A new Australia Institute report reveals that a staggering 93% of income growth over the past decade in Australia went to the top 10% of income earners, reports Isaac Nellist.
inequality
Suzanne James spoke to Angela Carr, Socialist Alliance candidate for the Senate in Victoria, about housing, health, National Disability Insurance Scheme and the party's plans to address the growing socio-economic inequality crisis.
In her March 21 address to the National Press Club in Canberra, ACTU secretary Sally McManus successfully skewered the Malcolm Turnbull government for their woeful disregard for workers' rights.
So declared George Orwell’s allegorical Joseph Stalin, Napoleon the Berkshire Boar, in his 1945 classic Animal Farm. In Australia, we’ve declared war on some inequalities, like those contained in the Marriage Act, while we acquiesce to, tolerate, ignore or accept many others. Just like the animals on Orwell’s Manor Farm, in contemporary Australia, it seems all inequalities are equal but some are more equal than others.
Federal Treasurer Scott Morrison says inequality in Australia is falling, and accuses Labor of pursuing a dishonest campaign based on the "politics of envy". Morrison claims Opposition Leader Bill Shorten's statement that inequality has reached a 75-year high is a "lie".
The Australian Financial Review Rich List for 2017 features 60 billionaires — the most ever in its 34-year history. The total wealth of all "rich listers" has reached $233.1 billion, up from $197.3 billion last year.
Highest ranked among the 200 richest people in the country is paper and packaging tycoon Anthony Pratt, with a fortune of $12.6 billion. It looks like all that plastic packaging floating in the world's oceans has reaped at least one plutocrat some positive returns.
Dickensian children in factories and coal mines; Karl Marx debunks Capitalism; revolutions and war grip Europe; and inequality casts a gloomy smog over Europe. Ships depart with slaves, convicts and political dissidents bound for the New Worlds, of which Australia is one.
It is the 19th century, the century of capital — a time that will dialectically reverberate shockwaves towards the greatest revolutions, the greatest economic collapse and the greatest bombs.