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Keywords: Social Security

There are more than 200 results, only the first 200 are displayed here.

  • AUSTRALIA

    Putting a value on a human life

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 01 October 2020
    7 Comments

    The response to COVID has invited reflection about the relative value of one human death (and so of one human life) as compared with another. This is a radical question because it makes us ask whether the value of a human life is defined by economic wellbeing and by potential contribution to the economy, or by deeper qualities.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Actually, my illness does define me

    • Tim Hutton
    • 01 October 2020
    9 Comments

    For many people, illness has a narrative: a clear beginning, middle and end. If we’re lucky, the ending is actually a fresh start where the illness is gone and our hero is returned to normal life, changed but stronger because of their ordeals. In the lives of those with chronic illness, however, those lines are blurred; our descent into illness may have been gradual and there might be no end in sight.

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  • ECONOMICS

    October Budget rides on collective confidence

    • Joe Zabar
    • 24 September 2020
    3 Comments

    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.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Jobactive and job service providers are unfit for purpose

    • Izabella Antoniou
    • 03 September 2020
    11 Comments

    Beyond the announcement of the corona supplement falling from $550 to $250 a fortnight in September, and the reintroduction of asset testing, there has been little in the way of a roadmap for our nation’s unemployed in a landscape where job seekers outnumber jobs 13:1.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Accounting for accountability

    • John Warhurst
    • 13 August 2020
    6 Comments

    Many in the community are crying out for accountability. The idea is appealing because it sounds like a simple framework, but in practice it is extremely difficult to apply.

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  • ECONOMICS

    The gift of work

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 13 August 2020
    6 Comments

    Amid the disruption of predictable life wrought by the coronavirus, governments have focused on jobs. Jobs lost in the response to the virus, and jobs created as we emerge from the crisis. The focus is worthy — behind each job lost is a person whose life has become anxious and uncertain. The language, however, is concerning. Defining the challenge as one of creating jobs expresses an understanding of work, the inadequacy of which the coronavirus has laid bare.

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  • ENVIRONMENT

    Solidarity with land and environmental defenders

    • Bree Alexander
    • 06 August 2020
    1 Comment

    While the world is largely focused on COVID-19, a recent report from Global Witness revealed that murders of land and environmental defenders, defined as people who take a stand for land and environment in a peaceful manner, reached a high in 2019.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    The privilege of travel

    • Catherine Marshall
    • 23 July 2020
    8 Comments

    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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  • INTERNATIONAL

    Trauma and displacement are no time for profit

    • Salina Cheung
    • 13 July 2020
    4 Comments

    There is a trend of liberals calling for the West to open its borders to fleeing Hongkongers for economic benefit. It is commendable that these individuals want the West to offer Hongkongers refuge. But to frame this philanthropy in such mercenary terms makes this goodwill suspect: these voices want to capitalise on a traumatic moment of displacement.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Community in the face of insecurity

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 09 July 2020
    9 Comments

    For Victorians this last week has been taxing. It began with rising numbers of COVID-19 infections, moved to the lock-down of housing commission towers enforced by hundreds of police and has continued with the lockdown of the whole Melbourne area for six weeks and exclusion from other States.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    JobSeeker and reflecting on government responsibilities

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 02 July 2020
    3 Comments

    Government must respect the human dignity of people who are often regarded as a burden on society. Seen from this perspective the JobSeeker allowance is deceptively named. It conflates two distinct though related responsibilities of government: to promote participation in the workforce by matching jobs available to people seeking them, and to provide for those who cannot work.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Insecurity in a COVID world

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 28 May 2020
    6 Comments

    But insecurity breeds insecurity. In the face of insecurity we can feel insecure. Our identity as persons can be shaken by the insecurity of our circumstances. This is not inevitable. Nor is it necessarily lasting. Some people will be temporarily or lastingly paralysed by anxiety; others will be more resilient.

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