The COVID-19 pandemic has brought unemployment and hardship across Melbourne, including here in Darebin. We need a council determined to resist all attempts to impose further hardship on people. We need affordable housing and a ban on evictions. We need a council that will spend its revenue where our community desperately needs it.

In the midst of the pandemic, many of us Darebin residents marched under the Black Lives Matter slogan to drive home the point that Black people here continue to confront a racist and murderous state. We need a council committed to taking up this fighting spirit. At the very least we need a council that will not rest until the refugees so long imprisoned in the Bell Street Mantra hotel are set free.

I’ve been a union delegate and a socialist for twenty years, and I’ve lived in Darebin for over a decade. This year I’ve been at the forefront of NTEU Fightback, a national rank-and-file union campaign resisting pay cuts and job cuts in the university sector. I’m standing as a Victorian Socialists candidate for Darebin Council because we need a council that will fight for workers rights and against racism.