Graham Matthews

  • Who pays for the recession?

    On April 21, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd finally conceded that “it’s inevitable that Australia … will be dragged into recession”.

  • Government savages job centres

    In the biggest shake-up of job centres since the Howard government’s replacement of the Commonwealth Employment Service (CES) with the privatised Job Network in 1998, the federal Labor government has created a new Job Services Australia (JSA) network. It halves the number of not-for-profit agencies involved and cuts thousands of jobs.

  • Safe as houses?

    The federal government is hoping those who receive their $900 “stimulus package” payment from April 6 spend and spend big.

  • Not quite Brideshead

    Easy Virtue
    Directed by Stephan Eliot
    Written by Stephan Eliot and Sheridan Jobbins
    With Jessica Biel, Ben Barnes, Kristin Scott Thomas & Colin Firth
    In cinemas

  • Wage justice for low-paid workers

    The federal ALP government, in league with employer organisations and conservative economists, wants workers — in particular the lowest paid and most vulnerable — to pay for the economic downturn.

  • Justice for Africans

    Soubhi Iskander is a leading member of the Sudanese Australia Human Rights Association, a committee based in Sydney’s west, that campaigns for the rights of Sudanese refugees. SAHRA is also an affiliate of the Socialist Alliance.

  • Gov't scapegoats migrants, cuts quota

    On March 16, federal immigration minister Chris Evans announced that the Rudd government would cut the skilled migration intake for the current financial year by 18,500. This, claimed Evans in a ministerial statement, would “protect local jobs”.

  • Who pays for the downturn?

    National accounts figures, released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics on March 4, showed that the Australian economy contracted by 0.5% in the three months to December, despite the federal government’s $10.6 billion stimulus package, which was paid out to pensioners and families before Christmas.

  • Govt robs 'wealthy' to pay pensioners

    On February 27, the federal government received a report on the review of the pensions system conducted by Jeff Harmer, the head of the families and community services department.

  • Capitalism and unemployment — a Marxist view

    With the looming downturn, the federal government expects that a further 300,000 people will be on the unemployment line by the middle of 2010. It expects that the unemployment rate will reach around 7%, around 800,000 people. Others have predicted unemployment could reach as high as 9%.