Voting starts on Monday 19 Feb! Three ways to help Reem’s campaign

The campaign of Palestinian-Australian activist Reem Yunis in the Dunkley by-election (covering Frankston and surrounding suburbs) is stepping up a gear: early voting starts this coming Monday 19 February!! See below to find out how you can help.

Labor and Liberal are both letting the big corporations rake in soaring profits, while the rest of us suffer a cost of living crisis. And both Labor and Liberal are committed to keep supplying weapons and parts to Israel for its murderous campaign in Gaza.

In both cases, the main parties are willing servants of the rich and the powerful – at the expense of everyone else. As Reem told the crowd at last week’s protest at weapons manufacturer HTA in Campbellfield, we need to put health and education before destruction – both here and overseas.

Thanks to donations from supporters like you, households in Dunkley are getting a letter from Reem: “Let’s fund better childcare, schools, and hospitals instead of wasting billions on weapons and war. Let’s bring public services back into public hands instead of letting private companies profiteer by increasing costs and lowering standards.”

Here’s three ways you can help Reem’s campaign get this message out over the next couple of weeks:

1. Donate

Getting a letter from Reem delivered to every household in Dunkley will cost $20,000, so every donation helps – large or small. Please give what you can, and spread the word!

2. Help on a polling booth

We need help handing out how to vote cards at 32 polling booths in Frankston and surrounding suburbs on election day, Saturday March 2. Don’t worry if you’ve never done this before – we’ll have an experienced campaigner on each booth to make sure everything goes smoothly. Helping for a few hours on election is a really important contribution to Reem’s campaign so please volunteer if you can.

For the two weeks leading up to election day – from this Monday February 19 – Victorian Socialists volunteers will be staffing early voting booths in Frankston, Carrum Downs and Mount Eliza. Again, even a few hours is a really great contribution so please fill in the form to volunteer.

3. This Sunday – help gather support for Reem’s campaign at the weekly protest

The protests organised by Free Palestine Melbourne (every Sunday at midday at the State Library) are at the centre of Palestine solidarity activity in Melbourne each week. Even in the searing heat of the past two weekends, thousands of people have taken to the streets.

You can join Vic Socialists volunteers from 11am this Sunday at the “Sunken Library” fragment in Swanston St (near the corner of La Trobe), to help let people know about Reem’s campaign and how to support it.

Last Sunday, Victorian Socialists volunteers raised over $3,000 for Reem’s campaign by leafleting the crowd. Repeating this will help us reach our $20,000 target to cover the cost of putting a letter from Reem in every letterbox in Dunkley.

At last Wednesday’s spirited 200-strong Palestine solidarity rally in Dandenong, Vic Socialists volunteers went around the crowd and signed up 30 people to help on polling booths during Reem’s by-election campaign.

Plenty of people want to help Reem’s campaign – you can make a real contribution this Sunday by helping us approach people for a donation and to get involved. So come and find the Vic Socialists stall at the “Sunken Library”, anytime from 11am this Sunday.