Alex Baumann Western Sydney University. Samuel Alexander University of Melbourne. Among the many hard truths exposed by COVID-19 is the huge disparity between the world’s rich and poor. As economies went into freefall, the world’s billionaires increased their already huge fortunes by 27.5%. And as many ordinary people lost their jobs and fell into poverty, […]
Claire Higgins UNSW. As a presidential candidate, Joe Biden promised the US would demonstrate “global leadership on refugees”. Once elected, he pledged vastly to increase refugee resettlement in the US. If history is any guide, the new president’s forward-thinking approach could help drive Australia’s commitments to refugee protection, as well. Over the past four decades, […]
David Peetz Griffith University. The federal government’s industrial relations ‘reform’ bill offers a new definition of ‘casual’ employment which creates more problems than it solves. It effectively defines a casual job as anything described that way by the employer at the time a job commences, so long as the employer initially makes “no firm advance […]
Bruce Duncan. 8 February 2021. The assault on the US Capitol building by Trump supporters trying to overturn the election not only shocked the United States, but also raises urgent questions for the rest of the world, particularly for the churches, and for Australians too. The mob was shouting to kill House Speaker Nancy Pelosi […]
8 February 202 It has become a cliché : “She/he is a glass-half-full sort of person”, playing out as we enter 2021 after the Covid-19 disruptions of 2020. Some are optimistic about this new year; some are lamenting social and economic disruptions carrying forward, focusing on the scale of the problems facing us. At Social […]
Callum Foote. 8 February 2021 The Government’s fetish for deregulation plays right into the hands of predatory multinationals Uber and Deliveroo, which exploit Australia’s tax and labour laws to siphon profits overseas. Michael West and Callum Foote report on Uber’s exploitation and the prospective tsunami of lawsuits rolling its way. Picture the Uber or Deliveroo […]
Paul Wright. 8 February 2021 In the lead-up to Survival Day this year, three key reports have been released, the Interim Report to the Australian Government by the Indigenous Co-Design team on the Voice, the Human Rights Watch World Report for 2021, and the 2021 State of Reconciliation in Australia Report released last week by […]
Ian Chubb. 8 February 2021 We could secure a spectacular future for ourselves and help the planet. Instead the federal government dodges the hard decisions; it passes the buck. Fortunately, state and territory governments are stepping up to the plate. New analysis shows that Australia needs to cut emissions by at least 50% by 2030 […]
An urgent call to all people of goodwill to unite in a politics of brother/sisterhood. My title, I hope, captures the central concern of Pope Francis’s encyclical, Fratelli tutti, a long and wide-ranging document. It can be read as the third in a trilogy preceded in 2015 by Laudato Sí‘, and Laetitia Amoris. Each of […]
Peter Whiteford Crawford School of Public Policy Australian National University 1 December 2020. The Robodebt class action bought by Gordon Legal has been settled at a cost to the government of around $1.2 billion. According to federal Labor frontbencher Bill Shorten, this is the biggest class action in Australian legal history. This comprised refunds of […]
Richard Holden UNSW 1 December 2020. As well as restoring dignity to the Oval Office, another thing which will definitely change under a Biden presidency is US policy on the environment. Biden’s plan for “a clean energy revolution and environmental justice” includes rejoining the Paris Agreement on climate change, investing US$1.7 trillion over the next […]
