Welcome to Eureka Street
Looking for thought provoking articles?Subscribe to Eureka Street and join the conversation.
Passwords must be at least 8 characters, contain upper and lower case letters, and a numeric value.
Eureka Street uses the Stripe payment gateway to process payments. The terms and conditions upon which Stripe processes payments and their privacy policy are available here.
Please note: The 40-day free-trial subscription is a limited time offer and expires 31/3/24. Subscribers will have 40 days of free access to Eureka Street content from the date they subscribe. You can cancel your subscription within that 40-day period without charge. After the 40-day free trial subscription period is over, you will be debited the $90 annual subscription amount. Our terms and conditions of membership still apply.
With unaffordable housing pushing families into impossible choices, homelessness affecting 120,000 people, and systemic inequities deepening, we must ask: What kind of society do we want to build — and for whom?
As house prices soar, half the nation finds itself locked out of the property market. In conversation with Eureka Street, Alan Kohler untangles the web of tax incentives, population pressures, and government policies fueling the housing crisis to discover why, despite public outcry, solutions remain frustratingly out of reach.
As Australia heads toward the 2024 federal election, voters are grappling with soaring costs of living, stagnant wages, and weak GDP growth. Inflation is easing but prices remain stubbornly high. Will the Albanese government’s strategies to combat inflation satisfy an increasingly strained electorate?
For decades, unchecked corporate power and policy failures have driven up Australia's cost of living, leaving many Australians struggling. As corporate interests dominate, CEO pay increases dramatically while wages stagnate, and inflation rises. This influence of corporate Australia has eroded economic safeguards, dismantling the guardrails that once protected the common good.
In a signature essay published last year in The Monthly, Treasurer Chalmers staked out an ideological terrain he described as ‘values-based capitalism.’ The Budget 2024 is quite the big reveal on what those values include and who they exclude. In it, the people who have borne the brunt of inequality and precarity are neither seen nor heard.
The ABC’s recent Q+A housing special left many questions unasked and unanswered. Labor, Coalition and Green MPs all say they want more people to be able to buy their own homes. The most obvious way to achieve that would be to reduce the price of housing. Yet no politician will make that an explicit policy aim.
Dr. Eve Vincent's book, 'Who Cares? Life on Welfare in Australia', provides an in-depth exploration of the intricate dance between power, control, and social policy, unearthing unsettling truths about our society's inherent power structures. This discourse further underscores the urgent need for a radical reimagining of our socio-economic systems.
The decision by Australia to buy nuclear submarines from the United States and Great Britain inevitably prioritize security over justice, equality, and fraternity. As the world faces the threat of catastrophic global warming, it is time to ask whether submarines are the answer, or whether they distract us from the far greater challenge posed by nature itself.
As jobseeker payments are indexed for inflation, increased payments are still well below the minimum wage and age pension. With successive neoliberal governments dismantling social infrastructure, people living in poverty have little means of escape. Poverty is not a personal choice but a political one.
Women over 55 are the fastest growing homeless group in Australia. With over 400,000 women at risk of homelessness, it's Indigenous women, women with disabilities, women from migrant or refugee backgrounds, and women with mental illness who are disproportionately vulnerable.
As politicians and economists search for a simple solution to inflation, high debt, and rising interest rates, Australia's inequality has become a defining feature of its economy. As the fear of unintended consequences and the power of vested interests loom large, incremental reform may be the only way to reduce inequality and serve the common good.
Despite rising interest rates and the recent dip in property values, Australia’s housing situation places it among the least affordable property market in the world. With a rise in homelessness and younger Australians locked out of an inflated housing market, what is the way forward for Australia?