Welcome to Eureka Street

back to site
Forgot your password?
Subscribe

Keywords: Minimum Wage

  • AUSTRALIA

    The public, the Church, and asylum seekers

    • Frank Brennan
    • 13 August 2013
    1 Comment

    'Like many Australians, I had hoped that the dastardly plan announced on 19 July would stop the boats in the short term, as a stop-gap measure. It is dismaying to learn that appropriate consultations had not occurred with Indonesia with the result that the very people who were to receive the shock and awe message are yet to receive it. There’s only one thing worse than shock and awe; that’s shock and awe that doesn’t work because you haven’t done your homework.' 43rd Barry Marshall Memorial Lecture, Trinity College Theological School, 14 August 2013.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Pragmatic answers to the asylum seeker question

    • Frank Brennan
    • 27 June 2013
    10 Comments

    'I want to outline the contours for a better approach — better than forcibly turning around boats, better than transporting people to Nauru and Manus Island or to Malaysia to join an asylum queue of 100,000 or permitting people to reside in the Australian community but without work rights and with inadequate welfare provision.' Frank Brennan speaks at the Australian Catholic University National Asylum Summit 2013.

    READ MORE
  • 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.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Labor goes from Robin Hood to the Sheriff of Nottingham

    • John Falzon
    • 17 May 2013
    9 Comments

    You don't build someone up by putting them down. You don't help someone into employment by pushing them into poverty. By keeping the unemployment benefit low, successive governments have deliberately humiliated people rather than improving their chances.

    READ MORE
  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Not poor just broke

    • Ellena Savage
    • 10 May 2013
    6 Comments

    A few years ago, when my shifts had been cut at the store and I was waiting on a few freelance cheques, I found myself down to $3 for the entire week. I don't like borrowing money, so I spent it all on a 3kg bag of potatoes and got creative. The thing to remember though is that I had $3 and a functional kitchen.

    READ MORE
  • RELIGION

    Aged care and the business of gift

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 09 May 2013
    9 Comments

    In our care of the aged, not only their health and security are at stake but also their self-respect and dignity. It is impossible not to sympathise with the argument that the high skills this requires from carers should be better remunerated. But in the business of business and remuneration, love is the skill that dares not speak its name.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Resurrecting Work Choices

    • Brian Lawrence
    • 28 September 2012
    10 Comments

    While Tony Abbott maintains that Work Choices is dead, Senator Nick Xenophon is advocating a position that adopts one of its central features. It is immoral to hold back wage increases or drive wages down on account of economic circumstances when there are other ways to promote job protection and create employment opportunities.

    READ MORE
  • RELIGION

    Seeking a more ethical way to stop the boats and deaths at sea

    • Frank Brennan
    • 14 September 2012
    4 Comments

    In the lead up to the election, Tony Abbott and Scott Morrison are sure to continue insisting that the Gillard Government's Pacific Solution Mark II will not work. In all probability this will undermine the efficacy of the Gillard Solution in stopping the boats. Read the full text of Fr Frank Brennan's address to the Migration Institute of Australia, Menzies Hotel, Sydney, 14 September 2012 

    READ MORE
  • RELIGION

    Australia takes the low road on asylum seekers

    • Frank Brennan
    • 17 August 2012
    26 Comments

    All major political parties now hope they can confine people in Nauru for years on end without any prospect of court supervision and without any need for Parliament to revisit the matter. We have reached a fork in the road between decency and deterrence. As a nation we have taken the low road, inviting the newest signatory to the Refugees Convention to emulate our indecent behaviour.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    The age pension was fairer than super

    • Brian Toohey
    • 02 April 2012
    8 Comments

    Paul Keating says he changed superannuation from an elite system to one which would include 'the bloke running behind the garbage truck'. But a new elite has left the garbo in the dust. Labor's core constituency and the economy would be much better off with the age pension rather than super. 

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    War on terror is beyond the joke

    • Justin Glyn
    • 21 December 2011
    4 Comments

    The US Congress' proposals to allow indefinite military detention of its citizens without charge or trial, and America's ongoing use of unmanned attack drones to assassinate opponents, highlight anew the need for clear thinking when it comes to that much abused term, 'war'.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Losing the fight for fair wages

    • Brian Lawrence
    • 08 June 2011
    5 Comments

    The 2011 wage review occurred 120 years after the release of the papal document Rerum Novarum, which had a significant impact on the development of Australian minimum wage-setting. The minimum wage provisions of the current Fair Work Act cannot be regarded as a success.

    READ MORE