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Keywords: Sustainable

  • AUSTRALIA

    Priced out of parenthood: How Australia's housing crisis is lowering the birthrate

    • David James
    • 24 October 2024

    Soaring property prices and declining fertility rates are entwined in a feedback loop, threatening long-term economic stagnation. As younger Australians are priced out of the market, many are delaying or forgoing parenthood, leading to an increasingly divided and unsustainable society.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    Pope takes refugee concerns on the road

    • Robin Osborne
    • 05 September 2024

    Pope Francis has frequently voiced sympathy for refugee concerns and before leaving on this trip, he reaffirmed his call for safe migration pathways for people fleeing their own countries for fear of persecution, describing any refusal to harbour asylum seekers as a ‘grave sin’.

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  • EDUCATION

    New schools funding model will likely entrench class divides

    • Chris Curtis
    • 27 June 2024

    In the new schools funding model, schools at the upper and middle parts of the parental income spectrum will find budgets getting tighter each year, and fees will likely increase. The worst affected schools will be those whose parents earn higher incomes but which have kept their fees low so that poorer families may also enrol their children.

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  • ENVIRONMENT

    Waste more, want more

    • Sarah Bacaller
    • 06 September 2023

    Fast fashion's allure is undeniable, but the environmental and ethical tolls it exacts are staggering. With 200,000 tonnes of clothing dumped annually, the pressing question is: How can fashion be sustainable and ethical? In a world drowning in disposable clothing, can we redesign the fabric of our consumer habits? 

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Remembering Paul Mees, public transport academic and fellow traveller

    • Erica Cervini
    • 29 June 2023

    Ten years after his passing, the work of renowned academic and transportation activist Paul Mees continues to reverberate through our public transport systems and urban spaces. Unafraid to challenge the status quo, his advocacy for public transport and sustainable urban living continues to influence debates and policy.

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  • RELIGION

    The Pope's economist: Mariana Mazzucato's plan to revitalize the global economy

    • Bruce Duncan
    • 01 June 2023
    2 Comments

    Prominent figures such as Australia's Treasurer Jim Chalmers and Pope Francis are turning to economist Mariana Mazzucato for insights on reforming the neoliberal capitalist system. Her vision for an equitable and sustainable global economy, aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Goals, is influencing key discussions on economic fairness worldwide.

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  • ENVIRONMENT

    The complicated path to saving the world

    • Michael McVeigh
    • 11 April 2023

    The government’s Powering Australia Plan promises renewable energy and net-zero emissions by 2050. However, analysts warn that there is little change in the economic and bureaucratic structures that support the fossil fuel industry. Unless Australia finds a way to prosper sustainably, the country will continue to benefit from emissions while the rest of the world suffers.

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  • ECONOMICS

    Rising interest rates point to a larger problem

    • David James
    • 28 June 2022
    3 Comments

    The question that should be posed is how effective has the Reserve Bank been at ‘managing’ the economy and financial system? ‘Not very’, has to be the answer. Not that the RBA is alone. The same pattern has been seen across the developed world. Central banks have one weapon at their disposal, the cost of money (the interest rate), and there is not much evidence they have used this tool to make their systems sustainable. Mostly, they have made matters worse. 

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  • ECONOMICS

    Climate change trillions

    • David James
    • 08 November 2021
    4 Comments

    The Glasgow United Nations Climate Change Conference has been advertised as an effort to focus on sustainable environmental solutions. What got much less attention, if any, is that it is probably at least as much about having a sustainable financial system. Many noted that China, did not send its leader: Xi Jinping, president of the world’s greatest CO2 emitter. There was also another significant absence: the financiers who are hoping to profit from the trillions allocated into climate change projects.

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  • ENVIRONMENT

    The right to a healthy environment

    • Cristy Clark
    • 21 October 2021
    7 Comments

    On 8 October, at its 48th session, the United Nations Human Rights Council formally adopted a resolution recognising the human right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment. It emphasises that ‘environmental degradation, climate change and unsustainable development constitute some of the most pressing and serious threats to the ability of present and future generations to enjoy human rights, including the right to life’.

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  • ECONOMICS

    Why inflation isn't higher

    • David James
    • 12 August 2021
    4 Comments

    The biggest mystery of the financial markets is why, when the monetary authorities have been printing money with their ears pinned back, is inflation for the most part not a problem? What happens with inflation is crucial to the short-term survival of the whole system. Global debt, which is running at well over 300 per cent of global GDP, is only sustainable because interest rates are exceptionally low (the base rate in Australia is only 0.1 per cent). And interest rates are low because inflation is not a problem.

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  • INTERNATIONAL

    Giving women the opportunities to thrive

    • Kirsty Robertson
    • 09 March 2021
    11 Comments

    Empowering women and girls is also one of the most cost-effective and sustainable ways to promote positive change in a community, whether here in Australia or overseas.

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