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Keywords: Welfare

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

  • AUSTRALIA

    The unequal pandemic

    • Brigid Meney
    • 31 January 2022
    18 Comments

    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.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Does the 'Let it Rip' approach have a eugenics problem?

    • Justin Glyn
    • 27 January 2022
    12 Comments

    In the early part of the twentieth century, Francis Galton (a cousin of Charles Darwin) used the latter’s work to argue that human breeding stock could be improved. He would weed out the weakest and the less able and produce a sturdier race. Until recently, the crematoria of Hitler’s death camps were enough to remind most that this was not an idea consonant with actual human flourishing.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Our hopes and fears for 2022

    • Barry Gittins
    • 14 January 2022
    4 Comments

    We’ve been in a pressure cooker, these past two years. More than a score of historians had memorably described 2020 as the sixth-most ‘stressful year ever’. Predictions and speculations look ahead; I looked at the past trends of the past two years and make these humble observations. With the stage set for dire times, here are six trends to look for in 2022. Here’s hoping.

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  • ECONOMICS

    Best of 2021: Homelessness is caused not by poverty but by wealth

    • John Falzon
    • 04 January 2022
    7 Comments

    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.

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  • MEDIA

    Best of 2021: Beyond belief: How the media gets caught up on PM’s Pentecostalism

    • Anthony N Castle
    • 04 January 2022
    5 Comments

    At this point, the media cycle is mostly internal, and while the media is talking to itself, Scott Morrison is talking to a rapidly growing base with significant resources. The devil isn’t in the headline here, the devil is in the detail, in the appeal itself.

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  • RELIGION

    The tangled strands of Christmas

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 16 December 2021
    19 Comments

    Christmas is always a mixture of nostalgia, weariness, connection and hope. This year the strands that compose it are even more tangled. We hope to return to the pre-Covid normal of celebration without anxiety. We look forward to the New Year as a gate to freedom to travel, work and plan our lives without hindrance. At the same time, however, our plans are conditional.  We realise that Covid has not left us, and that its mutations may lead to more interruptions and restrictions.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Inequality in a time of pandemic

    • Tim Dunlop
    • 15 November 2021
    8 Comments

    The experience of the Covid-19 pandemic has been like the aerosol used in those heist movies, where the cat burglar breaks into the museum and sprays the air to reveal the invisible lines of power that criss-cross the space between the door and cabinet where the treasure is kept.  

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  • AUSTRALIA

    When love raises its head on the shop floor

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 04 November 2021
    13 Comments

    In large organisations love hardly rates a mention. Mission statements highlight care, duty, responsibility and friendliness, but not love. Love is generally seen as an interrupter, combustible, something to fence in with protocols and professional standards, and for HR to monitor. When Pope Benedict XVI devoted an Encyclical to the place of love in public relationships, people were surprised. His argument is worth revisiting.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Amore mio

    • Ugo Rotellini
    • 11 October 2021
    1 Comment

    The neighbour says, So sorry. And sir, / you are the last paesano on this street. / Maria you promised me. I could go first. / Ti perdono, I forgive you, amore mio. / I sit in our backyard under lemon shade, amongst /  the hens tomato plants and capsicums. I fall into each / wishful memory. We danced, those ad-hoc strolls / and laughter, you hummed our favourite songs.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Hoping for hope

    • Barry Gittins
    • 09 September 2021
    1 Comment

    What does it take to lose hope? For the 4,000 people who attended the anti-lockdown protests in Melbourne last month, an odd coalition of the frustrated, the scared, the angry and the hurt, it takes 18 months of pain and the ensuing changes in employment status, isolation from family and friends, and losses in lifestyle and individual liberties.

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  • RELIGION

    Valuing human life

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 09 September 2021
    24 Comments

    In recent weeks the value of human life has become a topic of public conversation in different contexts. Proposed legislation on abortion and assisted dying has continued to focus attention on it. Debate about loosening COVID restrictions has also balanced the risk of death from the disease with risks to health and economic welfare from lockdowns. In Afghanistan the victory of the Taliban has again raised questions about the morality of the war and the killing involved by both sides.

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  • ECONOMICS

    Labor’s embrace of Liberal tax policies leaves poor worse off

    • Chris Smith
    • 31 August 2021
    11 Comments

    In July, Anthony Albanese announced a significant change of stance on Labor tax policy which was disappointing, if not surprising. An elected Labor government, Albanese promised, would keep the coming high income tax cuts he previously opposed. This decision to not oppose the government proposal to restructure the income tax system through reduced marginal rates is supporting a government policy that will lead to a significant redistribution of wealth towards high income earners.

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