More than 600 unionists and supporters rallied in Cairns’ City Place as part of the statewide day of action against the Campbell Newman government’s budget cuts on September 12.
Larger groups of teachers, United Voice members, Ergon electricians, state public servants in purple Together Union T-shirts, and others, flanked contingents of ambulance officers and firefighters in uniform. The mood was sombre and intense, with people standing still and listening more quietly than usual to the speakers.
After the Cairns branch president of the Queensland Council of Unions, Stuey Traill, gave an introduction to the rally, several union delegates and activists addressed the crowd.
Mikey Bond, a school cleaner and United Voice delegate from Thursday Island in the Torres Strait, was the first to speak. He explained how he not only cleaned his school, making sure it was ready for the students and teachers to use each day, but helped the school look after the students and was able to talk with them about their culture.
He said the Newman government’s model for a school cleaner was someone working fewer hours for lower pay in the dead of night, or perhaps even “a robot with a mop”.
Other activists, including Sally Watson, the North Queensland Coordinator of the defunded Tenants’ Union, also spoke.
Alex Scott, the general secretary of Together, who had come from a rally in Townsville that day, warned the way was being paved towards a still broader round of cutbacks and privatisations. He said that the struggle against the cuts must step up from now.