The government is keen to push its omnibus savings bill through parliament.
AAP/Mick Tsikas
We need to ask on what basis the government is making its budget savings a ‘moral’ issue, and how the opposition can possibly support it.
The issue of child poverty and its links to housing costs are not widely acknowledged in Australia.
from www.shutterstock.com
Income poverty statistics tell us relatively little about why Australian children live in poverty, or how to alleviate it. But housing plays a critical part in the problem.
Generous superannuation tax breaks for the rich are creating inequality, analysis shows.
Alan Porritt/AAP
Both the government and opposition’s proposed reforms to the superannuation system will target generous tax breaks given mostly to wealthy retirees.
Professor Sir Michael Marmot: ‘Health is a better measure of social progress than national income.’
NHS Confederation
Professor Sir Michael Marmot explains how the conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work and age, determine their risk of poor health.
“Black hair” has sparked a new racism row at a top South African school.
Yves Herman/Reuters
Schools need to adapt and evolve in changing circumstances and conditions as their students’ demographic composition shifts.
Not everyone has a fair go at living a long, healthy and prosperous life.
De Visu/Shutterstock
How do inequities of wealth and income manifest in Australia? And what are the implications for the nation’s health?
The world changed dramatically after the 2008 financial crisis and central banks are adjusting.
Shutterstock
The 2008 financial crisis exposed major gaps in central banks’ operations. New features like quantitative easing have since emerged.
South Africa’s Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan is a hunted man.
Mujahid Safodien/EPA
A row between South Africa’s finance minister and the country’s Directorate for Priority Crime Investigations has prompted academics to pen an open letter asking President Jacob Zuma to intervene.
Flotsam mixes with the marginal São José community, overlooked by new-build apartment blocks in Brazil.
Fernando da Veiga Pessoa Flickr
Money and resources in Latin America often don’t reach those who need them most – and criminal gangs are on hand to take advantage.
Australia is becoming more unequal. And Australia’s wealthiest people don’t seem to want to do anything about it.
AAP/Joel Carrett
There is a view that philanthropy from super-wealthy individuals, rather than government policy, will be the force that changes the world for the better. But this seems unlikely in Australia.
shutterstock.com
The ever-widening gap between CEO and average worker pay has its roots in collective action by executives.
We have become collectively richer but much more unequal.
from www.shutterstock.com
Australia has become collectively richer but much more unequal in recent decades.
A polarized nation.
Chris Schneider/Reuters
Income inequality and political polarization have both surged in recent decades and are the worst they’ve ever been. Is one causing the other?
Deprivation makes it worse.
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One in four people experience a mental health problem in any give year.
Those living through the first Renaissance recognised that their age offered blinding possibilities, but that any gains would have to be achieved amid relentless shocks. The same is true today.
Shutterstock
The first Renaissance struggled with the same doubts and uncertainties and blinding possibilities that we face today. Any gains we make will have to be achieved amid relentless shocks.
The Sirius building in 2014: only 12 or so residents are now left and they will soon be moved on.
Jenny Noyes/New Zulu
Sydney’s Sirius building - a brutalist classic, providing public housing with waterfront views - will soon be gone. Its loss speaks volumes about our contemporary values and architecture’s shift away from utopianism.
Who is being left out?
Brian Snyder/Reuters
Pell Grants, the federal aid program for low-income students, are down to covering only 30 percent of tuition, from 80 percent in the 1970s.
Blacks faced violent attacks led by white Confederates after the Civil War ended.
Wikimedia Commons
The struggle for equal rights for black citizens in the U.S. today is backed by the promise of the 14th Amendment. A historian takes us back to the grassroots movements that led to its passage.
Older Australians choosing to downsize or access their home equity face tax penalties.
Image sourced from shutterstock.com
The current system is causing inefficiencies in housing markets, but governments seem unwilling to act.
HILDA data shows superannuation will soon overtake the family home as the major asset owned by Australians.
Paul Miller/AAP
Superannuation changes are sorely needed because recent data shows only a small number of wealthy Australians are accumulating wealth through it.