Tuesday, July 04, 2006
Monday, July 03, 2006
NAIDOC week: Respect the Past - Believe in the Future
NAIDOC celebrates the survival of Indigenous culture and the Indigenous contribution to modern Australia. NAIDOC Week celebrations in 2006 are from 2 to 9 July.
The national theme for 2006 is, Respect the Past - Believe in the Future.
NAIDOC 2006 Poster Competition Winning Entry by Charmaine Green, from Geraldton Western Australia.
NAIDOC Week Programming in the ABC
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Howard's new law: Get the sack and starve
Workers who are unfairly sacked face eight weeks without welfare assistance and have no avenue of appeal under 'welfare to work' laws.Labor employment spokeswoman Penny Wong says under the industrial relations changes an employer can sack a worker for misconduct and there is nothing the worker can do.
Ms Wong says the worker then faces eight weeks living on charity.
"The Howard Government is leaving these workers like a shag on a rock, having to rely on friends and family, on their kindness," she said.
"And it is an example on how out of touch this Government is that it believes Australian families can sustain themselves for eight weeks without any income support whatsoever."
Saturday, July 01, 2006
Howard's $1bn cuts: from disabled, parents' welfare
The Government will slash $1 billion from welfare to single parents and the disabled over the next three years, it has confirmed just before the start of its new Welfare to Work regime today.
With the Government predicting a budget surplus of $10.8 billion this year and preparing to hand out $36.7 billion in tax cuts over the next four years, welfare advocates and others have questioned its reduced support for some of Australia's most vulnerable.
According to figures from the Australian Council of Social Service, from today 158,000 people who would have received a disability or parenting pension will be forced onto the lower Newstart allowance if they are assessed as being able to work 15 hours a week. This will mean $46 a week less for disabled people and $29 a week less for single parents, according to the National Centre for Economic and Social Modelling
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The Federal Opposition says the Government's new welfare-to-work laws hurt the most vulnerable people in society.
Catholic Welfare Australia says the move is dangerous and could have disastrous consequences.
The Opposition's employment spokeswoman, Penny Wong, agrees.
She says 60,000 people with a disability and 70,000 single parents face a massive loss of support.
"Now clearly all of us agree, someone who can work should work but the Howard Government's botched welfare changes fail to tackle the reasons why so many Australians remain jobless," she said. "Their changes reduce the incentive to work, make it harder to study or train, and most importantly focus on cutting the household budgets of some of our most vulnerable Australians by nearly 20 per cent."
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With the Government predicting a budget surplus of $10.8 billion this year and preparing to hand out $36.7 billion in tax cuts over the next four years, welfare advocates and others have questioned its reduced support for some of Australia's most vulnerable.
According to figures from the Australian Council of Social Service, from today 158,000 people who would have received a disability or parenting pension will be forced onto the lower Newstart allowance if they are assessed as being able to work 15 hours a week. This will mean $46 a week less for disabled people and $29 a week less for single parents, according to the National Centre for Economic and Social Modelling
read more
The Federal Opposition says the Government's new welfare-to-work laws hurt the most vulnerable people in society.
Catholic Welfare Australia says the move is dangerous and could have disastrous consequences.
The Opposition's employment spokeswoman, Penny Wong, agrees.
She says 60,000 people with a disability and 70,000 single parents face a massive loss of support.
"Now clearly all of us agree, someone who can work should work but the Howard Government's botched welfare changes fail to tackle the reasons why so many Australians remain jobless," she said. "Their changes reduce the incentive to work, make it harder to study or train, and most importantly focus on cutting the household budgets of some of our most vulnerable Australians by nearly 20 per cent."
read more
AWAs: the facts revealed
The Government's own Office of the Employment Advocate has admitted that
- every new AWA individual contract it has registered since the Government's new IR laws came into affect have removed at least one award condition
- 64% of AWAs have removed workers' right to leave loading
- 63% cut penalty rates and overtime; 52% cut shift loadings
- 40% stripped away public holidays
- 16% removed ALL protected award conditions
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