Yasmine Johnson is the 2023 education officer of the University of Sydney Students’ Representative Council.
The cost-of-living crisis is now a constant feature of news headlines and daily life. Housing costs—from interest rate rises jacking up mortgage repayments to skyrocketing rents and house prices—have become one of the harshest aspects.
Public housing tenants in Sydney’s Glebe are being kicked out by the NSW Labor government after fighting eviction for years. The remaining residents at 82 Wentworth Park Road will be forced out in the coming weeks so that the site can be redeveloped—a process that could take years.
The Labor government is waging class war—and students are the latest to come under attack. The Albanese government has decided to maintain the system of indexation of university student loans, whereby the value of student debt rises with inflation, forcing thousands of dollars’ of extra debt onto 3 million university graduates. With inflation through the roof, the amount that those with HECS/HELP debts are expected to repay increased last year by the highest amount in a decade and is set to rise even further when indexation takes place at the start of June.
For 350 years, Dutch colonialism oversaw a system of brutal exploitation and repression in Indonesia. But in 1945, a mass movement defeated the colonial regime, despite the imprisonment, torture and execution of thousands of independence activists.