Last week’s conclusion of the Royal Commission into the Robodebt scheme has once again brought national attention to the program that, from 2015 to 2019, saw nearly half a million welfare recipients hounded over unlawful fake debts concocted using faulty calculations.
In the late 1960s, cryptic notes began to appear on poles and noticeboards around Chicago, directing women who were pregnant and in trouble to “call Jane”. The number provided connected them to the Jane Collective (officially the Abortion Counselling Service of Women’s Liberation), an underground network of activists providing illegal abortions in the years before the 1973 Roe vs. Wade decision. This collective is the subject of The Janes, a new HBO documentary directed by Emma Pildes and Tia Lessin.
We’re taught in school that the police perform a just and noble service—brave officers put their bodies on the line to prevent crime, protect us from violence and uphold our rights. But the real story of modern policing is different.
Last week, a 22 year old climate activist was sentenced to 12 months’ jail time for participating in the disruption of Australia’s busiest coal export chain. The harsh sentence illustrates the stark difference between the justice system’s treatment of activists putting their bodies on the line to avert climate catastrophe, and of the rich and powerful people whose environmental crimes are rapidly destroying our planet.
Victoria is on a rapid path to full reopening, even as rising case numbers continue to break records. While this is new for many, the state’s students and teachers have been on the front lines of this reckless push for weeks now. And if the situation in schools is anything to go by, we could be in for a dangerous summer.
Last Sunday’s German election was a big one. Angela Merkel’s sixteen-year chancellorship has come to an end, and Germans across the country went to the polls to decide which uninspiring member of an establishment party would replace her. But for Berliners, another important vote was cast that day: a referendum on whether to expropriate the property of the city’s biggest landlords and turn it into public housing. A stunning 56.4 percent—1,034,709 people—voted in favour.