The latest ACOSS/UNSW report on Poverty in Australia, released this year, makes for sobering reading. By the measures used in the report, over 3 million Australians live in poverty, including over 750 thousand children, or approximately one in six children. The underlying reasons for poverty are varied and complex, but some relationships stand out. In […]
1 November 2020. As this newsletter is published, voting in the US elections is under way, with commentators speculating from the polls that Biden will win. Given the unexpected outcome of 2016, they prefer, nonetheless, to call the result uncertain. Whatever the outcome of this election, these last Trump years have seen increased international tensions, and […]
1 November 2020 A major reason for the loss of trust in governments and parliaments is the way powerful special interests with their lobbyists have come to dominate the public debate and skew decisions in their favour. The fossil fuel sector is the most obvious and recent example. Lobbyists are using their destructive influence more […]
1 November 2020. Many of us working in the criminal justice sector were dreading, but not surprised by, the arrival of positive cases of Covid-19 in prisons in mid-July. Covid was already a reason we were using for people to be released on bail and for having sentences reflect the increasingly harsh prison environment brought […]
Peter Whiting. With the Federal Budget to be brought down on 6 October, the economic impact of the pandemic and the appropriate fiscal response are attracting serious commentary. Always high on the list of responses is change to income tax; others argue for delay of increases in the superannuation levy, increases in investment incentives, and […]
A report released in early September summarises the extent and effects of income and wealth inequality before Covid-19, and provides a lens through which to assess the affects of Covid-19, as it continues and governments and businesses respond. The third 2020 publication from the five-year Poverty & Inequality Partnership between the Australian Council of Social […]
Coronavirus will have a temporary effect on much of humanity, but global warming will have a permanent impact on the whole of humanity. Our current federal government relies heavily on science to deal with the former, but largely rejects it for the latter. It could be said that we have had longer than 40 years […]
Review : To Live Life to the Full: Mental Health in Australia Today. The Australian Catholic Bishops Social Justice Statement 2020 The ideology of neoliberalism which has enthralled Western governments in particular for some three decades or so, has managed to redefine the meaning and purpose of society. Mutual attachments and obligations, the interdependence which […]
“We see the world in a different light. Politicians need to start listening to us and taking action”, a youth leader says. Nearly 90 per cent of young people say they feel unprepared for future climate disasters, and want politicians to give them a bigger voice on climate change, a new report finds. Conducted in […]
Australia’s youth has been hit hardest by the unemployment crisis, and is bankrolling the financial advantages enjoyed by older generations. Yet, they are told the pandemic is a good opportunity to grow and develop coping mechanisms. Michael Tanner reports on a new form of victim blaming. The mental health of young people – already teetering […]
The Covid-19 crisis has deepened sharply in Australia, with Victoria going into Stage 4 lockdown, and other states on edge. The situation in many other countries is far worse than this, and the prospects immediately ahead fill one with dread. Last month, our editorial noted that various of our articles were ‘urging policy makers to […]
