LRC 90.4
1. The federal budget was released on the 29th of March - what are your party’s key takeaways? 2. The crisis in Sri Lanka is worsening as protesters continue to clash with Police and Government forces. Provide a brief analysis of the issue and the solution for it.
3. With the days of toilet paper shortages, lockdowns and covid financial relief behind us and yet a serious rise in covid cases, what is a realistic way forward?
Socialist Alternative | ASHRAF ABDUL HALIM, KALESH GOVENDER
1. It’s very clear that the two major parties aren’t giving Australians what they desperately need. A once off $420 tax break that most low and middle income workers will receive at the end of this financial year, nor the $10 or so you might save on fuel due to the six month cut in fuel excise, is not nearly enough to make up for these drastic wage cuts that the country’s population is facing. This is a government that has presided over the biggest fall in real wages in Australia in a generation. Before the pandemic, wages were flat. Now, they’re in free-fall. In 2021 inflation was 3.5 percent, while wages rose by just 2.3 percent. For a worker on an average income of $68,000, that represents a pay cut of $832. Labor promises a package for aged care that was desperately needed years ago but neither party is willing to assess the state of social welfare and turn it into something akin to a livable wage. Also a $250 once off payment is laughable and will be eaten up in a week for most people. Victorian Socialists want to tax the rich to pay for things workers and students will actually benefit from; funding climate action, increasing healthcare, education, and welfare spending as well as building more public housing. Tens of billions more could be raised by cutting areas like the bloated military budget, or the funding for private schools that the government is planning to increase by $2.6 billion over the forward estimates. Make no mistake: both major parties advocate for more money for the bosses and Vic Socialists are the only ones putting people over profit. 2. Sri Lanka is experiencing economic crisis and intensified inequality. President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and several of his family members in ministerial positions have been systemically stealing from public funds for years, and have implemented tax cuts that make the rich richer. Gotabaya is also a hard-line Sinhala Buddhist nationalist. His government are responsible for the abductions and torture of journalists and the ongoing oppression of the country’s Tamil ethnic minority. Successive Australian governments have maintained ties with the racist Sri Lankan government, defending it against charges of war crimes. Meanwhile, the working class in Sri Lanka face extreme shortages of food and fuel, and power outages of up to 13 hours. The public hospital system is on the verge of collapse owing to a scarcity of medicine and power. Thousands have taken to the streets calling not just for the removal of the Rajapaksas, but for widespread change with some pushing to abolish the executive presidency altogether. They want more power in the hands of people. The current protests show the potential for a united struggle of ordinary Sinhalese and Tamil people against the common oppressor. The solution must involve a massive redistribution of wealth, starting with the obscene riches of the ruling class and the billions spent on the oppressive military presence in the predominantly Tamil north-east.
Greens Club | BUSBY CAVANAGH, CHAS DAVIS, ADIAN CARLING
3. The very idea that the worlds’ governments think the age of COVID is behind us is outrageous. It only further proves that we cannot expect anything from the bosses, the bureaucrats and the rest of the ruling class to care about the rest of us on this planet. The answer lies in the working class. The essential workers that are essential for society’s function. Workers need to push back and we can see that in the nurse’s strike in NSW for secure a pay increase, shift-by-shift staffing ratios, and proper COVID-19 compensation. A strike that was called ‘ a risk to public health and safety’ by the Industrial Relations Commission in the face of the government having a letit-rip COVID policy and freezing nurse wages. Or the Amazon Labor Union in the US advocating against the company’s disastrous safety policies, high turnover rates and insane union busting efforts. It’s the workers who make everything in the world possible and we should demand that we get what we deserve.
1. Our key takeaway from this latest federal budget is that we simply cannot get rid of this rotten government soon enough. This budget is barefaced banditry, aimed at robbing the youth of their future. More than $37,000,000,000 for oil, gas, and coal while spending on climate action takes a cut of 30%? Y’know, twenty-eight gas companies made away like crooks with profits of $55,000,000,000 last year. Know how much they paid in tax? Zero. And our federal government wants to give $37,000,000,000 more of YOUR money to their planet-wrecking industries! How’s that for a sick joke? No attempts to tackle the
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