Welcome to Eureka Street

back to site

Keywords: Work Choices

  • AUSTRALIA

    All the deadly women

    • Juliette Hughes
    • 12 July 2024

    Are women truly the villains that modern crime dramas portray them to be? Despite the sensationalised 'evil woman' trope, real-life statistics tell a different story. It’s a cruel irony that the way to really victimise a woman is to tell her that she is the perp when she really is overwhelmingly more likely to be the victim of violent crime.

    READ MORE
  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    In praise of the human kind

    • Ken Haley
    • 31 May 2024

    Social psychologist Hugh Mackay has been people-watching for more than 60 years. At 86 he has published The Way We Are: Lessons from a lifetime of listening, a compendium of his choicest insights on Australian life quarter-way through the new century.

    READ MORE
  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Fake news about 'fascist' Queen

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 01 November 2018
    20 Comments

    Some creative choices see Bohemian Rhapsody veer from fairytale to fake news. Displacing 'Fat Bottomed Girls' allows the filmmakers to write out the exploitative publicity stunt for that song. By skipping The Works tour, they can conveniently ignore how the band flouted the UN's cultural boycott against apartheid era South Africa.

    READ MORE
  • RELIGION

    Easter in dark times

    • Fatima Measham
    • 12 April 2017
    18 Comments

    Easter, for me, has always been a time to sit in the brokenness of things, to absorb the dread and devastation, and reel at the inexplicable sacrifice. Crushing humility might have characterised my experience in previous years. This year, I feel formless rage. The human drama of Easter - with its betrayals, moments of audacity and doubt, the machinations in shadow - bears the sting of injustice. The central narrative is political. Choices were made by people in power. They are still being made.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    The unique labour conditions of millennials

    • Sonia Nair
    • 28 November 2016
    11 Comments

    Belonging to a generation where I was constantly told I could do anything I set my mind to, I was carted off to every class imaginable as a young child - art class, violin class, music theory class, English literature tutoring and so forth. But the advent of unparalleled choices that was constantly peddled to me did not coincide with an increase in the spaces that are available for young people to excel, or much less be employed, in the fields of their choice.

    READ MORE
  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Gentle view of an Irish-American migrant experience

    • Tim Kroenert
    • 18 February 2016
    1 Comment

    Eilis' profound homesickness is evoked by the letters she composes for and receives from her long distant sister and mother. Her sense of awe at this new world is revealed in her interactions with the other, more brazen boarders; and at work, where she is chided by her manager for being too shy with customers. Gradually, familiarity and opportunity allow her to grow in confidence. Her coming-of-age is defined as gradual self-empowerment through the making of small, and sometimes large, choices.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Blessed are the taxpayers in Abbott's Australia

    • Neil Ormerod
    • 16 March 2015
    39 Comments

    In relation to the future of remote Aboriginal communities in WA, the Prime Minister said: 'It is not the job of the taxpayer to subsidise particular lifestyle choices.'  The statement raises this question: on whose behalf does the government govern? The logical response is: the taxpayer. We must then ask whether it works on a sliding scale – the more tax you pay, the more the government attends to your needs.  

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Bill Shorten's WorkChoices moment

    • Fatima Measham
    • 19 May 2014
    16 Comments

    Notwithstanding Kevin Rudd's merit as a candidate, there is no doubt that the unions-led campaign against WorkChoices was pivotal to handing government to Labor. What Bill Shorten has been handed this week in the Federal Budget is several WorkChoices with which to galvanise people. He needed it. His Budget reply offered a glimpse of the sort of Opposition Leader that Australians deserve.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Inconvenient advice for a business-friendly prime minister

    • Michael Mullins
    • 08 July 2013
    4 Comments

    One of Kevin Rudd's key points of difference with Julia Gillard lies in his determination to project a business-friendly image for himself and the ALP. This may have something to do with his decision to dump former parliamentary secretary Andrew Leigh, who is Australia's leading inequality expert and clearly unsympathetic to the demands of big business on government.

    READ MORE
  • AUSTRALIA

    Fear is the enemy of democracy

    • Michael Mullins
    • 04 March 2013
    22 Comments

    Opposition Immigration spokesperson Scott Morrison called for a suspension of asylum seekers being released into the community, on the basis of a single violent incident. Fairfax Media showed these people are about 45 times less likely to be charged with a crime than members of the public. A fear mongering politician appears to have more credibility than the facts.

    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
  • AUSTRALIA

    Why Fair Work works well

    • Luke Williams
    • 08 August 2012
    4 Comments

    A major review into the Fair Work Act says the nation's workplace laws are 'working well'. Industry response has been predictable, uncompromising and even dishonest. The question we should ask is: do the majority of Australians (not just bosses) think we have a fair system which rewards hard work and productivity?

    READ MORE