source : the age
By Jon Symons and Jess Whyte
ANDREA MAKSIMOVIC November 26, 1976-December 6, 2024
Andrea Maksimovic was committed both to the cause of socialist equality and to a community of friends in which music, dancing, film and sociability were essential complements to political activism.
Born in Sombor, Yugoslavia, Andrea’s first political mentor was her grandmother Jeka, a Yugoslav partisan who had taken up arms against fascism. Andrea’s early achievements were all the more remarkable because they straddled two very different societies: at age 11, she was the West Bačka regional champion in the Tito, Revolution, Peace competition; aged 12, she migrated with her family to Australia; at 16, she was selected for the Victorian state debating team; at 20 she was an editor of the RMIT student newspaper; and at 21, she was elected president of the RMIT Student Union.
At RMIT, Andrea made her greatest impact in the campaign against the introduction of up-front student fees for domestic undergraduates. In 1997, when angry students occupied the university’s financial planning offices for 19 days, Andrea became their unofficial leader and negotiator. Students declared victory when the university agreed to a referendum on the fees.
Andrea’s most significant early activism was against the mandatory detention of asylum-seekers. In 2001 with her then partner Damien Lawson, she was central to setting up the “no one is illegal” activist group with the slogan “With our bodies against the camps”. This campaign contributed to the Easter 2002 protest at Woomera detention centre, where about 1000 people camped in the red desert sand while detained people staged a hunger strike inside. When the protest marched towards the camp, those inside and outside met at the razor wire and soon the wire came down. “For the first time in a long time,” Andrea told media, those inside Woomera “had a chance to make a choice”. Andrea regretted those protesting on the outside were not better prepared for people escaping, having “underestimated their will for freedom”. Andrea’s work as media spokesperson for the Woomera and Baxter (2003) protests made her a public face of both.
Her lifelong love of film and television was coupled with her political passions in an honour’s thesis on Nick Broomfield, an activist filmmaker and director of hit films such as Kurt & Courtney.
After graduating in journalism from RMIT, Andrea found work first at the Textile Clothing and Footwear Union, and then assisting Leigh Hubbard, the secretary of Victorian Trades Hall Council.
Andrea Maksimovic was editor of RMIT student newspaper Catalyst.Credit: Sandy Scheltema
In May 2005, Andrea accepted the role of campaign manager for the International Confederation of Trade Unions leading global campaigns for workers’ rights and a fair-trade system. This was an extraordinary opportunity for a 27-year-old, but it meant starting a new life in Brussels.
Andrea’s next step up was a role with SOLIDAR, a European network of Civil Society Organisations, where she led the Global Network Project promoting social and economic rights worldwide. She was also elected to the board of the European Confederation of Development NGOs.
As Andrea’s prominence in the European labour movement grew, she became a key contact for Australian unionists. For example, she helped Sharan Burrow in her successful bid to become general secretary of the International Trade Union Confederation in 2010. Fluent in English, French and Serbian, and proficient in Russian and Spanish, Andrea was an unusually cosmopolitan Australian trade unionist.
At the height of her professional success, Andrea faced a profound challenge. In February 2010, aged 34, she was diagnosed with stage four non-small cell lung cancer.
At this point noted Australian scientist Suzanne Cory stepped in, sharing information about new mutation-specific treatment trials. The results of a genetic screening offered a glimmer of hope. Her cancer was caused by a mutation (ALK) for which there was an extremely promising drug trial.
Back in Australia, Andrea was accepted into one of the earliest trials of crizotinib – an ALK mutation-specific inhibitor.
Andrea was at first placed in a control group and given the then standard of care chemotherapy. Andrea nevertheless enrolled in a master’s of international relations at the University of Melbourne and made plans for a future no one else thought possible.
Andrea’s optimism proved well-founded. Once granted compassionate access to crizotinib, she had a seemingly miraculous recovery. In a short space of time, she met Brett Kelly, who was to become her life partner, graduated and found work as Oxfam’s labour rights co-ordinator. A year later, she took a role as national executive officer for the CFMEU where she worked with those seeking to protect the integrity of what she saw as an important institution of workers’ power.
Andrea Maksimovic: a linchpin in Australia’s activist left.
Andrea’s final major roles were as the Australian Council of Trade Union’s associate director international and civil society where she again led work on global trade union rights, particularly in global supply chains. She then worked with Kate Colvin as the campaign co-ordinator for the homelessness coalition Everybody’s Home. Her time at the ACTU gave her the chance to reactivate her European networks. It brought her much joy when she represented the Australian Union movement at the International Labour Organisation.
Andrea brought little ego to her work, and her deep commitment to fairness and social progress inspired many. But these same qualities left her disappointed by the lack of ethics and personal solidarity among some trade union officials. While her faith in socialist ideals never dimmed, her views on Australia’s left institutions became more critical.
In 2022, amid covid lockdowns, Andrea received a new diagnosis: leptomeningeal disease. This time there was to be no miracle cure. As Andrea’s health deteriorated, her busy social life was increasingly confined to her own apartment, but she never lost her interest in Australian and world politics.
In the face of a terminal diagnosis, Andrea again bucked tradition and negotiated her own path.
In October 2024, Andrea invited close friends to her “last drinks” or living wake. In December, she took advantage of Victoria’s new voluntary assisted dying laws and arranged a peaceful death in her home – a date she pushed back to see English musician Thom Yorke play one final time. She left us a few weeks after her 48th birthday, surrounded by partner Brett, mother Klara, sister Ivona (mother of her dear nephew Oli), a close friend Jon and her two dogs.
Andrea’s great impact was on the social fabric of Australia’s left. Her embodiment of the collectivist tradition of life and thought, and her talents for friendship and building unlikely communities, inspired many in the movement that survives her.
Jon Symons and Jess Whyte met Andrea in 1992 and 1996 through the Victorian state debating team and the RMIT Student Union, respectively. Their friendships spanned more than three decades of political campaigns, share-houses, travel and life.
