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Sonya Semmens

@sonyasemmens.bsky.social

950 followers 290 following 85 posts

NGO worker, community builder, kindness & justice advocate. On Kulin Nations' land.

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Sonya Semmens @sonyasemmens.bsky.social · Mar 28

If you’re worried about the cost of living, housing or climate, you’re not alone.

This could be the most important election in a generation.

With a minority government predicted, we can keep Dutton out and get Labor to act.

Vote 1 Greens.

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Sonya Semmens @sonyasemmens.bsky.social · 5d

I’m so proud of the fiercely protective Greens women speaking out:

“Families have been harmed because this Labor government sits on their hands.” @anasinagraybarberio.org.au 🌺

Childcare-aged children are among the most vulnerable members of our community, and the most deserving of our care.

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Sonya Semmens @sonyasemmens.bsky.social · 5d

Thank you so much @abigailboydmlc.bsky.social for your incredible work in NSW to hold this sector and its regulators to account.

I could barely watch this Four Corners episode in one sitting, I can only imagine the cost of looking deeply at these horrific abuses for months on end. Group hug.

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Sonya Semmens @sonyasemmens.bsky.social · 6d

Thank you @stephhodgins-may.bsky.social for speaking out:

"419 childcare centres in Aust are owned by foreign for-profit providers. You wouldn’t let foreign equity firms run primary schools. Families have lost confidence in the childcare system, tinkering around the edges won’t bring trust back."

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Sonya Semmens @sonyasemmens.bsky.social · 6d

"For Profit providers are overrepresented in child abuse and neglect statistics in early child care, and that's certainly the case when it comes to child sex abuse."

So we have choices to make.

Privatisation for profit - or protect the most precious and vulnerable little members of our community?

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Sonya Semmens @sonyasemmens.bsky.social · 6d

Just watched this. It's sickening viewing, to say the least.

#FourCorners tracked 148 childcare workers alleged or convicted of child sexual abuse or inappropriate conduct. Some got away with it.

88% of the offending happened at For Profit daycare centres...

iview.abc.net.au/video/NC2503...

Four Corners: S2025 Hunting Ground

In a powerful follow up to her Logie-winning investigation, Adele Ferguson returns with a searing expose that reveals the true scale of sexual abuse in Australia's childcare sector. Despite government...

iview.abc.net.au

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Sonya Semmens @sonyasemmens.bsky.social · 7d

Labor positioning the environment as just another stakeholder misses the point.

The weighty task of legislating environment laws is not to find the "middle ground" between protecting nature vs unlocking wealth creation. It's to do what's right.

Nature is our wealth.

And in the end, we are nature.

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Sonya Semmens @sonyasemmens.bsky.social · 21d

Incredibly courageous testimony from from @clareheathmcivor.bsky.social at the Vic parliamentary inquiry into cults. Scary stuff.

I can't think of more dangerous coercive control than abusive men on a mission from God.

www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...

Liberal MP’s sister says father’s church is a ‘cult’ where ‘gay conversion’ practices may still be happening

City Builders pastor’s daughter tells Victorian parliamentary inquiry into cults of ‘grave concerns’ about church

www.theguardian.com

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Reposted by Sonya Semmens

Alex Fein @auspoldaily.bsky.social · Sep 24

In these apocalyptic times, a little project I'm working on with 2 of my favourite people: @sonyasemmens.bsky.social & @lerns10.bsky.social makes it all seem a little bit better.
We ask, when the 1st City falls, what does the 2nd City look like?

youtu.be/WsBTbIo_0I4

Episode 1: What is the Second City?

YouTube video by Second City

youtu.be

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Sonya Semmens @sonyasemmens.bsky.social · 29d

Vale to the great Dame Patricia Routledge 🩷

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Reposted by Sonya Semmens

alexjungle.bsky.social @alexjungle.bsky.social · Oct 3

Breaking news: ICE stops family at gunpoint—smash car window on top of newborn baby.

"I was screaming that there was a baby. But they didn’t care," cried mother.

“I covered my baby with my body—I was so scared he was going to be hurt because glass was landing on him."

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Sonya Semmens @sonyasemmens.bsky.social · Oct 2

Disturbed by Tony Blair chosen to govern Gaza? It's worse than you think.

Carole Cadwalladr (the journalised who exposed the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica scandal) investigates...

www.thenerve.news/p/tony-blair...

'WHAT WILL JESUS SAY?' TONY BLAIR, BIG TECH AND THE ISRAEL CONNECTION

As Trump announces the former British PM as his choice to help govern Gaza, Carole Cadwalladr investigates the opaque workings of Blair's institute, its funding from friends of Israel – including bill...

www.thenerve.news

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Reposted by Sonya Semmens

David Milner @davemilbo.bsky.social · Sep 9

Anyone in the press pack got the spine to ask the PM about Israel attacking six nations in a single day (not to mention, Greta Thunberg, and an Australian, Bianca, from Josh Burns' electorate, that was on the same boat)?

Maybe tag the journo you'd most like to hear ask it?

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Sonya Semmens @sonyasemmens.bsky.social · Sep 7

How blessed we are to have walked beside them for a while. 👣

Sonya Semmens @sonyasemmens.bsky.social · Sep 7

Special mention to the dads who instilled a love of the outdoors. Double special mention if you passed it on intergenerationally.

And a big shout out to all the kids of dads who’ve gone on around the bend on a new grand adventure ahead of us.

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Sonya Semmens @sonyasemmens.bsky.social · Sep 7

“As soon as I saw you, I knew a grand adventure was about to happen.” A.A. Milne

Happy Father’s day to all the dads, grand-dads, bro-dads, step-dads, dad-adjacent and father figures who’ve leaned into the adventure.

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Sonya Semmens @sonyasemmens.bsky.social · Aug 30

Nailed it 😥

Reposted by Sonya Semmens

Nes Evan @nes-evan.bsky.social · Aug 30

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Sonya Semmens @sonyasemmens.bsky.social · Aug 30

Don't go to the march. Come and Robin Hood the elites with me instead.

There is no left or right, there is only the 0.01% and the rest of us.

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Sonya Semmens @sonyasemmens.bsky.social · Aug 5

Media reaction is the clearest sign yet - they know it's over for them.

They can't control compassion. They can't control us.

As my friend Hannah Thomas said, "Our cause is righteous, we keep each other safe and the greatest threat to our safety at protests is the police." She would know.

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Sonya Semmens @sonyasemmens.bsky.social · Jul 5

It’s a genocide and a war crime and Netanyahu should be held accountable.

Sonya Semmens @sonyasemmens.bsky.social · Jul 5

The same applies to all people, including Netanyahu’s genocidal war cabinet.

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Sonya Semmens @sonyasemmens.bsky.social · Jul 5

The arson attack on the East Melbourne synagogue and the mob who targeted restaurant-goers last night sought to spread fear in places of faith, family and connection.

How dare they? We condemn this.

This I know: hate begets hate. Fear begets fear. Only love begets love. Only peace begets peace.

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Reposted by Sonya Semmens

Tim Hollo @timhollo.bsky.social · Jul 2

This is a really lovely piece by @sonyasemmens.bsky.social over at @greeninstitute.bsky.social's magazine, Green Agenda.

Sonya writes beautifully, and expresses a tremendously hopeful view of political organising as cultivating connection and community. Give it a read:

"I am because we are" - Green Agenda

“I didn't win a seat, but my god I've won a neighbourhood”, writes Sonya Semmens on her Macnamara campaign. In an atomised society where “people see themselves not as part of a collective, but an ind...

greenagenda.org.au

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Sonya Semmens @sonyasemmens.bsky.social · Jul 2

For-profit models have failed every care sector - from childcare to aged care. Why do we allow this model to keep harming the most vulnerable people in our society? People we love?

Childcare should be brought under the education system like schooling and made free, accessible and above all: safe.

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Sonya Semmens @sonyasemmens.bsky.social · Jul 2

I'm thinking of everyone who has a child in childcare today with such sickening, horrifying news this week.

So much sorrow for the little ones and families involved. There are no sufficient words. 💔

Our children deserve a childcare system that puts their safety above all else.

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