The Weekly Round-Up: September 12th 2021
Welcome to the Weekly Round-Up — a series where we bring you five big stories from across the internet that you should know about. This week, we’re talking about Kristina Keneally’s attempt to oust local candidate Tu Le from a race she has no business being in, assessing Australia’s newest human rights commissioner (spoiler alert: it’s not great) and looking at how COVID-19 is drastically changing young people’s career paths.
Come across something throughout the week that you’d like to share? Get in touch with us via Instagram or Facebook to get a story featured in this space!
1. Western Sydney lawyer Tu Le to fight for her community against Kristina Keneally
In a move that’s been pretty widely condemned and is dividing the Labor party, Kristina Keaneally announced on Friday her decision to seek preselection for the house seat of Fowler. Why the fuss? Well, for starters the former NSW Premier doesn’t even live in the area (she’s a Northern Beaches gal) and has very little connection to the communities living there. Keneally’s move also means she’s now running against local laywer Tu Le, the Australian-born daughter of Vietnamese refugees who migrated to Sydney’s southwest following the fall of Saigon in 1975. In addition to actually living in the area, Le has a history of representing and working for the community of Fowler, including advocating for exploited migrant workers and serving as a youth leader at the Vietnamese Buddhist Youth Association. Instead of supporting a local young woman of colour to run in one of the most multicultural seats in Australia, Keneally’s decision is essentially prioritising putting her on a safe path to parliament — representation for communities of colour be damned.
2. Explainer: why 1962 changed voting in Australia forever
A great explainer on the years of struggle and effort that led to the 1962 law change to give voting rights to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples across Australia. A must-read for anyone interested in politics and grassroots activism.
3. ‘Scared and angry’: warnings ignored before Delta ripped through Wilcannia
Most people probably hadn’t heard of Wilcannia until last month but it is now a case study in how badly the NWS government let down a small, vulnerable community in the midst of a global pandemic. Despite the efforts of First Nations communities to hold the virus at bay — with requests for extra support from the government being ignored — over 1,000 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people have now tested positive for COVID-19 since the start of June and three have died, all in Western NSW. Wilcannia is one of the towns worst hit by this, with 112 positive cases within a population of 745. Government neglect leading to overcrowding and poorly maintained housing over the years has meant that people who tested positive had little options to fully isolate and, to make matters worse, the community has since become the target of conspiracy theories and attempts at pushing ivermectin on them.
4. ‘It’s so hard’: how the pandemic upended young people’s career paths
A great piece from the Guardian looking into how COVID-19 is impacting teenagers’ views of tertiary education. A lot of them are going down entirely different career paths than originally planned, choosing to go into trades or the army, as the past two years have made tertiary education and big moves across the country seem unachievable. Many are also considering gap years and the possibility of simply staying home rather than facing another year of online learning. For those going into tertiary education, the government’s decision to double university fees for certain arts courses is definitely having an impact on enrolment, with a decrease of 5.1% and 6.5% for the creative arts and humanities respectively.
5. Who is Lorraine Finlay and why has her appointment as human rights commissioner angered some?
In case you didn’t know, Australia has a new human rights commission — and a whole lot of people are unhappy about it. Since her appointment was announced(an appointment that was made without an open selection process), her stance on a number of important issues that, as commissioner, she would be expected to advocate for, have been resurfacing. As part of the Western Australian Liberal Women’s council, she defended the council’s decision to reject quotas. She co-authored a book on section 18c of the Racial Discrimination Act, arguing that it was too broad and infringed on Australian’s freedom of expression. She appeared in an Institute of Public affair’s ad attacking the Indigenous voice to parliament proposal. Oh and in the middle of all that she also found the time to voice her disagreement with affirmative consent law. So yeah, can’t wait to see what kind of progressive, ground-breaking decisions she’ll make as human rights commissioner.
