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For most Australians, Government compensation for the carbon tax won't cover the steep rise in the cost of electricity caused by unrelated investment in infrastructure. That was not its intention. But the carbon tax will still not ensure the price of 'dirty' electricity is high enough to make coal-fired generators uncompetitive and force a 'clean energy future'.
Poverty is the unpaid rent of 200 years of colonisation. Poverty leaves a kid to her own solitary devices in the corner of a one-bedroom unit. It is pensioners eating canned excuses for a decent meal. Poverty is what happens when I don't care about you and you don't give a toss about me.
When budgets are tight, governments seek savings by moving people from an expensive payment to cheaper payment categories. By moving a larger number of single parents from parenting payment to the cheaper Newstart allowance the Government will effectively remove $686 million out of the hands of low income families.
Albert Camus said suicide was the one serious philosophical problem in that it poses the question as to whether life is worth living. Some suicides are a private solution to anger and despair, but others, such as suicide bombings and the recent suicide of retired pharmacist Dimitris Christoulas, are both public and coercive.
Paul Keating says he changed superannuation from an elite system to one which would include 'the bloke running behind the garbage truck'. But a new elite has left the garbo in the dust. Labor's core constituency and the economy would be much better off with the age pension rather than super.
Maria was born into poverty and did not have much luck in escaping it. Yet she was an unchallenged believer, who would say regularly, Oti thelei o Theos: Whatever God wants. This, while I would huff and puff and mutter that God helps those who help themselves. But part of me envied Maria her certainties.
When she had her first baby at 18, her neighbour asked if she was trying to make a buck from the baby bonus. Given the liberalisation of abortion laws, pregnant teens are accused of deliberately ruining their lives or ripping off the public purse if they choose to continue their pregnancies.
If you walked into a public service office in the early 1980s, you'd see typing pools, mailrooms and whole floors full of people doing routine clerical work. People with disabilities were disproportionately employed in low level positions. Today, most of those positions have gone.
Monsignor John Murphy, the recently deceased former Director of Catholic Immigration, always responded to problems as people in need. After the suspension of ordinary process following the retirement of Brisbane Archbishop John Bathersby, Catholics there may feel themselves seen as problems rather than as people.
Many Italian protesters have called 12 November a day of liberation. This is a misunderstanding of what has happened. One does not have to be a fan of Silvio Berlusconi's sordid regime to see the madness of austerity that is stripping away the sovereignty of states through the eurozone.
Many Australian politicians who should know better give the people and the media exactly what they want: rancorous confrontations and barbed insults. The 'tough' way in which Australian politics is played corrodes civility and potentially erodes our democracy.
Recently I received an email from a young man in Queensland. He was writing to thank the St Vincent de Paul Society for the stance it takes on the side of people who are demonised for being unemployed. He told me his story. Here are some bits of it.
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