Nelson Mandela famously wrote this in his autobiography Long Walk to Freedom: “A nation should not be judged by how it treats its highest citizens, but its lowest ones.”
By this measure, Anthony Albanese’s Labor government continues to fail miserably.
At a time when every politician claims to be concerned about the rising costs of living, the Labor government continues to punch down on the most vulnerable sections of society — those who are forced to struggle on below-the-poverty-line welfare payments.
Labor refused to raise payments in its May budget and now it is about to resume a penalty system for people on welfare payments that could cut off a person’s income for four weeks for breaching unreasonable conditions.
Welfare groups pointed out, in a joint statement on August 13, that these penalties were paused because the government had failed to administer the law correctly. The Commonwealth Ombudsman found 964 people had had their income support unlawfully cancelled, between April 2022 and July 2024 — on the recommendation of a privatised employment service.
“A second Ombudsman’s report found more than half of the penalty recommendations made by private employment services organisations were later overturned. However, this occurred after people had already been forced into financial crises … Independent analysis by Economic Justice Australia found more than 300,000 people were potentially affected by unlawful payment cancellations,” they said.
“Losing income support has catastrophic consequences for people in poverty, causing significant distress ... It means going without food, missing rent and potential homelessness.”
First Nations people and people with disabilities are disproportionately affected by these welfare penalties framework and this only reinforces the systematic discrimination and prejudice they have to deal with.
Both Labor and Coalition parties and the corporate media have long demonised people on welfare; this has severely undermined solidarity for these vulnerable sections of society.
Even in this wealthy country, one in six children are in households struggling on incomes below the poverty line and more older women are being forced into poverty and homelessness.
With worsening housing and cost-of-living crises, the impending cuts to the National Disability Insurance Scheme, and the prospect of mass unemployment as the capitalists introduce Artificial Intelligence and other new technologies, more than the current estimate of 3.7 million — 14.2% of the population — may be forced into poverty.
As capitalism takes us deeper into crisis, the majority needs to recognise that building up solidarity to resist the toxic billionaire class-funded campaigns is in our interest.
It is not just in our immediate interests, that is to resist the hate, war and environmental devastation that the Donald Trump administration is foisting on the world (and his admirers in Australia want to imitate). It is also in our long-term interest.
We need to break from the crazy capitalist spiral, driven by the insatiable profit greed of a small minority, which is becoming immensely richer. Elon Musk’s wealth grew by more than a million dollars a minute over the last year, Oxfam calculated, and for a while this year he became the world’s first trillionaire.
Wealth like this is hard to comprehend, but Oxfam has provided a useful mind experiment. Imagine Musk spending a million dollars a day; to spend a trillion dollars you would need 2740 years.
It is not hard to imagine how much bad stuff can be done with such a wealth concentration, because we are all experiencing the horrible impact of Musk’s algorithmic manipulation of his social media empire to promote hate, white supremacy, imperial war and climate denial.
We desperately need more solidarity to survive these monstrous times.
But we also need to build an alternative to the capitalist system that has brought us to this point. That system has to be based on solidarity and respect for our global environment.
That is what Green Left has been fighting for since 1991. We have done so because readers like you have become supporters, made generous donations over the years and committed to remembering Green Left in their wills. United we stand, divided we fall.