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Keywords: Minimum Wage

  • ECONOMICS

    The economy is in worse shape than you think

    • David James
    • 07 March 2024
    4 Comments

    The aggregate picture of the economy may seem healthy enough after two years of heavy immigration, over 800,000, and the return of students and tourists. But the elephant in the room remains. Australia is a two-tiered society sharply divided between people who own homes and people who do not. The generational divide is worsening.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Ties that bind (and break)

    • Michele Frankeni
    • 27 June 2023

    When I sat down to watch Netflix series The Diplomat with my daughter, our conflicting perspectives led me to question whether age and generational expectations alter our views on relationships. I'm left wondering if I've been conditioned to expect too little, or if she's been conditioned to expect too much.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Older women caught in homelessness crisis

    • Jennifer McVeigh
    • 25 May 2023
    4 Comments

    A rapidly growing cohort of homeless women over 55 has become the new casualties of Australia's housing market. With skyrocketing rents, an entrenched gender pay gap and inadequate pension funds, older women are slipping through the cracks owing to a tangle of systemic failures.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Budget leaves low-income earners in poverty

    • Tom Barnes
    • 18 May 2023
    1 Comment

    The Albanese Government's second federal budget falls short in addressing Australia's cost-of-living crisis, with proposed measures deemed inadequate for those most vulnerable. This lacklustre response raises questions about the government's commitment to uplift those affected by the crisis.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    It's time we ended politically induced poverty

    • John Falzon
    • 23 March 2023
    11 Comments

    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.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Beyond deserving and undeserving: Shifting perspectives on welfare

    • Joe Zabar
    • 31 January 2023
    1 Comment

    A welcome development in the Albanese government's reform agenda is the newly established Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee to examine the obligation placed upon governments to provide employment. While the principle of a job guarantee is essential to any social security reform, so too is the attitude we hold towards those who access welfare. 

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  • AUSTRALIA

    National wage decision gives low-income earners breathing space but still a long way to go

    • Francis Sullivan
    • 20 June 2022
    1 Comment

    Despite last week’s decision by the Fair Work Commission to push up the national minimum wage by 5.2 percent, millions of Australians, in all parts of the country, will continue to live in poverty and on survival wages. The facts are that the Commission’s decision takes the minimum wage from $772 a week to $812, an increase of $5.70 a day, not a fortune but better than nothing.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Local governments are being pushed out of aged care. But at what cost?

    • Zacharias Szumer
    • 05 April 2022
    6 Comments

    Like the aged care sector more broadly, home care is in the process of transition as the federal government implements a system designed around the principles of consumer choice and efficiency. The push is driven by expectations that the number of Australians accessing aged care services will more than triple by 2050.

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  • ECONOMICS

    We need to rebuild our social foundations

    • John Falzon
    • 15 June 2021
    4 Comments

    Our economy is 1.1 per cent larger than a year ago. Yet, as the situation in Victoria reminded us, none of us are safe unless all of us are safe. And we cannot be safe while work remains increasingly insecure, while social security payments are inadequate and while our public infrastructure is found wanting.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    The thin veneer of the gig economy

    • Dustin Halse
    • 27 April 2021
    9 Comments

    Behind the slick advertising and high-tech veneer of on demand apps and services lies a bleak, hazardous and often dangerous reality: tens of thousands of people are working at the fringe of the labour market as delivery riders and personal chauffeurs. When you remove all the tech, the sizzle and pop, it’s little more than modern day iteration of old-school precarious piece work arrangements.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    JobSeeker needs to provide a reasonable safety net

    • Joshua Lourensz
    • 04 March 2021
    4 Comments

    Many people are still doing it tough. And the many organisations who are tasked with trying to support them share a sense of dismay as we see Federal Government assistance being wound back fast. We need to increase decent work opportunities and ensure a reasonable safety net for those out of work if we want to get through this and still claim the ‘fair go’.

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  • FAITH DOING JUSTICE

    The value of the worker

    • Ursula Stephens
    • 25 February 2021
    13 Comments

    'It's the value of the work, not the worker.' So said a government backbencher to me last week while I was speaking to him about the omnibus industrial relations (IR) Bill that has just passed the House of Representatives.

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