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Section: Australia

  • AUSTRALIA

    Can't go home if there's no home to go to

    • Danusia Kaska
    • 08 April 2020
    5 Comments

    The COVID-19 pandemic came swiftly and without any warning to turn our lives upside down. But while many of us are living the routine of our lives very differently now, people who are homeless or those at risk of homelessness are experiencing this pandemic in an acutely difficult way.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Social responsibility means care for all of the vulnerable

    • Celeste Liddle
    • 02 April 2020
    7 Comments

    While there have been endless social media posts, political campaigns and the like about staying safe by staying at home, I have been concerned about the many people who are not safe at home and what this may mean to them. What will this mean for the woman who’s been living with a domestic violence perpetrator for years?

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Government needs to freeze rent and mortgages

    • Sangeetha Thanapal
    • 31 March 2020
    5 Comments

    The long queues outside Centrelink and the crashes on the website have fuelled the fears of many people, including myself, that one wrong sentence in the application means we will be denied relief, or worse, that even if we are eligible, the money could take weeks to come in, way past the point of financial solvency.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    COVID-19, democracy and voting

    • Binoy Kampmark
    • 31 March 2020
    4 Comments

    In Australia, every politician from Canberra to the Northern Territory is insisting on isolation measures and avoiding close contact, keeping to distances of 1.5 to 2 metres. When it comes to the very practice of democracy and political representation, the social distancing imperative has been approached with confusing inconsistency.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Social connectivity in a pandemic

    • Jane Britt
    • 30 March 2020
    5 Comments

    It’s a stressful and anxious time for many people. Yet, the expression to ‘look for the helpers’ whenever a crisis occurs is an apt one in this situation. People are looking for social connectivity and ways to express kindness to others in practising social distancing under direction of medical experts.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    The odd heroism of doing nothing

    • Joel Hodge
    • 27 March 2020
    7 Comments

    We are living in a time of pandemic but it seems so many people have been more focused on panic buying or flouting restrictions on social distancing and public gatherings. Why is it that many are less concerned about the virus than what they can buy or do?

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Imagining life after COVID-19

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 25 March 2020
    33 Comments

    To think of life after COVID-19 is daunting. The changes that it has brought to our daily lives have been vertiginous. Our awareness of its potential harm is still limited. We are only beginning to catch sight of the grim beast that slouches towards us threatening death and devastation in coming months.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Buying local in a global pandemic

    • Sarah Klenbort
    • 24 March 2020
    10 Comments

    This morning there is fresh graffiti in the tunnel on the bike path: ‘No Income Still Pay Rent’. And it hits me like a punch in the gut: I still have a job, an income. I’m lucky.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    We need a robust democracy now more than ever

    • John Warhurst
    • 23 March 2020
    20 Comments

    COVID-19 brings many tests. Amid the health, economic and financial crises brought about by the pandemic, our greatest test is to conduct ourselves as a robust democracy and to demonstrate that we are a fair society. Neither test will be easy to pass, but we must aim to emerge at the other end as a better society.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Staying social while social distancing

    • Marnie Vinall
    • 19 March 2020
    4 Comments

    Although this is a necessary step to stop the spread of COVID-19 — and especially in order to protect those most vulnerable in our communities such as the elderly and immunocompromised — being confined at home is going to take its toll on the mental wellbeing of many of us.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Keep your distance

    • Kate Galloway
    • 17 March 2020
    18 Comments

    How to make sense of what is going on? I think that there are ostensibly competing discourses at play. Apart from widespread community concern, or even fear, I see three different spheres of risk that are melding together in the collective (non-expert) consciousness: public health, personal health, and workplace health and safety.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    We are all in this together

    • Cristy Clark
    • 12 March 2020
    24 Comments

    This behaviour did not come out of nowhere. It has been carefully cultivated through over 40 years of neoliberal economic policies that have made it blatantly clear to people that they are on their own and will absolutely be left to fall if they don’t scramble their way to the top of the heap — supported, if necessary, by their own accumulated rolls of toilet paper.

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