Media Release: Free Palestine Melbourne and Victorian Trades Hall to merge May Day Rallies

2 May 2024 – for immediate release

On Sunday 5 May Free Palestine Melbourne and Victorian Trades Hall will hold coordinated May Day rallies.

At 12pm Free Palestine Melbourne will hold its weekly rally at the State Library of Victoria. Speakers will include Hollie Bolton of the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation and Kevin Bracken, the former Victorian Secretary of the Maritime Union of Australia.

The demonstrators will then march to Victorian Trades Hall to join the May Day rally at 1.30pm where Palestinian speakers will address the crowd on behalf of Free Palestine Melbourne. Following the speeches the Palestinians will lead the May Day march through the centre of the city and back to Trades Hall.

“Palestine is union business,” said former MUA State Secretary Kevin Bracken. “The Australian trade union movement has a proud history of opposing colonialism and racism in Indonesia, South Africa and here in Australia. I am incredibly proud to join Free Palestine Melbourne in supporting the heroic Palestinian people, who are fighting for all of us at the very centre of the global struggle against racism and ethno-nationalism in the twenty-first century.”

The rally comes after Zionists attacked a student activist camp at Monash University late Wednesday night, waking students with homophobic taunts and destroying property. Organisers are confident that support for the student encampments is increasing, and will add energy to the movement. They are positive that the May Day protest will be well attended

“This is a very challenging time for us,” said Mai Saif of Free Palestine Melbourne. “I’ve lived in the West Bank and my family has been terrorised and harassed by the Israeli authorities, but I never thought I’d see Zionists terrorising students in Melbourne. That is why the support of Australian trade unionists means so much to us. We Palestinians will never forget those who stood with us to oppose the Gaza genocide.”

For more information contact: info@fpmelbourne.org