Report reveals terrible scale of Australia’s housing crisis
Fewer than 6 percent of all rental listings in the country are affordable for those living on income support payments, according to Anglicare’s annual Rental Affordability Snapshot. The scale of the crisis is alarming, and particularly severe in Sydney, where only 57 out of more than 18,00...CONTINUE READING
Aged care providers avoiding tax while taking handouts
The largest six private aged care providers – BUPA, Opal, Regis, Estia, Japara and Allity – are using trusts and offshore tax havens to obscure profits and avoid paying tax, according to a recent report commissioned by the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation. Allity has paid no tax...CONTINUE READING
The system is broken, but we can’t rely on the ALP to change the rules
The system is broken. Soaring bonuses at the top, rampant wage theft below. Corporate rorts left unchecked in the executive suites, the full weight of the police, courts and governments thrown at unions taking action. The fat cats rolling in money, the mass of workers left to rot. Far from...CONTINUE READING
Victorian Socialists’ campaign gearing up
“It’s the left that have been the backbone of the same sex marriage debate; we were the backbone of stopping the East-West tunnel; we’re the backbone of fighting for workers’ rights and for public housing tenants. “We’re fed up with being political suckers. We’re fed up with doing all this...CONTINUE READING
Why we should nationalise the banks
The corporate slogan of the National Australia Bank is “More than money”. Could anything be further from the truth? For the banks, it’s only ever about money – money for senior executives, money for boards of directors and buckets more money for shareholders. The vast pools of money in the...CONTINUE READING
A simple solution to homelessness
Amid continual assaults against social security, public housing and wages, homelessness is rising in Europe, the UK, the US and Australia. An exception is Finland – where homelessness has fallen by 35 percent in the past eight years. The reason for the decrease is simple: the Finnish gover...CONTINUE READING
Banking inquiry shows how capitalism sucks
Not even the dead are safe from the predatory practices of big capital. Scarcely a month into a year-long (now possibly longer, given the scale of the crimes being uncovered) banking royal commission, we have a steady stream of revelations about bribery, deception and conning customers. AM...CONTINUE READING
Tax cuts arguments are economic blackmail
One of the main arguments put forward in favour of massive tax cuts for big business – including billions for the banks whose nefarious practices are being exposed by the royal commission – is that if they aren’t given a tax cut, they will refuse to invest or will take their money offshore...CONTINUE READING
More government handouts for Australia’s richest private schools
The Turnbull government has handed an extra $7.1 million to 102 of the richest private schools in the country. This is the first instalment of a $40 million National Adjustment Assistance Fund created to help “vulnerable and disadvantaged” schools transition to Gonski 2.0 – the cut-price L...CONTINUE READING