Term Oral

To my fellow shearers’. I am a shearer like you who works hard hours for nothing. I have come before all of you because we don’t need to put up with this. The squatters are cutting our wages and they mean to crush our union. We must act now and not let these scum do this to us, they just want more money for themselves, while we can hardly put food on the table for our wives and children. I am like you; you are like me standing for 8 hours, shearing for 8 hours, sweating for 8 hours for what? And now they want to pay us less. What can we do about this; you are asking yourselves? Well that’s why I am up in front of you today telling you all that we must stand together.

They are bringing in other shearers who are taking the wages these greedy landowners are offering. We cannot just stand here and let them take our jobs away from us. We will fight for our rights. We must stand together as one and show them we are not giving up. We must fight for our families, fight for our lives. We must fight for our rights.

I will negotiate with these new shearers from New Zealand and see if they will come with us and fight this ongoing battle for our rights as shearers, and if they don’t they will get the same punishment as the land owners will get.

Today is when we stand against this shocking decrease in our wages. We don’t ask for much, only what is fair. Do you want to carry on eating bread for dinner? No? Then let’s stand as one and rebel against these selfish people, who think its right to cut our wages down just so they make more profit for themselves. We are staying right here outside the shearing shed so they know we are not giving up.

They keep saying “tomorrow” but why tomorrow we are here now. We will get our fair wage back; we will be able buy a proper dinner just like they do with their potatoes, chicken and lettuce. Now that sounds like a good meal.

Twelve of us have already been jailed for conspiracy. They think this has affected us? They think this will bring us down? They are wrong. Doing this to us has put fire in our souls, filled us with hatred knowing that our companions are jailed fighting for what’s right.

Just think if we don’t act now the landowners will think we have given up. We can picture a brighter future if we act now we would be able to buy that amazing meal we have always wanted, we