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Already the ideological die-hards of neoliberalism are working out how the pandemic might be manipulated to lower wages and to snap back to the old economic normal. So now is when collectively we need to take over the framing and the forming of the future. Not to snap back but to spring forward.
Even during this period of disruption (and, indeed, even because of it) it is so important that we pay attention to the bigger picture. So much of what we do now will lay the groundwork for the kind of future that we are able to build at end of this crisis.
A laptop or tablet and the internet are not universally available to Australian students. In 2016-17, 1.25 million Australian households lacked the internet home connection that’s required to make full use of online learning platforms like Class Dojo, where my daughter’s class is congregating during the coronavirus lockdown.
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.
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.
Pride is politically messy. When you stir together an alphabet soup of people, all of which have other intersecting identities (race, class, religion, political allegiance), you will invariably plate up a political mess. And the 2020 Sydney Mardi Gras dished quite the menu.
The Morrison government despises the working class. There is no other explanation for its behaviour. For all the ‘lifters and leaners’ or ‘workers and shirkers’ guff that we’ve seen over the years from this and past governments, the truth is that, according to the neoliberal worldview, whether you’re in paid work or on social security, you’re despised unless you belong to its own big money elite.
Contrary to their claims, the New Atheists do have a creation myth. It goes something like this: emerging from darkness into the light, Enlightenment thinkers cast off the shackles of religion and, in so doing, ushered in an age of reason. For the likes of Richard Dawkins, a founding member of the movement, this is an article of faith, and he’s spent recent years casting himself not just as an heir of this tradition, but also as its modern day guardian.
After taking account of housing costs, it is estimated that 3.24 million people, equating to more than one in eight people, are estimated to be living below the poverty line in Australia. For children, it is estimated to be one in six.
I don’t need someone to tell me at work that because I’m queer I’m going to hell. Years of church and Catholic schooling and marriage equality debate have already made the coded language very clear when I’m not welcome.
My personal experience during the first 18 months of involvement with the NDIS, was frustrating and particularly deflating for someone who had written submissions and emailed politicians and understood the potential of the scheme. My only contact seemed to be with an immovable, impossible-to-navigate bureaucracy determined to stand in the way of me receiving any support I was promised.
The modern 'old maid' is no longer confined to the attic. She's in the workforce, the senate, leading in the community. Yet while gender norms are being deconstructed and cultural ideas of femininity are evolving, the idea women exist only to procreate still persists. Women are not only supposed to have children, they're supposed to want to.
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