The promised surpluses won’t last unless we stop giving older Australians more and more and asking them to pay less and less.
Supporters outside the offices of the Fair Work Commission in Melbourne on Friday, June 1, 2018 after it lifted the minimum wage by 3.5%
JOE CASTRO/AAP
Granting low-wage workers a “living wage” instead of a minimum wage is far from costless, and there are much better ways of helping people genuinely in need.
Lifters versus leaners is the language of the past. We are likely to see it less.
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Peter Whiteford, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University
Budgets will increasingly acknowledge that welfare is about us, rather than us versus them.
Under the ParentsNext that was delivered, some parents lose payments for failing to attend appointments and others don’t.
Shutterstock/Department of Jobs and Small Business
ParentsNext has punitive dimensions that threaten people’s human rights. Now a Senate Committee will determine whether it’s helping or harming vulnerable parents and their children.
The Conversation played host to really important new ideas in 2018. Some will take years to develop. Others will never come to fruition. But they’re important.
Labor would work with community housing providers, the residential construction sector and institutional investors.
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In his Sunday announcement, Shorten says the ALP’s ten-year plan to build 250,000 houses and units would be Australia’s “biggest ever investment in affordable housing”.
Newstart should be lifted by mush more than usually proposed, a new ANU algorithm finds.
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A new ANU computer algorithm can provide near instant answers about how to get the best bang for welfare dollars. It says we should boost Newstart and cut either pensions or family benefits.
Single parents have been made worse off by the Howard, Rudd, Gillard, Abbott and Turnbull governments. It’s time to take stock.
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Peter Whiteford, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University; Ben Phillips, Australian National University; Bruce Bradbury, UNSW Sydney; David Stanton, Australian National University; Matthew Gray, Australian National University, and Miranda Stewart, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University
Fixing Newstart isn’t enough. We need a comprehensive inquiry into our complex and bewildering social security system, especially as it applies to single parents.
The Brotherhood of St Laurence’s “Share the Pie” campaign posters are appearing at Canberra bus stops.
Brotherhood of St Laurence/supplied
Brotherhood of St Laurence’s Conny Lenneberg on Newstart, poverty and inequality
Executive Director of Brotherhood of St Laurence Conny Lenneberg spoke to The Conversation about the inequality created by the low level of Newstart, which hasn't been boosted for many years.
There is hyperbole in the way evidence for welfare drug testing is being presented.
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Christian Porter said Australia’s welfare system ‘was costing over 100% of all income tax raised’ under Labor after the GFC, and that it’s ‘around 80%’ under the Coalition. Is that true?
Social Services Minister Christian Porter, speaking on Q&A.
Q&A
Social Services Minister Christian Porter told Q&A that ‘rates of drug use amongst unemployed are 2.5 times higher than amongst employed people’. Is that correct?
President Obama unveils ‘Prague Agenda’ on nukes in 2009.
EPA
With a $1 trillion modernisation programme signed off and atomic scientists deeply worried about the future, American policy on nuclear weapons is pretty much business as usual.
The government is keen to push its omnibus savings bill through parliament.
AAP/Mick Tsikas
The Asylum Seeker Resource Centre’s Kon Karapanagiotidis said that what a politician can claim for a one night stay in Canberra is equivalent to an entire week on Newstart. Is that true?
ACOSS has called for a boost to Newstart payments.
AAP/Julian Smith
Having made a commitment to reduce spending, the federal government will have its work cut out with this year’s budget, which may require revisiting policy ideas that have caused it pain in the past.
At its peak in 1996, nearly 25% of Australia’s working-age population was receiving basic income support benefits.
AAP/Dan Peled
What aspects of the government’s reforms succeeded in assisting people into employment? And did the reforms improve the population’s economic well-being? Or have they left some groups worse off?