Welcome to a new week, a new month and a new season! There's always plenty to do as the weather starts getting warmer - but here's our pick of 3 things to do this week.
1. TUESDAY: CELEBRATE SINGLE MUMS
On Tuesday, the George Revival Cinema in Melbourne’s St Kilda hosts the debut screening of The Lucky Country, a documentary borne from the grassroots activism of sole parents and their use of social media.
The doco highlights the resilience and strength of single mums and some of the many issues they face such as social exclusion, financial hardship and, in some cases, recovery from domestic violence and mental health issues.
The film stars ‘real life’ single parents including Kerry Arch, Vikki Plant, Regina Brindle and the film’s producer, Diane McAlpine. Also appearing are leading feminist, Eva Cox, Deputy Leader of the Greens, Adam Bandt and Professor Barbara Pocock from the University of South Australia. It will be followed by a facilitated discussion on the impact of the parenting payment and Newstart policy changes and other relevant election issues.
- Tuesday 2nd September, 7pm-10pm
- George Revival Cinema
- 135 Fitzroy Street, St Kilda
- contact: dianemcalpine62@gmail.com
2. FRIDAY: WEAR A LBD FOR A CAUSE
Who needs an excuse to wear a little black dress at any time? But Friday is a great day to do so, as it’s Little Black Dress Day.
It’s an initiative of Australian design house David Lawrence and the not-for-profit Fitted for Work, with the aim of raising funds for transitioning women experiencing disadvantage into the workforce.
"Employment gives women choice, confidence and a sense of achievement and Fitted for Work's services have transformed the lives of 12,500 women since 2005,” says Fitted for Work CEO, Jane Hunt.
The idea is that every Aussie women wears a LBD to work on Friday 6th September.
And if you don’t have your own LBD to wear, you can buy an exclusively designed version that has been produced for LBD Day by David Lawrence Creative Director, Anthony Cuthbertson and is available online an in stores.
See www.littleblackdressday.com.au for further info.
3. SATURDAY: VOTE
You’d literally have to have been on Mars or under a rock not to know there’s a Federal election on this Saturday and it’s time to vote.
Although the Federal election is presented as a US Presidential-style ballot between Kevin Rudd and Tony Abbott, the fact is only around 115,000 and 118,000 people respectively get to vote – or not – for either the Prime Minister or the Leader of the Opposition. For both men, approximately 80% of the people living in their electorates are Australian citizens who are, therefore, eligible to vote
Australia’s 13.8 million other eligible voters not living in the cool eastern suburbs of Brisbane (Mr Rudd is the MP for Griffith in Brisbane) or the sun-and-surf-washed northern beaches suburbs of Sydney (Mr Abbott is the MP for Warringah in Sydney) have their own set of candidates.
If you can’t vote in person on polling day – for example, if you work shift work or you’re overseas - that’s no excuse. There are many options for voting including:
- pre-election day polling places – which you can find here: http://www.ehoundplatform.com/Services/AEC/
- overseas polling places in countries from ‘A’ for Argentina to ‘Z’ for Zimbabwe – you can find the details here: http://www.aec.gov.au/election/overseas-pp.htm
- mobile polling places for people in hospitals, nursing homes, prison and remote areas of the country – these details are here: http://www.aec.gov.au/election/remote.htm
- or, a postal vote. Find out who’s eligible and how you do it here: http://www.aec.gov.au/election/pva/
Local polling places in the suburbs and towns of the country are open from 8am-6pm local time, which means the election result could be known before polls close in Western Australia two hours after Queensland, NSW, the ACT, Victoria and Tasmania.
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