The total number of jobs now advertised across Australia is about 133,000. This is the labour market for the 790,000 unemployed looking for work — and it will get a lot worse before it ever gets better.
In the financial year to June, private sector wages rose by just 2.4%, the lowest growth rate in 17 years. With consumer prices rising at 3% over the same period, the decline in real wages will continue as unemployment rises.
1022
What does it say about Australian politics when a mining billionaire who rides around in a Rolls Royce becomes the people’s champion in parliament?
The Palmer United Party (PUP), formed and largely funded by Clive Palmer, continues to disrupt the two-party game played by most politicians and their media supporters.
To them, the PUP is “maverick”, a label that fits after Palmer’s outburst this week about “communist” China trying to “take over” Australia.
The age of entitlement might be over for some, but the spooks are not among them. There are six security and intelligence services in Australia, the largest of which is the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO).
In 2004, it was getting by with 700 staff and a budget of $150 million. Now it has a staff of 1780 with a budget of $600 million at their disposal.
Recent months have seen repeated and unprecedented attacks on the unemployed and other income support recipients, with the federal budget and McLure and Forrest Reviews proposing cuts to payments for job-seekers, restricting access to the Disability Support Pension, and expanding Work for the Dole and income management.
But there are signs of resistance. Pas Forgione from the Anti-Poverty Network SA spoke to Owen Bennett, who set up the Australian Unemployment Union.
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What is the Australian Unemployment Union and what are its goals?
Independent media organisation Your World News published the following open letter to the United Nations on August 21.
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August 21, 2014
Dr. Ivan Šimonović
760 United Nations Plaza,
New York, New York 10017,
Ebola victims women
United States
Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights, United Nations
Dear Dr. Šimonović,
In New York, "Peoples Power Assemblies" and their allies called an emergency anti-police brutality demonstration on August 18. It came amid ongoing national protests against the police killing of unarmed Black teenager Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri on August 9, and the police killing of Black man Eric Garner in New York on July 17.
Demonstrators march demanding an end to police violence and the racial profiling. The photos below are by photo journalist Edward Leavy. You can see more of his photos here.
The Bolivarian Alliance of the Peoplke's of Our America (ALBA) released a statement on August 19 expressing its solidarity with the African descent communities of Missouri and with the familiy of Michael Brown, the unarmed teenager shot dead by police on August 9.
ALBA is an anti-imperialist political and economic bloc formed by Venezuela and Cuba in 2004 that now also includes Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua, St Vince and the Grenadines, Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica and Saint Lucia.
Big Kitty Life
MC Dukebox
Released December 2013
Impossible Odds Records
www.dukebox.net.au
MC Dukebox says he named his debut album "Big Kitty Life" because he was sick of seeing government funds misspent.
"It's referring to a big kitty of funding that everyone's lining up for with a different excuse for why they deserve the money and how they're going to benefit their surrounding communities," says the Indigenous rapper, who hails from Inverell in north-west NSW.
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