Keywords: Federal Budget
There are more than 200 results, only the first 200 are displayed here.
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RELIGION
- Andrew Hamilton
- 07 August 2014
9 Comments
Contrary to the message of this year's Federal Budget, there is much more to people than their ability to work. When we come to know the disadvantaged well we are often impressed as much by their resilience as by their great need and their fragility. Their worth is not defined by their economic contribution.
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CARTOON
- Fiona Katauskas
- 06 August 2014
1 Comment
View this week's offering from Eureka Street's award winning political cartoonist.
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AUSTRALIA
- Catherine Magree
- 29 July 2014
22 Comments
Imagine how the quality of the debate would improve if those who blamed the victims of poverty and illness for their plight were publicly labelled welfare sceptics or denialists, and forced to back up their claims. Social research academics would be thrust into the spotlight. If this issue received the scrutiny it deserves in the media there would be a sea change in attitudes to poverty, unemployment and income support over time.
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AUSTRALIA
- John Warhurst
- 28 July 2014
13 Comments
Our national mourning following the recent airline tragedy is spontaneous and scattered but also requires leadership. This is primarily a job for our elected or appointed leaders. This means Prime Ministers and Premiers and Governors-General and Governors. The awful tragedy comes at a time when the federal government is lagging badly in public opinion. It will be fascinating to see how their performance is judged in the next polls.
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AUSTRALIA
- Andrew Hamilton
- 03 July 2014
5 Comments
The Victorian Government has started to recommission its community sector programs. To simplify administration of community mental health services, it has awarded tenders to large organisations and withdrawn funding from small specialised innovative programs that were effective because of the quality of the relationships they had built up.
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AUSTRALIA
A week ago I get a phone call from the CEO of Northern Territory Vinnies, for whom I am council secretary. Could I come in and sign a letter about emergency relief before the next council meeting? 'Of course.' The letter is produced and, being conscientious, I actually read it. The Federal Government is offering Darwin Vinnies additional ER funds for the rest of the year. And I stop. I am not comfortable.
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AUSTRALIA
- Andrew Hamilton
- 19 June 2014
28 Comments
Many Australians, myself included, believed that the Federal Budget was unfair. So Treasurer Joe Hockey's recent speech in defence of its fairness offers a welcome challenge. Hockey is right to insist that fairness can co-exist with gradations of wealth within society. But fairness is incompatible with gross disparity of wealth because the concentration of wealth in the hands of few people and corporations destroys equality of opportunity.
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EDUCATION
An unregulated fee regime will result in an increase in course costs and will mean substantially larger debts for students after their periods of study. The prestigious Group of Eight institutions can be expected to exploit their reputational positions to charge top dollar. How does a 17-year-old decide whether selecting the degree from the prestige university over the same course at a newer institution justifies an extra decade of debt?
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AUSTRALIA
- Michael Mullins
- 02 June 2014
4 Comments
The Pope says we have 'forgotten how to weep'. The most potent moments in current affairs television occur when a person is shown to cry, yet we're taught to believe that 'breaking down' means that we're not in command of the argument. Julie Bishop could not have been unmoved if the jostling Sydney University students had instead wept over the lost educational opportunity in the Federal Budget.
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AUSTRALIA
The Budget was one of most vicious attacks on ordinary people that we have seen in recent Australian history. We are not in the throes of a fiscal crisis but if we embark on this treacherous path we will be staring down the barrel of a social crisis. But we have a secret weapon. It is called solidarity. Even though we name it openly and proudly, it remains a secret weapon because those who do not practise it can never understand it.
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EDUCATION
- Dean Ashenden
- 28 May 2014
1 Comment
The Government doesn't want it. Shorten does. He can go to the next election with uncontested ownership of one of the most widely supported proposals of recent times. The problem with Gonski's plan, however, is that he wasn't allowed or able to propose solutions anywhere near as big as the problems his review uncovered. This presents Shorten with a tricky dilemma.
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AUSTRALIA
- Paul O'Callaghan
- 23 May 2014
6 Comments
Last week the Federal Government committed to a much smaller and 'just in our neighbourhood' aid program for the long term. This major shift sent a perplexing signal to the world, with Australia abandoning Africa's poorest at a time when Australian mining investment in Africa continues to boom.
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