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There is an Australia that many people seldom encounter and its citizens number in the millions. These citizens live in all cities and regional towns, often in sub-standard yet costly housing, and struggle to survive week to week on low wages or inadequate government assistance.
When COVID-19 first arrived, it was described as the great equaliser. Infection could happen to anyone. Your race, creed, or the balance of your bank account didn’t matter to the virus that was spreading. But after a summer of dodging the virus and hunting for rapid tests, it is abundantly clear this isn’t a pandemic of equals. Now we have the data which quantifiably measures just how Australia's socio-economic fault lines were exposed and exacerbated by COVID-19.
When you put rising housing costs alongside stagnating wages, an alarming trend in normalising insecure work, persistent unemployment and underemployment, and statutory incomes that are going backwards in real terms, there’s good reason to be deeply worried about an increase in homelessness.
After an excruciating few weeks of negotiations with the Nationals — and far too many hours subjected to Barnaby Joyce’s ramblings — the Morrison government has finally announced their predictably underwhelming plan to reach net zero emissions by 2050.
Behind the slick advertising and high-tech veneer of on demand apps and services lies a bleak, hazardous and often dangerous reality: tens of thousands of people are working at the fringe of the labour market as delivery riders and personal chauffeurs. When you remove all the tech, the sizzle and pop, it’s little more than modern day iteration of old-school precarious piece work arrangements.
The parallels with our own times of the events of Black Friday in 1921, with its movement from a time of heavy social spending and the flowering of social capital to a time of recovery, and the fateful choices that are made at such times, are evident. We await the results of the economic choices being made by government and their effects on community and solidarity.
The havoc COVID-19 has wreaked on our economy has been less damaging than for some other countries. While international comparisons may help us feel better about our circumstances, the reality is that Australia’s economy is in trouble and will need more than economic first aid through measures like JobKeeper to get us back on track to recovery.
The global impact of COVID-19 has further increased inequality in food security, with nations already facing widespread famine, malnutrition and food insecurity being hit the hardest.
Throughout the summer I risked smoke, storms and sickness to escape into the embrace of the sea, until, one day after that final swim, places of worship were effectively closed, along with beaches, pools, and national parks across NSW.
On July 22, Katta O'Donnell filed an action in the Federal Court in Victoria hoping to make good her promise to put the government on trial for ‘misconduct’. The action notes that, ‘At all material times there has existed a significant likelihood that the climate is changing, and will continue to change, as the result of anthropogenic influences.’ Australia was ‘materially exposed and susceptible’ to the risks posed by climate change.
Six months grounded and I’d forgotten how to fly. I was due to take my first COVID-era flight, a brief flip from my home in Sydney to Ballina on the NSW mid-north coast for a meeting a few weeks ago. But I wasn’t ready.
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