Australian Atheists Forum

The minister cannot claim ignorance – the Antipoverty Centre wrote to her calling for changes when the committee was first announced and our calls have been supported by many others.

While paid advocates, academic experts, unions, business and economists have contributions to make, they are not experts in the needs of those of us suffering the consequences of existing social policies that leave us behind.

The expertise of people directly experiencing poverty and economic exclusion must carry more weight than those who speak over and for us.

kcarruthers@mastodon.social
kcarruthers
@kcarruthers@mastodon.social

The government is refusing to halt a part of the welfare system that allows private employment service providers to decide when to suspend welfare payments for jobseekers, essentially outsourcing compliance to private companies that profit from the scheme.

The system has negatively affected more than 230,000 people and leads to the suspension of more than 35,000 payments a week.

Australian Unions
@unionsaustralia
Noticed a cheeky increase in prices at your local duopoly supermarket?

Report a price gouge here and hold them accountable:

https://pricegouginginquiry.actu.org.au ... ubmission/

Bumper year for the duopoly

Woolworths Group, which owns the largest supermarket in the country, posted a $1.62 billion annual profit in August. This figure takes in all divisions of the company, including Big W and New Zealand supermarkets. Earnings from the company's Australian supermarkets alone (before tax and interest) was $2.86 billion, a whopping 19% year-on-year leap.

Meanwhile, Coles Group, owner of the second-largest supermarket, posted a $1.1 billion annual profit. Its supermarket arm alone posted a before-tax and interest earning of $1.76 billion, up a more modest 2.9% on last year.

The huge profits are not going unnoticed by shoppers. Graham Dawson, who lives in one of Australia's most advantaged local government areas, North Sydney, says while he counts himself lucky to be able to afford the rising prices at his local Woolworths, they still come as a shock.

There is a feeling of powerlessness against the big corporations - Shopper Graham Dawson

"Every time I go into the supermarket I find something has gone up. I thought some of it might be temporary and it might go down, but the only thing that has gone down is avocados," he says. "Everything else is going up."

Graham estimates that his grocery bills have gone up significantly in the last year.

"There is a feeling of powerlessness against the big corporations that – despite the difficult circumstances they say they are in – are posting huge profits," he says.

We the signatories call for the continued human rights violations by the city of Victoria against its unsheltered population in the past year to be fully investigated, exposed, and legally challenged.

At the latest Point-in-Time homeless count, 242 people were found to be unsheltered in Victoria. Every reasonable observer estimates the actual count to be considerably higher.

Shelter space, in contrast, has been shrinking precipitously in the past few years. Notably, the city of Victoria failed to open Emergency Weather Response shelters last winter, even after securing funding from BC Housing, leading to a humanitarian crisis on the ground. The recent closure of Tiny Town, a village of transitional housing units, exacerbates this crisis.

One year into the current council's mandate, not only has this shortage not been addressed, the council has instead launched a predatory campaign against the unsheltered population by closing the majority of its parks to sheltering. It even resorts to hostile architecture such as building 'park improvements' wherever the homeless are known to set up camp. And it is set to permanently close all but three remote parks to sheltering, knowing full well the unsheltered population cannot be crammed into the remaining area under the terms of its own bylaws.

Furthermore, the city is constructively chasing the unsheltered away from essential amenities such as community centres and harm reduction services, despite many experiencing mobility issues preventing them from walking the distance back and forth every day, thus infringing upon the rights of people with disabilities under both Article 15 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms and Section 8 of the British Columbia Human Rights Code.

As for its recent motion calling for more overnight shelter space, it only adds insult to injury since the initiative was set to fail from the onset. No tangible plan has been announced by November 1st, as the conversation has been purposefully postponed until October. And no reasonable observer expects any implementation by December, as Mayor Alto recently suggested, especially after the Alliance to End Homelessness in the Capital Region admitted to pulling out of coordinating seasonal shelters.

Second, she said inflation in the services sector, which relies mostly on domestic labour and goods inputs, was a sign that consumer demand remained stronger than the Australian economy could handle.

"Hairdressers and dentists, dining out, sporting and other recreational activities – the prices of all these services are rising strongly," she noted.

"This reflects domestic economic conditions and is an indication that aggregate demand is sufficiently greater than aggregate supply to sustain these price increases."

The federal government wants charitable giving to double by 2030, and at the start of the year asked the Productivity Commission to investigate potential barriers to philanthropy.

Australians donated more than $13 billion to charities in 2021, up 17 per cent since 2017 in real terms, according to the commission’s draft report.

Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities and Treasury Andrew Leigh said increasing charitable donations in Australia would require a concerted effort.

“We’re going to be working on all fronts in order to double giving,” he said.

That included making it easier for people to make bequests to charities, encouraging more ultra-wealthy Australians to sign the Giving Pledge, founded by Bill Gates, Melinda French Gates and Warren Buffett, to contribute the bulk of their wealth to philanthropic causes during their life or in their wills, and boosting take-up of workplace giving initiatives.

Leigh said 30 per cent of workers had access to workplace giving programs, where employers deduct charitable donations from before-tax pay, but fewer than 2 per cent of employees used them.

The government would like more workers to take up these schemes.