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Keywords: Inequality

  • AUSTRALIA

    The Americanisation of Australia's universities

    • Sarah Klenbort
    • 10 November 2014
    23 Comments

    The US, whose citizens owe more on student loans than they do on credit cards, is the land of deregulation. Australia’s Education Minister Christopher Pyne has the support of university management in his desire to see Australia to follow the US path. But it is clear to lecturers, tutors and researchers that this will only create more inequality, mainly by forcing people without money to either miss out all together on higher education or go into a huge amount of debt.

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  • MARGARET DOOLEY AWARD

    Inequality matters

    • Harry Maher
    • 20 August 2014
    14 Comments

    Inequality is dangerous. And inequality is at a near all-time high. At its core, the Government’s recent budget not only engenders but actively exults in the creation and maintenance of inequality, a phenomenon rapidly expanding not just in Australia, but around the world.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Why the excluded are still waiting

    • John Falzon
    • 01 July 2014
    29 Comments

    The Government's McClure interim welfare report is predicated on the big lie that welfare is the problem and the market is the solution. The long wait of the excluded for some of the wealth and resources, for some of the hope to trickle down, is one of the most audacious con jobs in modern history. It is not misfortune. It is not a mistake. It is not the fault of the excluded. It is an attack against ordinary people who are made to bear the burden of inequality.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    The capitalist and the Pope share a common enemy

    • Michael Mullins
    • 23 June 2014
    6 Comments

    Earlier this month, Pope Francis once again blasted capitalism. But it is not true that all business leaders dismiss those who appear chronically unproductive. Thursday's Vinnies' CEO Sleepout included investment bankers and other capitalist 'true believers', and now venture capitalist Mark Carnegie is proposing a war against growing inequality and disengagement, as if he is on a unity ticket with the Pope.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Cruelled by the Budget

    • John Falzon
    • 15 May 2014
    4 Comments

    'You don't help young people, or older people, or people with disabilities, or single mums, into jobs by making them poor. You don't build people up by putting them down. And as even the OECD acknowledges, you don't build a strong economy by increasing the level of inequality. You don't create a strong country on the backs of the already poor.' Statement by John Falzon

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  • AUSTRALIA

    A Budget to enshrine inequality

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 14 May 2014
    47 Comments

    Governments have always included in their budgets a 'we're serious' clause as part of their determination to fix the economy. It has normally been directed at the vices of the underclass such as alcohol and tobacco. Now governments slash spending on the welfare of the disadvantaged.

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  • ECONOMICS

    Whose liberty matters as Dickensian budget looms?

    • Fatima Measham
    • 07 May 2014
    16 Comments

    French economist Thomas Piketty argues that current conditions have set us on track for a return to 19th century-levels of inequality. The Commission of Audit proposals suggest that the auditors and the Government are keen to expedite this neo-Dickensian era. It's all done in the name of 'incentives' toward 'personal responsibility', but this cannot remain coherent in the face of those who will be hit hard by the proposed suite of cuts and co-payments.

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  • RELIGION

    Churches fight for economic justice

    • Brian Lawrence
    • 29 November 2013
    12 Comments

    In his recent address to the Yarra Institute about Christian social thinking, Fr Frank Brennan expressed the view that 'Christian churches are all but absent from the economic debate other than making the occasional, predictable utterance about ensuring that no one is left worse off as the result of new policy measures'. This seriously understates the public advocacy of the Australian churches and does a disservice to many people and organisations.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Inconvenient advice for a business-friendly prime minister

    • Michael Mullins
    • 08 July 2013
    4 Comments

    One of Kevin Rudd's key points of difference with Julia Gillard lies in his determination to project a business-friendly image for himself and the ALP. This may have something to do with his decision to dump former parliamentary secretary Andrew Leigh, who is Australia's leading inequality expert and clearly unsympathetic to the demands of big business on government.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Wage inequality leaving workers in poverty

    • Brian Lawrence
    • 28 May 2013
    6 Comments

    The rivers of gold into Treasury have dried up and programs that have provided some relief to struggling families are being wound back. Whether or not large cohorts of workers and their families continue to live in poverty depends on the decisions of the Fair Work Commission in the current Annual Wage Review.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Give circumcision inequality the snip

    • Michael Mullins
    • 21 May 2012
    64 Comments

    Everyone is entitled to bodily integrity, but they also have a right to the best possible health outcomes. When it comes to circumcision, the experts can't agree and infants can't decide, so it's up to parents to make a responsible choice on behalf of their infant sons. But only if they can afford it.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Tony Abbott's class war

    • Dean Ashenden
    • 15 May 2012
    19 Comments

    One way of conducting class warfare is to accuse your opponent of conducting class warfare, as Abbott did in his Budget reply speech. It is no coincidence that over the period when talking about class became the political equivalent of breaking wind, the actions of governments of both stripes have accelerated social inequality. 

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