Socialist Alliance candidate for the Geelong seat of Corio聽Sue Bull聽says聽the one-off $250 cost-of-living payment for pensioners and others struggling to survive on welfare was "an insult".
Josh Frydenberg
The government's media bargaining code bill aims to help in the transfer of profits from one section of big capital to another. It will make public interest journalism even more precarious, argues Zebedee Parkes.
Treasurer Josh Frydenberg's economic restructure plans will not only fall way short of what's needed, Graham Matthews argues they are also designed to attack working people.
National accounts figures released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) on September 4 show economic growth was slower over the 2018鈥19 financial year than at any time in the past 10 years.
After its embarrassing failure to win either popular or Senate crossbench support for its proposed big business tax cuts, the Coalition government has instead opted to bring forward tax cuts for small and medium businesses by five years.
The first few weeks of the Donald Trump administration have been extraordinary, and quite frightening 鈥 not just because of the incompetence of a president who appears to be little more than a self-obsessed idiot, but also by the actions of the dangerous ideologues at the helm of the world鈥檚 biggest economy and military power.
The Donald Trump regime in the United States is stepping up its attacks on clean energy, and emboldening the Australian federal government to do likewise.
Trump has recently appointed Scott Pruitt as Administrator of the US Environmental Protection Agency. In his first interview, Pruitt announced that he would eliminate the Clean Power Plan, introduced by President Barack Obama in 2015. The Clean Power Plan was aimed at reducing the US鈥檚 carbon emissions from power generation by 32% by 2030.
The influence of president-elect Donald Trump鈥檚 attack on 鈥渆lites鈥 is taking hold in the Australian parliament, with the Coalition attacking 鈥渓atte-sipping鈥 opponents of coal mining and joining enthusiastically in a debate questioning climate science in the Senate.
If we needed any further proof that our politicians are "fossil fools", despite recent leadership changes, look no further than the responses made by the Prime Minister and federal resources minister to the call for a moratorium on new coalmines by the President of the Pacific island nation Kiribati, Anote Tong.
The new federal energy minister Josh Frydenberg has affirmed that the Turnbull-led government will not budge from policies that afford maximum profits to the outdated and dangerous fossil fuel corporations.
Ahead of the United Nations Climate Change Conference scheduled for December in Paris, federal resources minister Josh Frydenberg has sought to invoke 鈥渁 strong moral case鈥 to justify his government's green lighting of the Carmichael mega-coalmine in the Galilee Basin.
However, his argument is as spurious as the economic justifications made by Adani and federal and Queensland governments in support of the project.