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25.01.2022 CORONA & THE COMMON GOOD In the autumn of 2020, for two months, Australia united around the common good pro bono publico. When the scale of the approaching threat of coronavirus became evident, two unprecedented things happened. First, Australian governments, federal and state, chose to put aside politics and ideology and based their policy on the advice of health experts. ... Secondly, the Australian people trusted that our governments were actually acting to avoid a national catastrophe. So, remarkably, a public consensus formed around the need to uphold the common good as a priority. What kept the vast majority of people in their homes was not the possibility of fines, it was this shared belief that our individual welfare depended on the welfare of others. And what kept us resolute were the images of mass graves in countries where there was no leadership and no consensus regarding the common good. That is why Australia was successful in containing the virus. But after two months the consensus regarding the common good started to come apart for several reasons. Read the rest of my article in Pro Bono News: https://probonoaustralia.com.au//corona-and-the-common-go/
24.01.2022 This is a beautiful video about friendship and swimming in the ocean. https://vimeo.com/437709205?ref=em-share
24.01.2022 ENOUGH!! In all my years as a journalist, I have never before heard the voices of women booming across Australia with cries of : ENOUGH!! I salute the courage of Katharine Thornton, Grace Tame and Brittany Higgins as catalysts of this upheaval.... One in 5 Australian women have been the victims of sexual violence. Too few have found justice through the legal system. From cradle to grave, women are subjected to predatory sexual attack. It is not exceptional, it is rampant. The scale of the sexual abuse throughout a woman’s life cycle is breathtaking. Schoolgirls in their thousands gave testimonies and signed a petition initiated by Chanel Contos about sexual assault from all-boys’ school students in Sydney. The latest issue of Vogue carries the very disturbing headline: For young Australian women, sexual assault is unremarkable. The article is by Dr. Joy Townsend who through her work as a researcher and educator has learned that sexual assault is an ordinary fixture of life. But there is no age limit to rape and sexual violence. The Royal Commission into Aged Care revealed that there are over 50 sexual assaults per week committed against women in residential aged care. Overall, investigators estimated that over 32,000 assaults - physical, sexual and emotional - had occurred in a year in such homes. The abuse was perpetrated by carers as well as other residents. How can this be allowed to happen? As if this wasn’t horrendous enough, 58% of staff in residential aged care said that sexual assault had "no impact on the victim. This was their response to a KPMG survey of 1,730 incidents of sexual assault in the 178 residential aged care homes. I believe that this goes way beyond ageism. It goes way beyond discriminating against the old. It actually dehumanises them. To dare to say that because these women are old they are not capable to having the normal female response to rape is to deprive them of their humanity. Perhaps they are unable to verbally express their feelings because of dementia. Instead, it appears that their response is often just to die. The staff who hold these views are emotionally crippled and have no place working in aged care. I would like to hear your views in the comments below.
23.01.2022 Wishing you all a lovely Christmas, a peaceful holiday season and a fabulous New Year. We made it through this dreadful year and it has shown we can do anything. Warmest wishes,... Augustine See more
22.01.2022 BLACK LIVES MATTER "Janine (age 61) is one of a large and growing number of older women who are homeless. Five years ago, she was made redundant from her position as an Office Manager in Perth. Despite great effort she has been unable to find a job and ultimately couldn’t afford to continue paying rent. Since beginning to live in her car 8 months ago, Janine has tried to find relatively safe places to park at night. As a result, she has accumulated parking fines which she ...simply can’t afford to pay particularly as these have compounded, had administrative fees added and now total over $3,000. When Janine was pulled over by police for allegedly speeding, she was immediately arrested for these outstanding fines and sent to prison. She doesn’t know what’s happened to her car, which contains all her worldly possessions. When ageism in the workforce combines with racism it can be a deadly combination. Janine is one of countless Indigenous women sentenced to prison for minor non-violent offences such as unpaid fines, offences for which non-Indigenous women would not be imprisoned. That is why, First Nations women represent 34% of women prisoners, but only 2% of the Australian population. Janine is just one of the women described in an article by Debbie Kilroy, the Founder of Sisters Inside and long time advocate for the rights of Indigenous women prisoners. See: https://womangoingplaces.com.au/indigenous-women-elders-im/ Ms. Kilroy's campaign, Free Her, raises funds to pay the unpaid fines of women in prisons.( See Twitter @DebKilroy)
20.01.2022 WHEN WOMEN ROAR - by Augustine Zycher The March4Justice movement has achieved something remarkable for Australian women. It has transformed decades of private suffering into mass solidarity. For the first time, tens of thousands of women ended their silence about sexual abuse and injustice.... The ‘I’ has become the ‘We’. The March4Justice protests that saw 110,000 people in 42 marches around the nation have not dissipated into silence. This is because Australian women have fundamentally changed their way of thinking. Grace Tame, Brittany Higgins and Katherine Thornton together ignited this explosion of rage. Their courage set off a spontaneous combustion of deep reserves of trauma, shame and frustration buried beneath silence. Women have had enough. The events of the last month drove home to them that it’s not an individual problem, but a society-wide bias against women seeking justice and equality. The system is rigged against women and girls. The misogyny is institutionalised. https://womangoingplaces.com.au/when-women-make-noise/
18.01.2022 You have to respect Dan Andrews for his commitment to protecting the health of the community. You also have to respect his refusal to sacrifice older people on the altar of economic growth. It was nice to hear him explaining today that these older people have value because they are the parents, grandparents or relatives of so many of us. That’s true. But that’s not all. Older people have value because they are human. Even without their descendants. Even if they have no one, which actually describes so many of them. The crisis we are facing in aged care is because older people have been devalued in our society.
15.01.2022 Leading women express their esteem for Ruth Bader Ginsburg and what she meant to them.
12.01.2022 https://apple.news/AhFCoWrk8SpONIeN2uMkzmQ
10.01.2022 PENSIONS & SUPER If Australia has a sound and sustainable pension level as claimed by Treasurer Josh Frydenberg then why did the OECD when comparing Australia to other OECD countries in November 2019 state that "Poverty rates for the elderly are very high in Australia at 23%, ten percentage points above the average. Those who rely solely on the pension for an income are forced to live below the poverty line. And they are mainly women. ... The other category of older women living below the poverty line are those aged 45-65 who lost their their jobs due to Covid or are unable to find employment due to age discrimination. They have all been forced back below the poverty line with the cut in Jobseeker. What we are seeing is the perpetuation of poverty. Once women reach the age of 45, certainly by 50, if their sole source of income is Jobseeker or the pension, they will never again be able to rise out of poverty and even homelessness. This is why it is imperative that younger women oppose the Federal Government’s attempts to freeze super. It will also freeze their super at 47% of the super of their male peers. This will freeze them into disadvantage and ensure their ageing is less sustainable. Two generations of Australian women enduring impoverishment and economic insecurity is enough already.
10.01.2022 THE COMMON GOOD -by Augustine Zycher Editor WomanGoingPlaces.com.au J ust as there can be no economic recovery without the full participation of women, so too there can be no common good that disadvantages women. Nor can we speak of an Australian common good that does not fully include First Nations people. Constitutional recognition is fundamental to the acknowledgement of First Nations people in the common good. ... Climate change is the biggest common good issue facing the planet. Having set the precedent of a government-led health response policy based on scientific evidence and advice, the Australian government will have no credibility rejecting the science on climate change. Businesses too will need to act more in line with the common good on a range of issues. More and more companies are committing themselves to social purpose as well as profit. It not only brings about a more positive social impact but also translates into many business advantages. One of the positive and encouraging legacies of this COVID-19 period is the recognition of just how much can be achieved when we are united for the common good. Read the rest of my article.au/corona-the-common-good/ https://womangoingplaces.com.au/corona-the-common-good/
09.01.2022 SUMMARY OF WHAT WE LEARNED FROM SENATE COMMITTEE ON CHRISTINE HOLGATE It was extraordinary to see Pauline Hanson, Bridget McKenzie, Sarah Hanson-Young united in exposing the duplicity & bullying behind the removal of Christine Holgate from her position as CEO of Australia Post. The key points are that Ms. Holgate: 1. Was humiliated by the Prime Minister Morrison and bullied by Chair Bartolomeo. 2. Was an extremely successful & popular CEO, a woman of integrity who did nothing... illegal or particularly extravagant. The AusPost Board approved the watches as a bonus for a remarkably beneficial achievement for AusPost. 3. Did not resign but intended to take sick leave.The Chair then initiated her removal through a series of highly questionable acts.So much so, that Pauline Hanson argued that in fact due to this improper process, Ms.Holgate is still legally under contract the CEO of Australia Post. 4. Said she was going through hell and suicidal in desperation over the injustice of her treatment and the lies fabricated by the Chair. It is unlikely that a male CEO would have been treated in a similar way. And as Ms. Holgate pointed out, there are males in the Cabinet facing much more serious charges, but only she was forced to go. 5. The Chair was acting on the directive of PM Morrison who dismissed Ms. Holgate from the floor of Parliament. 6. Bottom line: The Government wanted Ms. Holgate removed because she opposed the secret report of the Boston Consulting Group that reportedly planned privatisation of Australia Post. One of the key reasons for Ms. Holgate's opposition was because it would mean the firing of thousands of staff from AusPost. See more
09.01.2022 We need to look at ageing in Australia as a gender issue. Australian women are ageing quite differently to the majority of men. Covid19 has exacerbated the significant disadvantage older women experience on every measure of economic and social wellbeing compared to men.... It has also increased their social isolation and worsened their precarious financial position. For women, ageing is a process of devaluation. If you are a woman over 50 in Australia and have no financial security, your prospects are increasingly grim. You will most likely face long-term unemployment, impoverishment and even homelessness. When you become dependent on in-home care you will join the 100,000 waiting up to 3 years for aged care packages. Government figures released at the beginning go the year showed that around 30,000 people had died waiting in the last two years. If you are in private residential care you will likely have to deal with insufficient staff, lack of nurses and failure of government oversight. In these circumstances you are in danger of facing a preventable death due to unavailable or sub-standard care. Read the rest of my article below.
08.01.2022 The institutionalised inequality women suffer in the workforce throughout their working lives increases exponentially as they age. Pre-pandemic, women over 45 who were unemployed were finding themselves unable to find jobs and were effectively locked out of the workforce because of age discrimination. And those who did have work were struck particularly hard with Covid job losses. Already in June, the Brotherhood of St. Laurence published a report that up to 30 per cent of th...e newly unemployed or underemployed are aged 51 to 65. That is nearly 400,000 Australians who have either lost work or had their hours cut as a result of the downturn. The majority are women and most are unlikely ever to work again. New research from the National Bureau of Economic Research in the U.S. found that age discrimination rises hand in hand with the unemployment rate. Older workers tend to be the last hired back and the first fired. Which means that they will most likely be dependent on JobSeeker until they are eligible for the pension. Government plans to reduce the boosted JobSeeker payment will impoverish these women, just as it impoverished those on Newstart. Read the rest of my article below:
08.01.2022 During Homelessness Week first-rate reports were released showing that over 400,000 older Australian women face the real risk of homelessness and that social housing would both provide them with affordable housing and stimulate the economy at the same time. What has been the response of the Federal Government? No thanks... not our problem. Read Michael Pascoe's excellent article to see why.
08.01.2022 "Remember that every single person deserves equal respect and generosity." Helen Mirren shares her top five rules for a happy life
08.01.2022 OMINOUS SOCIAL CRISIS Australia has never before witnessed the sort of social crisis that is unfolding now. Australia has never before had a demographic defined by age and gender, plunged into poverty and homelessness on a mass scale. There are already more than 400,000 women over the age of 50 for whom this is a reality. It is a outcome of government policies, gender inequality and social prejudice. There are more women aged 50+ on Jobseeker than any other group. They suffe...red disproportionate job losses during Covid but are excluded from national recovery plans. There is talk of childcare plans in Budget 2021, but what plans are there to avoid economic disaster facing older women? Over half of Australian businesses will not hire them according to a recent report by the AHRC. Nevertheless they will lose their Centrelink payment if they don’t apply for 20 jobs per month. On $44 per day they probably cannot afford to both eat and pay rent, let alone pay for the internet to look for jobs. The latest analysis shows a person on Jobseeker can afford just 3 out of 74,000 rentals across the whole country. It’s almost winter and you can already see them sleeping in their cars and in parks around Australia. Poverty is essentially a choice made by the Government. We saw this during Covid when people were raised from below the poverty line & the homeless were housed.I f Budget 2021 fails to address the economic disaster faced by older women then the Government bears direct responsibility for this escalating social crisis.
08.01.2022 BUDGET2020 FAILS WOMEN Budget 2020 is massive on numbers, but meagre on ideas. It is a small-minded budget that fails the women of Australia. It is meant to be about creating jobs. Yet it fails to stimulate jobs for the women of all ages who have been the hardest hit with Covid job losses. Without women’s full participation in the workforce, there will be no economic recovery, particularly with the shrinking size of the overall workforce. But Budget 2020 has no measure that o...ffers immediate assistance to women looking for work now, unless it's in construction. Budget 2020 ignores women with small children. Free childcare would have freed them to participate fully in the workforce. Compare this budget to Joe Biden’s budget proposals to stimulate the US economy. He announced a $775 billion investment in caregiving programs to pay women for caring work and to free them up to enter the workforce. Powerful thinking. Budget 2020 has no jobs stimulus for women aged 50+. Over 400,000 people aged between 51 and 65 lost their jobs.The majority are women who, given the widespread ageism in the workforce, will never find jobs again unless there are specific large scale programs to promote their employment. The much heralded tax cuts are irrelevant to the unemployed. Budget 2020 also ignores the 405,000 women aged over 50, who are at risk of homelessness. There will be no social housing program that both provides women with safe housing, and also creates jobs. Budget 2020 appears to focus on helping young people find work. This is essential, but one question to ask is whether these apprenticeships jobs are geared as much to young women as they are to young men? The other question is - why is the Government incapable of creating jobs for more than one section of the population at any one time? See more
07.01.2022 Congratulations to new Chief Scientist of Australia, Dr Cathy Foley https://www.science.org.au//academy-welcomes-new-chief-sci
06.01.2022 'TRICKLE DOWN' TAX CUTS HAVE ZERO EFFECT ON ECONOMIC GROWTH & UNEMPLOYMENT They make the rich richer but are of no value to the overall economy, according to a 50 year landmark study by the London School of Economics in 18 wealthy nations. It found tax cuts consistently benefited the wealthy. First, the tax cuts succeeded at putting more money in the pockets of the rich. The share of national income flowing to the top 1 percent increased by about 0.8 percentage points. Secondly, they had no effect on economic growth or unemployment. The effect was statistically indistinguishable from zero. The rocket fuel so often promised by supporters of these tax cuts? It fizzles out time and time again. https://www.washingtonpost.com//tax-cuts-rich-trickle-down/
05.01.2022 https://www.forbes.com/power-women/#338ff5495e25
05.01.2022 RUTH BADER GINSBURG SHATTERING THE LAST BARRIER by Augustine Zycher In all the tributes to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg for shattering the barriers denying her and other women justice and equality, haven’t we overlooked what was staring us in the face? Justice Ginsburg was an old woman aged 87 when she died. And the last barrier she shattered was the one erected in the path of women when they reach the age of 50. ... RBG was at the height of her power and influence in the 27 years between the ages of 60 and 87. She was 60, when she was appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court, the age when most women are regarded as being way past their use by date. But most probably, if Justice Ginsburg had taken off her robes and and unrecognised, applied for a job in Australia, she would be treated the same way other women her age are treated. Most employers would consider her unemployable and refuse to give her work, and Government would resent such an unproductive person as a drain on resources. In a pandemic they might readily agree that she be sacrificed on the altar of economic recovery. READ THE FULL ARTICLE: https://womangoingplaces.com.au/ruth-bader-ginsburg-austra/
03.01.2022 On New Year’s Day 2021, the Australian Government committed a crime against humanity by depriving over 3 million of its own citizens, including 1 million children, of their basic human rights to food and shelter. It did this by cutting Jobseeker to a level where people are forced to choose whether they eat or pay for a roof over their heads. It did this knowing that there are no jobs available for most of these people. It did this knowing that there are no large-scale programs to re-train people for the workforce. It did this knowing that Jobseeker is the only safety net preventing people from sleeping in cars and in the street. It did this knowing that the extra Covid19 Jobseeker supplement was able to raise millions out of poverty. Knowing all this, yet proceeding to plunge people back into poverty, constitutes a crime.
01.01.2022 SPECTACULAR OMISSION Treasurer Josh Frydenberg informed us that job creation was a top priority in Budget 2021-22. It was also promoted as a Budget for women. Well, if you are an unemployed woman aged over 50, then the Budget had a clear message - we don’t see you. There are no funds for you and you do not even rate a mention. It is a spectacular omission given that one of the defining characteristics of Covid19 in Australia and internationally has been that older women have ...been the hardest hit with job losses and the least likely to be re-employed. The Budget offers training programs and apprenticeships but only for young people. Why? Women over 50 have had years in the workforce, skills and professional experience. Why freeze them out of opportunities to re-train? Why not mobilise this massive human resource to benefit both the country and these women? With widespread skills shortages it makes good social and economic sense to provide employment for these women, even if Australia were not cut off from foreign labour. Economic security for women is not only about childcare. It is about providing solutions to unemployed older women so that they do not join the more than 400,000 women facing homelessness. Government is reaping plaudits for the big spend, but unemployed older women who constitute the majority on Jobseeker are denied an increase on $44 a day to live on thereby ensuring that these women live in poverty. See more
01.01.2022 FAST TRACK TO HOMELESSNESS - Augustine Zycher The Government’s significant cuts to JobSeeker will fast track the numbers driven into homelessness, particularly women over 50.The new rate including rent assistance means that an average one bedroom apartment in Sydney at $450pw will leave $4 a day to live on, and in Melbourne at $370pw will leave $15 a day to live on! As of 4 August, the Government began enforcing mutual obligations,Victorians temporarily exempt.This will comp...el women 50+ on JobSeeker to apply for jobs they have no hope of getting.Prior to COVID19, age discrimination was the most effective barrier stopping qualified women from getting jobs.That’s why the majority of people on Newstart were women over 50. As a consequence of the pandemic, well over 400,000 people between the ages of 51 and 64 have lost their jobs or had their hours reduced.The majority are women over 50.They are unlikely ever to find work again, particularly as there are now tens of applicants for each job.But failure to comply with all the demands of mutual obligations, despite the pandemic, threatens these women with losing JobSeeker altogether. There are already over 400,000 older Australian women at risk of homelessness.JobSeeker will rapidly accelerate this process. See more
