Australia became one of the first countries in the world to introduce a single mothers’ benefit in 1973. This was extended to single fathers in 1977.
Social Justice
Sam Wainwright is a Socialist Alliance councillor in Fremantle. Below is a talk he gave on the topic of how to achieve social change in Australia.
Where to start with an analysis of the mining boom in Australia? Perhaps ironically, with the Independent Commission Against Corruption.
Federal independent MPs, Tony Windsor and Rob Oakeshott, have put pressure on the Julia Gillard's government to raise the Goods and Services Tax and to slash so called “middle class welfare” entitlements.
Reporting on the release of the mid-year budget update in the Canberra Times on October 22, Peter Martin wrote that “Tax collections from both wages and the GST are running ahead of projections. Dramatically lower company tax collections account for most of the $21 billion write-down.”
Socialist Alliance campaigns for enforceable anti-discrimination legislation to protect lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, people living with HIV and trans and intersex people.
Women who wear the hijab, niqab or burqa are bearing the brunt of the rise of racism against people of Muslim faith or those from a Middle Eastern background since the terrorist attacks in the US on September 1, 2001.
Policy background
The Socialist Alliance supports the right to marry regardless of gender or sexual orientation.
In other countries civil unions have been offered to the LGBTI community to placate the movement for equal marriage rights. This is not the situation in Australia, where even civil unions have been suppressed by the federal government because they “mimic marriage”. It is for this reason that the Socialist Alliance supports civil unions but will continue the campaign for marriage. Civil unions are not a substitute for marriage rights.
Policy background
Providing transport without creating greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change, or other pollutants, is a necessity. An extensive and efficient transport system can be created and, if powered by renewable energy, it will be sustainable.
Moreover, comprehensive city-wide and national networks achieve the best economies of scope and scale.
End the Liberal and Labor bipartisan policy of keeping refugees out of under the guise of attacking “people smuggling” and “border security”. Free all the refugees from detention centres in Australia and from offshore detention centres that the Australian government sub-contracts out.
For 20 years we have had employer-contributed compulsory superannuation (ECS), currently at the rate of 9% of gross income. This was “sold” as part of the social wage and as an expansion of the provision of enhanced retirement benefits for Australian workers beyond those then limited to public sector and management in the private sector.
The Socialist Alliance supports universal welfare rights for all. We are opposed to the principle of “mutual obligation” upheld by both the Coalition and the Australian Labor Party, because this is forces people into low-paid, alienating work while sabotaging existing wages and conditions for those in work.