Andrew is a former climate scientist, having worked for the past decade at the Bureau of Meteorology. He now works in environmental science. He’s been a lifelong trade unionist, leading industrial campaigns for job security, improved wages and conditions.
For nearly three decades, Andrew has been active in social justice and trade union struggles. “I realised in my early uni days”, he says, “that the entire economic and political system is built to benefit the few. The wealthy elite are willing to sacrifice our lives and our planet to increase their profit margins. If we want to keep social goods like free healthcare, decent wages and environmental protection, and build a fairer society, then we need to get organised to fight them.
The fight for free education and to defend student unions from Liberal party attacks first inspired Andrew to get political as a student. In the mid-1990s he was involved in a nineteen day student occupation at RMIT against the introduction of upfront fees. In the early 2000s, Andrew helped to organise the iconic Woomera break-out protests to free refugees detained by the Australian government in the middle of the South Australian desert and bring an end to mandatory detention policies.
Andrew is also a climate activist who has participated in grassroots campaigning with a variety of groups, including Extinction Rebellion, Blockade IMARC as well as organising a ‘Critical Mass’ bike ride, stopping traffic in Footscray to demand better bike infrastructure. “The COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated that with enough will and resolve the rules of the capitalist profit machine can be suspended”, he says. “The climate crisis is just as big a threat, if not more, and demands that we put human life ahead of property and profits.”
Andrew opposes the Liberals’ push for us to ‘learn to live with COVID-19’. Those getting sick and dying from the virus have disproportionately been from working class and migrant communities, like those in Melbourne’s western suburbs.
“Eliminating the virus should be our goal”, he says. “But we’ll only get there if we do more for people struggling with lockdown. The biggest thing that would help is increasing income support for anyone who can’t work. It’s staggering that the Federal Government is refusing to increase JobSeeker payments or renters rights, when the biggest source of mental stress for young people is financial hardship.”
”Essential workers”, Andrew says, “should be paid danger money and receive additional leave to account for the risks they take with their health every day. We need to make an example of employers that allow the virus to spread in their workplaces. Essential workers need a greater role in enforcing OHS in their workplace because it is their lives, the lives of their families and broader community that are at stake.”
“The obvious response to this pandemic would be a massive expansion of publicly funded industry to produce vaccines, air-filters, ventilators, all of the material infrastructure we need to reduce suffering and death from COVID-19. If the profit motive needs to be suspended to do this, great. Not only would this effort help eliminate the virus, it will also create jobs and economic activity.”
On a broader level the COVID-19 crisis, he thinks, has opened-up more people to the need, and potential, to reshape society so that it works for everyone, not just the richest few. “Amidst the difficulties of COVID-19 have come some advances. The importance of an adequately resourced public healthcare system has never been clearer – we should be fighting for big boosts in funding both to deal with the immediate crisis and to make lasting improvements for the future.”
The crisis has also brought much needed attention to the parlous state of the welfare system in Australia, and the long term decline in basic rights, wages and conditions of workers. “The pandemic has shown how important it is that workers are able to stay at home when they’re sick – and that they receive the income support they need to do that. Working from home rights should also be enshrined in workplace law so that the benefits of this new work-life balance are locked in.”