Posted: 8:00 am on 17th May 2012
In a media release on the Indigenous Affairs part of the 2012 Budget, the federal government insists it ‘will continue to prioritise access to the new program for people seeking to move into home ownership on Indigenous land’ – but this is a furphy. The government is well aware that people living on Indigenous land will not be able to access money from the new Indigenous homeownership program as long…
Posted: 8:00 am on 15th May 2012
The Sydney Morning Herald is running a poll asking if Australians are Racist. So far 74% of respondents say yes and 26% say no. Some of the commentators include Larissa Berendt who argues that Australia is a racist country because Aboriginal people have a shorter life expectancy. However, there are many reasons why their life expectancy is shorter than the average Australian. Berendt also claims that institutional racism is rampant…
Posted: 8:00 am on 11th May 2012
This week we have witnessed the remorseless growth of the welfare state under the guise of the federal budget. Politicians, as unprincipled and unimaginative as ever, have found another excuse (‘pressure on families’) to use other people’s money to bribe voters with new and expanded entitlements. This has reinforced the impression that this country is still a ‘beautiful fool’s paradise’ (as the naysayers of Australia’s ‘working man’s welfare state’ of…
Posted: 8:50 am on 8th May 2012
As a child of divorced parents, I found myself relating to a recent article by Bettina Arndt in The Australian (‘Divorced parents decry own selfishness’). Arndt mentions how a debate has begun in Britain on whether parents who divorce are selfish – after social commentator Tim Lott admitted that although he had convinced himself that his children wouldn’t want to grow up exposed to an unhappy marriage, he no longer…
Posted: 12:49 pm on 7th May 2012
Budget rumours have included the announcement that, from 2013, all single parents who claim Parenting Payment will be expected to look for part-time work once their youngest child turns eight years of age. Those who don’t find a job will be transferred to Newstart Allowance, which pays $120 less each fortnight. Before 2006, single parents had the right to claim Parenting Payment until their youngest child turned 16, and many…
