 
Ominously, the letters warned that clubs must “refrain from using phrases and slogans that are contrary to the university’s policies”. The university did not initially clarify what specific “phrases and slogans” were questionable. It soon became clear, however, that this was a measure to censor Palestine solidarity speech on campus. 
Students for Palestine organised an event on 19 March, at which activists were going to paint “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” on a banner. The university sent me an email the day before, warning that the slogan was “not a permitted use on UWA Lands”. I didn’t immediately see or respond to the email. So, in a move indicative of the censorious campus atmosphere, the head of security was directed to track me down on campus and deliver a printed copy of the email. The penalty for the banner painting was extreme: the university said that proceeding with it would result in “possible disciplinary proceedings and/or disaffiliation”. 
So while Israel carries out genocide in Gaza, and amid threats of imminent ethnic cleansing and forced displacement coming from far-right Israeli politicians, calling for justice and equal rights for all residents of historic Palestine gets you disciplined, or your club disaffiliated, at UWA. 
At UWA, facts are no defence from discipline. In follow-up correspondence, I inquired about the university’s attitude to the statements “Israel is an apartheid state” and “Israel is carrying out a genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza”. Lisa Goldacre, director of student life and a senior manager, replied that the “use of these slogans even if objectively true, may still cause harm to others”, and, “if your club makes a particular statement (e.g. in an article, flyer, speech, banner, online post, etc, etc), then the fact that statement may be objectively true does not mean that your club’s use of that statement will not breach UWA Policy”. 
Again, it’s not just the Students for Palestine and Socialist Alternative clubs that are affected. Anyone who organises an event that crosses UWA’s red lines is a target. Palestine is one such red line. 
For example, in May last year, the Muslim Students Association was <a href="https://www.instagram.com/uwamsa/p/C6v3QUwP0dT/?locale=ru&amp;hl=am-et">forced to cancel an event featuring influential speaker Sami Hamdi</a> after the administration refused to approve their room booking. UWA disapproved of the speaker. Similarly, the Palestinian Cultural Society was <a href="https://perthvoiceinteractive.com/2024/10/24/students-claim-uwa-tried-to-block-speaker/">forced to cancel an event</a> featuring renowned author Vijay Prashad after UWA rescheduled their booking to a time that clashed with another of Prashad’s speaking events. 
These attacks are not limited to crackdowns on pro-Palestine speech and activists. They open the door to attacks on free speech in general. 
This was demonstrated at the end of March, when UWA disciplined a student for putting up posters related to freedom of speech. Finn Penter put up half a dozen posters at a monthly meeting of clubs and societies. The posters read: “Free speech is under attack” and “Clubs are under attack.” Penter is an elected student representative on the guild council and a member of the Socialist Alternative club. The university initiated disciplinary action against him for putting up the posters and used CCTV to monitor him. Shockingly, Penter was issued an official reprimand from the university for misconduct.
“No wonder students feel like we’re studying in an Orwellian surveillance state”, Penter said. “There are all these attacks against free speech, and if you speak up about it by, for example, putting up a poster, you get punished. This is extreme overreach, and it shows how insistent UWA is to put an end to activism on campus”. 
These attacks come as the Trump administration cracks down on Palestine solidarity activists in the US. Some have faced <a href="https://www.brasildefato.com.br/2025/04/16/protesters-denounce-abduction-of-another-palestinian-student-activist-by-us-immigration/">abduction</a>, threats of <a href="https://redflag.org.au/article/us-government-kidnaps-palestinian-student-activist">deportation</a> and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/07/nyregion/columbia-protest-library-occupied.html">arrest</a>. Republican House Majority leader Steve Scalise has spoken about <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/nov/18/trump-education-policies">stripping universities of their accreditation</a> if there have been Palestine solidarity protests on their campuses. Columbia University has <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/article/trump-university-college.html">strengthened its campus security and anti-protest restrictions</a>, among other regressive anti-DEI changes, after the Trump administration cut $400 million in its funding. This is an intensified continuation of the crackdown that started last year. 
The attacks on student activism in the US are much more extreme than anything in Australia. But there is a goal that the managers’ offensive at UWA and the Trumpian crackdown on American universities have in common: eradicate progressive activism on campuses. And use a heavy stick to discipline anyone who does not comply.

Alevine Magila

University of WA bans statements that ‘cause harm’, disciplines student for defending free speech

For several months, security workers at Canberra Airport have been embroiled in industrial disputes with Capital Airport Group (CAG) and their new employer, MSS Security.
Two years ago, United Workers Union members won above-award conditions through threats of industrial action. But the switching of employer contracts has meant that CAG is no longer upholding their end of the bargain.
MSS Security, an international security conglomerate, has a notorious history of anti-union and anti-worker practices. After winning the airport contract, the company refused to guarantee the jobs of all current employees, requiring them to reapply for their positions. 
Managers also said that some of the terms in the existing workplace agreement would not apply “in their ‘current form’ to any future agreement”. 
As well, continuing staff have reported that MSS has consistently screwed up rosters and wage payments.
“Workers have been through three payrolls, with constant underpayments—one member has been underpaid by more than $2,000 on two separate occasions”, Fletcher, a UWU organiser, told Red Flag. “In short, it’s been far from a seamless transition.”
On 28 February, Fletcher attended a farewell lunch held by the outgoing contractor. During the event, three police officers, acting at the behest of a CAG employee, arrested him for trespassing and hauled him off to the Civic Watchhouse in handcuffs. As part of his bail conditions, Fletcher is prevented from returning to the airport.
This is a thinly veiled attempt by CAG to intimidate union members and organisers. 
It highlights two issues: first is the immense influence of CAG, owned by Canberra’s only billionaire, nepo baby Steven Byron. Rich bastards like Byron believe they are beholden to no one. 
When workers win improved conditions, CAG switches contractors. Rather than dealing with legitimate workplace issues, the company calls the police to do its dirty work. 
Second is the undue power of the police. Rather than “maintaining community safety”, as they purport to do, they are acting as industrial enforcers for a billion-dollar private company.
Security workers are determined to give them a fight. On May Day, UWU members held a rowdy protest of more than 100 outside the airport's main entrance. 
As UWU members build to their next action, Fletcher urges ongoing solidarity: “Contract change should not be an excuse to tear up hard-fought wages and conditions. It’s outrageous that Canberra Airport thinks it can use the police as private enforcers in industrial disputes”.

Council workers battle to bargain together

Melbourne University expels Palestine solidarity activists

Resistance grows to Victorian Labor’s demolition of public housing

When Palestine solidarity protesters defied police at the ANU

The patterns of censorship across Australian universities

Rank and file group set up in Victorian public sector union

Attack on democracy in the ACT CFMEU

Bakery workers strike for more dough

University of WA bans statements that ‘cause harm’, disciplines student for defending free speech

Union organiser arrested at Canberra airport

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