Government health policy reinforces corporate powerThe Coalition government's Lifetime Health Cover policy has apparently worked where its previous efforts to increase private health insurance coverage have failed, thereby
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A payroll worker in the banking industry recently told me, "We're well-paid, but we're not paid for overtime. We work until the job's done." That's become a common experience over the 1990s. In the 1980s, real earnings fell but,
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Dishonest advertising"It is hard to accept that the federal government's latest GST advertisements are anything more than political propaganda ... the television campaign is devoid of any information that could plausibly be
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Canberra fiddles with more than the accountsIn the days before the federal budget was presented on May 9, media commentators expressed concern that the federal government's 2000-01 budget surplus projection of $500 million —
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Welfare rights need political defenceIn its forthcoming budget, the federal Coalition government plans to announce more programs trialing extended "mutual obligation" provisions for all unemployed people, sole parents
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Establishment economic analysts and media commentators are concerned that the federal government's 2000-01 budget surplus, projected three years ago to be $10.7 billion, was only $500 million in November. Some economists have
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Medical care for profit: a hazard to public healthPublic money is being spent to advertise the government's latest weapon in its drive to privatise health care. From July 1, the Lifetime Health Cover policy will allow private
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Hot air fills a vacuum as well as anything else, but it dissipates more easily than something solid. This has been demonstrated most recently in the political arena by the ALP. Labor's rule is: maximum posturing, minimum
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The jobs boom lieThe Coalition government puts the blinkers on when it looks at unemployment. It hides how big the problem is and is just hoping for further economic growth to make it go away. On January 25, the treasurer,
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Coalminers at the five BHP coalmines in the Illawarra region of NSW struck for a second consecutive day on February 9, claiming that BHP management harassed workers and their families during their first strike day. Construction,
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Indonesia's generals may still get away with murderThe Indonesian and United Nations human rights commissions have released their reports on the massive human rights violations that occurred in East Timor in 1999. The
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BHP's attack on the Pilbara iron ore workers can be beaten. In Australia, while big business pushes for individual contracts, millions of workers continue to want the union organisation and collective work agreements that the