Keywords: Taxes
There are more than 200 results, only the first 200 are displayed here.
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AUSTRALIA
- Fatima Measham
- 27 October 2016
7 Comments
Unless you have lived elsewhere, where taxes and rates rarely manifest as a tangible and permanent benefit, it is easy to take councils for granted. I grew up in a town where potholes are forever, healthcare is ad hoc and libraries are private. The things that I see my local council do as a matter of routine are wild luxuries in other places around the world. Such competencies arguably measure the health of a democracy - it means that most of the money has not been lost to corruption and fraud.
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AUSTRALIA
- Frank Brennan
- 13 October 2016
2 Comments
With idealism and pragmatism, I invite you criminal lawyers in the next 30 years to imagine and enact a better criminal justice system which alleviates rather than exacerbates the devastating effects of colonisation and marginalisation on Indigenous Peoples, and most particularly their children. An intelligently designed criminal justice system must help secure the foothold of Indigenous children in both the Market and the Dreaming.
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AUSTRALIA
- Andrew Hamilton
- 04 July 2016
17 Comments
After a plodding election race the stewards have called for a photo. But it looks more likely that Turnbull will be able to form a government. If so, he will need to address the interlocking challenges that we face in order to leave our children a world of possibility. The hope will be muted because both major parties promised little or nothing to address them. But we can take heart that there is certain to be an independently minded senate that can consequently strike down bad policies, and keep asking what kind of an Australia we want.
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AUSTRALIA
- Tim Woodruff
- 24 June 2016
6 Comments
My patients who earn $36,000 a year pay $36 for most prescriptions. My patients who earn $360,000 pay the same, and those on $3 billion pay the same. Usually, these prescriptions are for conditions which can't be avoided - it's just bad luck. This government imposed co-payment is a tax on illness. It is not noticed by those on $360,000 but for those struggling on $36,000, it does affect their small disposable incomes. It is a regressive tax, and its effect on patient behaviour is well documented.
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AUSTRALIA
Living within the United Nations community I've witnessed Australia fall from a well-respected international citizen, to becoming the spoilt, sneaky brat of international relations. Even the most blasé glance at the geo political currents moving through the planet reveal complexities this election pretends don't exist. Australians fighting about jobs and growth in the corner comes across as deeply deluded isolationism. The Great Barrier Reef is dying. The world is watching. Hello Australia? Anybody home?
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AUSTRALIA
- John Warhurst
- 06 May 2016
12 Comments
It was a political budget in a special sense, given the forthcoming election. Yet it turned out to be neither an election-winning nor election-losing budget. It was more continuity than change. In that sense it probably was the best the government could hope for given the nation's economic and financial circumstances. However it falls far short of the sort of budget that might have been expected from a prime minister like Malcolm Turnbull whose image is one off a 'big picture man'.
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ENVIRONMENT
- Greg Foyster
- 11 March 2016
3 Comments
The best known examples of framing come from American cognitive linguist George Lakoff. He argues that George W. Bush replaced the phrase 'tax cuts' with 'tax relief' to reframe paying tax as an affliction. Embedded in those two words is a neo-conservative worldview against government intervention in the private sphere. If you accept the term, you absorb the worldview. In a similar way, a few words could build political will to tackle climate change. The problem is no one is sure what they are.
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INTERNATIONAL
- Megan Graham
- 11 March 2016
11 Comments
Even if his views and rhetoric are radical, everything else about Sanders is so within our comfort zones that they become more palatable. It's difficult for any progressive to get into power without aligning with powerful groups, whether they be politics, class, culture or gender-based. And Clinton is already disqualified from a club with arguably the most stubborn membership of all - the 'boys club'. For any feminist, it's hard to view the installation of the first female president as anything but progressive.
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ARTS AND CULTURE
- Peta Edmonds
- 08 March 2016
7 Comments
I've run out of dope. This is my last ever toke of synthetic pot, I hope. There's synthetic people, but my heart drops like a coin into a homeless man's hat. The eternal night isn't very maternal. Of all those people sleeping on a concrete mattress under a black sky doona ... The homeless have faces like empty spaces. No solution to their heads in the pollution, and their feet in the gutter. The poor gather on the banks of the flowing street. The rain hits the roof in pain.
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ENVIRONMENT
- Nicholas Low
- 04 November 2015
20 Comments
Environmental justice will be part of the discussion in Paris this month. The principle of justice says each person is of equal value no matter which nation or ethnic group they belong to. Each Australian contributes 16 tonnes of carbon dioxide per year, while each Bangladeshi contributes a little more than a third of a tonne. If the principle of justice is applied, Australia will have to move from 16 tonnes per person to about a third of a tonne, roughly equivalent to what a Bangladeshi emits now.
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AUSTRALIA
- Andrew Thackrah
- 15 September 2015
24 Comments
After Malcolm Turnbull announced on Monday afternoon that he was challenging Tony Abbott for the LIberal leadership, commentators were unanimous in their speculation that Abbott would not give up the prime ministership without a fight. The pugnaciousness that characterised his political style was similarly part of the playbook of Canadian PM Stephen Harper, who was also seen to base his interaction with political adversaries on their 'standing' rather than debating policy. In Abbott's case this turned out to be a fatal flaw.
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AUSTRALIA
- Clancy Wright
- 17 August 2015
17 Comments
Sixteen and 17-year-olds shape society and culture through language, music, sport, arts and fashion. They challenge boundaries and push cultural trends up through our social fabric. They engage with technology and future ideas in a way that many older generations would fine overwhelming and confusing. We need this enthusiasm, this creativity and proven inclination to take risks in order to question our society's established methods and bring colour and life back to the broader political debate.
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