Showing posts with label Australian society. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Australian society. Show all posts
Wednesday 21 March 2018
Wealth Inequality in Australia – something to think about
In
2015-16 there were an est. 326,000 to 337,000 households out of 8.9 million
households which could be classified as the richest Australian households based
on income and/or wealth, according to the Australian
Bureau of Statistics.
Wealth
in this cohort starts at $10 million and rises, with average weekly incomes starting
at a little over $5,000.
The
Guardian, 18
March 2018:
The
richest 20% of Australians hold about 40% of the national income but nearly 65%
of the national wealth, and a majority of the wealth is held by those over 55.
And our tax system is designed to help them not only keep it, but to garner
more and then give it to their children (who then garner more and then give it
to their children, who then ...)
Our
retirement system is based around tax-free holdings of wealth – through the
family home, which is exempt from capital gains tax, and tax-free income from
superannuation.
With
those exemptions comes revenue forgone, and the cost of paying for our ageing
population is an issue that is hitting us square between the eyes.
The
prime earning age for workers is between 25 and 54. Between those ages, you are
no longer studying, and not really thinking about retirement. These workers not
only power much of our production, but also our tax revenue.
And
right now the cohort is shrinking.
Currently
just 41% of the population is aged between 25 and 54. The last time it was that
low was in 1987, when the first baby boomers were entering their 40s.
Back
then, it wasn’t a problem because only 10.5% of the population was aged over
65. But now those 40-year-old baby boomers are retiring and those over 65
account for 15.5% of our population.
That
jump is the equivalent of about 1.2 million extra people aged over 65 – people
who mostly don’t work (and nor should they be expected to), or pay income tax,
but whose pensions and services need to be paid for by the revenue derived from
those prime-aged workers.
So
what is to be done?
You
could – as is the government’s current policy – increase the retirement age to
70 (this policy is still on the
Department of Human Services website). That might be fine for someone like
me typing away at a desk but not for many others.
You
could “crack down on welfare cheats”. The problem is, despite protestations
from the government and conservative media, there aren’t many of those.
On
Friday, the government announced that it had saved $43.4m – $17.8m in this
financial year – from “more than 1,000 wealthy welfare cheats”. That’s from a
$46.1bn annual budget for Newstart, DSP and Family Tax Benefit
(and the aged pension is another $45.4bn).
Or
you could, as the ALP is doing, seek to find extra revenue by cutting out rorts
that were designed as electoral sweeteners and favours to the Howard-Costello
key demographic.
When
this imputation cash rebate was introduced, not many were affected but like any
good tax rort, accountants soon caught wind. Add in the
2006 decision to make income from superannuation tax free for those
over 60, and suddenly you had a lot of people with a high actual income but
very low or zero taxable income taking advantage of it.
Further
add in this weird belief that the retirement nest egg must not be touched, and
you get a lot of idiotic reporting – such as in the Herald Sun, which had
the case
study of a woman with an income of $160,000, who we should feel sad
for because she will lose her $12,775 rebate. She could, of course, sell some
of her shares, but that would actually be using superannuation for its purpose
and not as a tax-free inheritance fund.
So
it is a smart and needed policy, but also a dangerous one because it affects an
area shrouded in confusion and thus very much susceptible to fear-mongering……
Labels:
Australian society,
Income,
inequality,
Wealth
Tuesday 13 March 2018
FAIR GO 101: It's Time To Change The Rules
Big business groups are already out attacking out our #ChangeTheRules campaign.— Australian Unions (@unionsaustralia) March 11, 2018
RT if you think workers need more secure jobs and a wage rise. #auspol pic.twitter.com/NPNIwAku86
Tuesday 6 March 2018
Is Australian welfare reform in 2018 a step back into a dark past?
Last year saw the completion of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse which revealed generational abuse within the Australian education and child welfare systems.
That year also revealed the ongoing failure of the Dept. of Human Services and Centrelink to fix its faulty national debt collection scheme, which possibly led to the deaths of up to eleven welfare recipients after they were issued debt advice letters.
The first quarter of 2018 brought a scathing United Nations report on Australia's contemporary human rights record titled Report of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders on his mission to Australia.
Along with a report into elder abuse in Oakden Older Persons Mental Health Service in South Australia and the release of a detailed Human Rights Watch investigation of 14 prisons in Western Australia and Queensland which revealed the neglect and physical/sexual abuse of prisoners with disabilities, particularly Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders.
The National Disability Insurance Scheme represents yet another crisis. The Productivity Commission has warned there is now no carer of last resort for patients in an emergency, care provider agencies are reportedly owed up to $300 million and disabled people are often receiving inadequate care via untrained staff or sometimes no care at all, as government disability care services are being closed in favour of the new privatised service delivery scheme.
None of these instances stand in isolation and apart from either Australian society generally or government policies more specifically.
They all represent the frequently meagre nature of community compassion and the real level of care governments have been willing to organise and fund for vulnerable citizens. In reality the ideal level of support and care for the vulnerable - that politicians spout assurances about from campaign hustings every three years - is just so much political hot air unless ordinary voters insist that it be otherwise.
As the Turnbull Coalition Government clearly intends to push forward with the full gamut of its punitive welfare reforms perhaps now it the time to consider if we have made any great strides towards a genuinely fair and egalitarian society in the last two hundred years or if we are only dressing up old cruelties in new clothes and calling this "looking after our fellow Australians”, "an exercise in practical love, "an exercise in compassion and in love".
History and Policy, Katie Barclay, Creating
‘cruel’ welfare systems: a historical perspective, 1 March 2018,
excerpts:
Over
the last two decades, commissions and reports on institutional care across the
western world have highlighted widespread physical, sexual, emotional and
economic violence within caring systems, often targeted at society’s most
vulnerable people, not least children, the disabled and the elderly. These have
often come at significant cost not just to the individual, but the nation. As
Maxwell has shown, national apologies, that require the nation to render itself
shamed by such practices, and financial redress to victims, have impacted on
political reputation, trust in state organisations, and finances. As each
report is released and stories of suffering fill newspapers and are quantified
for official redress, both scholars and the public have asked ‘how was this
allowed to happen?’ At the same time, and particularly in the last few years as
many countries have turned towards conservative fiscal policies, newspapers
also highlight the wrongs of current systems.
In
the UK, numerous reports have uncovered abuses within welfare systems, as
people are sanctioned to meet targets, as welfare staff are encouraged to withhold information about services or grants to
reduce demand, and through systematic rejection of first-try benefit applications to
discourage service use. Often excused as ‘isolated incidents’ on investigation,
such accounts are nonetheless increasingly widespread. They are accompanied by
a measurable reduction in investment in welfare and health systems, that have
required a significant withdrawal in services, and have been accompanied with
policies of ‘making work pay’ that have required that benefits be
brought in line, not with need, but with low working incomes. The impact of
these policies and associated staff behaviour have been connected to
increasing child and adult poverty, declining life expectancy, growing homelessness, and the rise in foodbank use.
Importantly,
public commentators on this situation have described this situation as ‘cruel’.
One headline saw a benefits advisor commenting ‘I get brownie points for cruelty’; another noted ‘Welfare reform is not only cruel but chaotic’. The system
depicted in Ken Loach’s I Daniel Blake (2016), described by reviewers
as a Kafka-esque nightmare, a ‘humiliating and spirit-sapping holding pattern of enforced
uselessness’, and a ‘comprehensive [system of] neglect and indifference’, was
confirmed by many as an accurate depiction. Whether or not this representation
of the current welfare system is held to be true, such reporting raises
significant questions about when and how systems designed to provide help and
support move from care to abuse. A focus on ‘isolated incidents’ today can be
compared to the blaming of ‘isolated perpetrators’ in historic cases of abuse,
an account that is now held by scholars to ignore the important role of systems
of welfare in enabling certain types of cruelty to happen…..
The
capacity of welfare systems to support individuals is shaped by cultural
beliefs and political ideologies around the relationship between work, human
nature, and welfare. Here late-eighteenth- and early-nineteenth-century Ireland
provides a productive example. Ireland in this period was marked by significant
levels of poverty amongst its lower orders, particularly those that worked in
agriculture. The capacity to manage that poverty on an individual level was
hindered by several economic downturns and harvest failure, that pushed people
to starvation. As a nation without a poor law (welfare) system until 1838, the
poor relied on charity, whether from individuals or institutions for relief. In
the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century, the ‘state’ (usually local
corporations) introduced more direct welfare, sometimes in the form of relief
payments but more usually access to workhouses.
After 1838 and until the crisis
of the 1847 famine, relief payments were removed and all welfare recipients had
to enter the workhouse. Accompanied by a growth in institutional charitable
services, the success and ‘care’ of the system could vary enormously between
areas and organisations. What it did not do is significantly reduce poverty
levels in the population.
Indeed,
it was important that the poverty levels of welfare recipients were not reduced
by the workhouse system. Like current ‘make work pay’ policies, poverty relief
measures were designed so that those in the workhouse or receiving charity
elsewhere did not have a significantly higher standard of living than those who
provided for themselves. This principle was determined based on the wage of an
independent labourer, one of the poorest but also largest categories of worker.
The problem for the system was that independent labourers earned so poorly that
they barely managed a subsistence diet. Their living conditions were extremely
poor; many slept on hay in darkened huts with little furnishings or personal
property.
Those
who managed the system believed that a generous welfare system would encourage
people to claim benefits and so could potentially bankrupt those paying into
the system. This encouraged an active policy of ‘cruelty’. Not only were
benefit recipients given meagre food and poor living conditions, but families
were routinely broken up, the sexes housed in different wings and prohibited from
seeing each other. Welfare recipients were often ‘badged’ or given uniforms to
mark their ‘shame’, and workhouse labour was designed to be particularly
physically challenging.
It
was a system underpinned by several interlocking beliefs about the Irish, the
value of work and the economy. Hard work was viewed as a moral characteristic,
something to be encouraged from childhood and promoted as ethical behaviour.
Certain groups, notably the Irish poor but also the British lower orders and
non-Europeans more generally, were viewed as lacking this moral characteristic
and required it to be instilled by their social betters. Welfare systems that
were not carefully designed to be ‘less eligible’ (i.e. a harsher experience
than ‘normal; life for the working poor), were understood to indulge an innate
laziness…..
Throughout
history, welfare services have required considerable economic investment.
Unsurprisingly, this has required those who run institutions of care for people
also to keep a careful eye on their financial bottom line. More broadly, it has
also required a monitoring of services to ensure value for money for the state
and its taxpayers and to protect the interests of the service users. As has
been seen recently in discussions of targets placed on staff providing welfare
provision in the UK, such measuring systems can come to shape the nature and
ethos of the service in damaging ways.
A
relevant historical example of this is from the Australian laundry system in
the late nineteenth and twentieth century. Young women were placed in youth
homes and registered as delinquent for a wide range of reasons from petty
criminal behaviour to perceived immorality (ranging from flirting with the
opposite sex to premarital pregnancy), to having been neglected by parents.
These homes, often run by religious organisations, were designed to ‘reform’
young (and occasionally older) women, preventing them from entering
prostitution or other criminal pursuits. The main mechanism for ‘reform’ was through
a moral discipline of work, which in many of these organisations revolved
around a professional laundry service. Work was often unpaid or paid at very
nominal sums, given to women on their release. The service, which catered to
the general public, kept institutions financially afloat, and many became
significant-sized businesses. They required women to work very long hours, in
challenging conditions. Accidents, particularly burns, were not unusual. As
businesses grew, other ‘reform’ efforts that ran alongside, such as education,
became rarer.
The
laundry became the driving focus of the institution. The women were cheap
labour, and managing that machine became not just a means to an end, but shaped
the logic and functioning of the care service. It is an example of how an
economic imperative can come to adversely impact on care, by disrupting the
purposes and functions of the service. It was also a process that significantly
reduced the level of ‘care’ that such institutions provided, not only through a
physical job that wore on the body but one reinforced with physical punishment,
which came to include emotional and sexual abuse, and poor food and living
conditions……
There
are significant variations between the institutional care described here for
the nineteenth century and a contemporary welfare state that encourages users,
as much as possible, to remain outside ‘the system’. The capacity for ‘the
state’ to control every dimension of a person’s life today is significantly
reduced; conversely, the ability of those in need to fall into service ‘gaps’
as they cannot access services or negotiate bureaucratic systems, is in some
ways increased. Nonetheless, there are parallels in the operation of both
systems that should give contemporary policymakers pause. Abusive care does not
just emerge from individual perpetrators, from the institutional model, or even
a lack of policies on staff-client relationships, but also from the wider
values and beliefs that shape the production of welfare systems; from the
financial and emotional investments that we place in institutions; and from the
corruption or occlusion of institutional targets and goals.
Ensuring
that the ‘cruel’ practices reported of current systems do not become systematic
issues on the scale of previous institutional abuses therefore requires not
just monitoring a few rogue individuals, but a clear goal about what our
welfare systems should achieve. The needs and interests of service users should
be placed at their heart, coupled with a significant social, cultural and
political investment in ensuring that goal is achieved. All other goals and
targets for welfare service providers, especially their frontline staff, should
be secondary to that and carefully designed so as not to interfere with that
end. With rising rates of poverty, homelessness and illness, welfare systems
look to continue to hold a central role in society for the foreseeable future.
It is imperative that the abusive practices of previous ‘caring’ regimes are
left firmly in the past.
Friday 2 March 2018
Family, Domestic & Sexual Violence in Australia: "On average, 1 woman a week and 1 man a month is killed by a current or former partner"
“Family violence refers to violence between family
members, typically where the perpetrator exercises power and control over
another person. The most common and pervasive instances occur in intimate
(current or former) partner relationships and are usually referred to as
domestic violence. Sexual violence refers to behaviours of a sexual nature carried
out against a person’s will. It can be perpetrated by a current or former
partner, other people known to the victim, or strangers.” [Australian Institute of Health and Welfare; Family,domestic and sexual violence in Australia, 2018]
Australian Institute of Health
and Welfare, media
release, 28 February 2018:
New
national statistical report sheds light on family violence
The
Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (AIHW) has released its first
comprehensive report on family, domestic and sexual violence in Australia.
The
report brings together, for the first time, information from more than 20
different major data sources to build a picture of what is known about family,
domestic and sexual violence in Australia. It also highlights data gaps and
offers suggestions to help fill these gaps.
The
report, Family, domestic and sexual violence in Australia, 2018,
covers family violence (physical violence, sexual violence and emotional abuse
between family members, as well as current or former partners), domestic
violence (a subcategory of family violence, involving current or former
partners), and sexual violence (a range of nonconsensual sexual behaviours,
perpetrated by partners, former partners, acquaintances or strangers).
‘Women
are more likely to experience violence from a known person and in their home,
while men are more likely to experience violence from strangers and in a public
place,’ said AIHW spokesperson Louise York.
1 in 6
women (aged 15 or above) —equating to 1.6 million women—have experienced
physical or sexual violence by a current or former partner, while for men it is
1 in 16—or half a million men. Three in 4 (75%) victims of domestic violence
reported the perpetrator as male, while 1 in 4 (25%) reported the perpetrator
as female.
Overall,
1 in 5 women (1.7 million) and 1 in 20 men (428,800) have experienced sexual
violence. Most (96%) female victims of sexual violence reported the perpetrator
as male, while male victims reported a more even spilt (49% female and 44% male
perpetrators).
On
average, 1 woman a week and 1 man a month is killed by a current or former
partner.
While
overall the data show that women are at greater risk, certain groups are
particularly vulnerable, such as Indigenous women, young women and pregnant
women.
Children
who are exposed to violence experience long-lasting effects
‘Children
can be victims of or witnesses to family violence—and this early exposure can
heighten their chances of experiencing further violence later in life,’ Ms York
said.
Children
who were physically or sexually abused before they were 15 were around 3 times
as likely to experience domestic violence after the age of 15 as those children
who had not experienced or witnessed violence earlier in life.
Women
who, as children, witnessed domestic violence towards either their mother or
father were more than twice as likely to be the victim of domestic violence
themselves, compared with women who had not witnessed this violence.
Men who
witnessed violence towards their mother by a partner were almost 3 times as
likely to be the victim of domestic violence compared with men who had not,
while men who witnessed violence towards their father were almost 4 times as
likely to experience domestic violence compared with those who had not.
Aboriginal
and Torres Strait Islander people experience higher rates of family violence
The
report shows that Indigenous women were 32 times and Indigenous men were 23
times as likely to be hospitalised due to family violence as non-Indigenous
women and men respectively, while Indigenous children were around 7 times as
likely as non-Indigenous children to be the victims of substantiated cases of child
abuse or neglect.
Two in 5
Indigenous homicide victims (41%) were killed by a current or former partner,
compared with 1 in 5 non-Indigenous homicide victims (22%).
A
significant toll on victims and society
The
report also shows that family, domestic and sexual violence can have a profound
effect on people’s ability to work, health and financial situation.
‘People
who experience domestic violence are likely to need time off work as a result,
and women affected by domestic violence experience significantly poorer health
and mental health than other women,’ Ms York said.
For women
aged 25–44, domestic violence causes more illness, disability and deaths than
any other risk factor, such as smoking, alcohol use, being overweight, or being
physically inactive.
Domestic
violence is a leading cause of hospitalised assault, particularly among women.
In 2014–15, 2,800 women and 560 men were hospitalised after being assaulted by
a spouse or partner.
‘Family
and domestic violence is also a leading cause of homelessness. In 2016–17,
72,000 women, 34,000 children and 9,000 men sought homelessness services due to
family and domestic violence,’ Ms York said.
The
financial impacts are also substantial, with violence against women and their
children estimated to cost at least $22 billion in direct (healthcare,
counselling, child and welfare support) and indirect (lost wages, productivity
and potential earnings) costs in 2015–16.
The
importance of evidence, data gaps and looking forward
AIHW CEO
Barry Sandison said the report was a significant piece of work for the AIHW—and
one with a real human impact. But there’s more to be done.
‘We know
that family, domestic and sexual violence is a major problem in Australia, but
without a comprehensive source of evidence and analysis, tackling such a
complex issue will continue to be difficult,’ he said.
He noted
that while the report was certainly a step in the right direction, its
development had highlighted several areas where future work is needed. For
example, inconsistent definitions of violence in data collections pose a
challenge, as does the limited information available on specific at-risk groups
(such as people with disability), childhood experiences, the characteristics of
perpetrators and the service responses for both victims and perpetrators.
‘It’s
important to note that while looking only at the numbers can at times appear to
depersonalise the pain and suffering that sits behind the statistics, the
seriousness of these issues cannot be overstated,’ Mr Sandison said.
‘This
work is an excellent example of organisations working together to build the
evidence on an important issue. It was achieved through financial support and
collaboration from several Australian Government and state government
departments.’
If the
information presented raises any issues for you, these services can help:
1800RESPECT (1800
737 732, www.1800respect.org.au)
Lifeline (13
11 14, www.lifeline.org.au)
Kids
Helpline (1800 551 800, www.kidshelpline.com.au)
Men's
Referral Service (1300 766 491, www.ntv.org.au)
Further information:
Elizabeth Ingram, AIHW: Tel. 02 6249 5048, mob. 0431 871 337
Elise Guy, AIHW: Tel. 02 6244 1156, mob. 0468 525 418
Elise Guy, AIHW: Tel. 02 6244 1156, mob. 0468 525 418
Report
Friday 9 February 2018
Falling biodiversity, degradation of productive rural land, intensification of coastal & city development, and the threat of climate change require Australia to produce blueprint for a new generation of environment laws
“The next
generation of environmental laws will need to recognise explicitly the role of
humanity as a trustee of the environment and its common resources, requiring
both care and engagement on behalf of future generations.” [APEEL,
Blueprint for the Next Generation of Environmental Law,
August 2017]
The Guardian, 6 February 2018:
Environmental lawyers and academics have called for a comprehensive rethink on how Australia's natural landscapes are protected, warning that short-term politics is infecting decision-making and suggesting that the public be given a greater say on development plans.
The Australian Panel of Experts on Environmental Law has launched a blueprint for a new generation of environment laws and the creation of independent agencies with the power and authority to ensure they are enforced. The panel of 14 senior legal figures says this is motivated by the need to systematically address ecological challenges including falling biodiversity, the degradation of productive rural land, the intensification of coastal and city development and the threat of climate change.
Murray Wilcox QC, a former federal court judge, said the blueprint was a serious attempt to improve a system that was shutting the public out of the decision-making process and failing to properly assess the impact of large-scale development proposals.
"We found the standard of management of the environment is poor because everything is made into a political issue," Wilcox said. "Nothing happens until it becomes desperate.
"We need a non-political body of significant prestige to report on what is happening and have the discretion to act."
The legal review, developed over several years and quietly released in 2017, resulted in 57 recommendations. It was suggested by the Places You Love alliance, a collection of about 40 environmental groups that was created to counter a failed bid to set up a "one-stop shop" for environmental approvals by leaving it to the states. The panel undertook the work on the understanding it would be independent and not a piece of activism.
Review report can be found here.
Friday 2 February 2018
How we see the cost of living in Australia in 2018
Essential Report, 30 January 2018:
A substantial majority believe that, in the last 12 months, cost of living (73%) and electricity costs (75%) have all got worse. The only economic measure that has got better is company profits (42% better/12% worse).
Compared the last time this question was asked in February 2016, there has been an increase in the percentage that think electricity costs (up 13% to 75%) have got worse. However, there has also been an increase in the percentage that think company profits (+12), unemployment (+19) and the economy overall (+18) have got better.
Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU), media release, 31 January 2018:
51% (down 2% since
August) believe that, in the last two years, their income has fallen behind the
cost of living. 28% (up 3%) think it has stayed even with the cost of living
and 14% (down 1%) think it has gone up more.
64% of those earning
under $600 pw and 58% of those earning $600-1,000 pw think their income has
fallen behind while 54% of those earning over $2,000 pw think it has stayed the
same or gone up.
According to the ABS, over the last
twelve months up to end September 2017 the Living Cost Index* rose:
2.0% for Pensioner
and Beneficiary Households
2.1% for
Other Government Transfer Recipient Households
1.7% for Age
Pensioner Households
1.6% for Self-Funded
Retiree Households
1.5% for Employee
Households
One of the principal drivers to the rise in costs for these groups has been the rise in housing costs due to the rise in wholesale electricity costs.
Labels:
Australian society,
costs,
Income,
poll,
statistics,
wages
Sunday 28 January 2018
In the first 18 days of 2018 two women have died violently allegedly at the hands of their partners in Australia
Destroy the Joint, Counting Dead Women, 18 January 2018:
1 January 03: Margaret Indich (38) died in hospital of injuries sustained at her home in Cloverdale. Her unnamed partner (40) attempted to deny paramedics access to treat her, and left the scene before police arrived. He was arrested hours later, and has been charged with murder. No further details are available at present. https://goo.gl/daodJA WA
2 January 12: British backpacker Amelia Blake (22) died of extensive injuries, including head injuries, in a suspected murder suicide. Her body and that of her partner Brazil Gurung (33) were found on Friday, January 12 at an apartment in Newtown. Police have indicated that they are treating the deaths as murder-suicide, but have not released details as they await post mortem findings. Inquiries continue https://goo.gl/1d4phf NSW
These sad incidents began the domestic violence death cycle for 2018.
Last year the NSW Coroner's NSW Domestic Violence Death Review Team produced a report which looked at NSW domestic violence homicides between 2000-2014.
This report reveals that over this fourteen year period females were dying as a result of domestic violence at a greater rate than males. Crudely averaged out there were an est.11 female deaths a year as a result of intimate partner domestic violence compared to est. 3 male deaths a year. The majority of male deaths were those of the primary domestic violence abuser in the relationship.
These sad incidents began the domestic violence death cycle for 2018.
Last year the NSW Coroner's NSW Domestic Violence Death Review Team produced a report which looked at NSW domestic violence homicides between 2000-2014.
This report reveals that over this fourteen year period females were dying as a result of domestic violence at a greater rate than males. Crudely averaged out there were an est.11 female deaths a year as a result of intimate partner domestic violence compared to est. 3 male deaths a year. The majority of male deaths were those of the primary domestic violence abuser in the relationship.
Here are some excerpts from that report.
In
the data reporting period 1 July 2000 to 30 June 2014 there were 204 cases
where a person was killed by a current or former intimate partner in a context
of domestic violence (162 females and 42 males).
Key
data findings:
•
79% of intimate partner homicide victims were women.
•
98% of women killed by an intimate partner had been the primary domestic violence
victim in the relationship.
•
37% of women in this dataset were killed by a former intimate partner, and
almost two thirds of these women had ended the intimate relationship with the
domestic violence abuser within three months of being killed.
•
Women killed by an intimate partner were aged between 15 and 80 years of age.
•
12% of women killed by an intimate partner identified as Aboriginal.
•
89% of men killed by a female intimate partner had been the primary domestic
violence abuser in the relationship. All 7 men killed by a male intimate
partner had been the primary domestic violence victim in the relationship.
•
31% of men killed by an intimate partner identified as Aboriginal.
•
24% of men who killed an intimate partner suicided following the murder.
•
Males who killed an intimate partner were aged between 17 and 87 years of age.
•
26% of females who killed an intimate partner were acquitted at trial…..
In
the data reporting period there were 109 cases where a person was killed by a
relative/kin in a context of domestic violence (44 adults and 65 children under
the age of 18 years).
Between 2000-2014 there were also 65 child domestic violence homicide victims. Their age range was between 4 weeks and 14 years of age, with 55 per cent being less than 4 years old.
Key
data findings: child homicide victims
•
Chid homicide victims in this dataset were aged between 4 weeks and 14 years of
age, with 55% of children being aged less than 4 years of age.
•
42% of children were killed by their biological father acting alone and 26%
were killed by their biological mother acting alone.
•
18% of children were killed by a male nonbiological parent acting alone and 3%
were killed by a female non-biological parent acting alone.
•
20% of child homicide victims in this dataset identified as Aboriginal.
•
31% of male homicide perpetrators in this dataset suicided after killing a
child/ren compared to 10% of female homicide perpetrators
In the NSW Police Force Region - Northern (which covers police local area commands from Brisbane Waters up to the NSW-Qld border) there
were 46 adult intimate partner domestic violence homicide victims and 18 child
domestic violence homicide victims between 2000-2014.
Friday 26 January 2018
It's Australia Day and......
…the truth is that few Australians - who will either quietly or with loud jingoism celebrate today - know the day’s real history or meaning.
It also seems that only a minority of the population are likely to object if the federal and state governments decide to change the date.
The Sydney Morning Herald, 18 January 2018:
A majority of voters would not mind if Australia Day was shifted to a different date and most don't know why it's currently held on January 26.
New polling also reveals that only about a third of Australians – 37 per cent – realise the date is offensive to many Indigenous people because it represents the beginning of the dispossession and violence of British colonisation.
As the political and community debate about the "change the date" movement continues to intensify, the Research Now survey of 1417 people suggests nearly all Australians – 84 per cent – think it is important the country has a national day of celebration.
But 56 per cent say they don't mind when the day occurs, challenging the notion that Australians see January 26 as sacred or untouchable.
The polling also reveals 77 per cent of people believe – incorrectly – that the celebration has always occurred on January 26, the date the First Fleet planted the flag in NSW in 1788.
The date was in fact not adopted by all states until 1935, and has only been celebrated in its current form since 1994.
The polling commissioned by the progressive Australia Institute think tank was conducted among a nationally representative sample in December.
"This polling shows that while Australia Day is important to most Australians, most people are laid back about the date we celebrate on," said deputy director Ebony Bennett.
Given 11 multiple choice options, 38 per cent correctly identified the event January 26 marks. And just under half knew it had anything to do with the First Fleet at all.
Others believed it marked the day Captain Cook first sighted Australia, the day the constitution was signed or the day Australia became independent.
Four per cent of people linked the date to events that have not actually happened, including becoming a republic or signing a treaty with Aboriginal Australia.
Asked to nominate what date would be the best to celebrate Australia Day, 70 per cent preferred a date not associated with the First Fleet. And fewer than a quarter (23 per cent) selected the landing in Sydney Cove as the best of a range of options.
Only 37 per cent of people agreed the current date was offensive to Indigenous people, even though many Indigenous leaders have long been calling for change. Nearly half of people – 46 per cent – disagreed the date was problematic.
Asked if Australia Day should not be on a day that is hurtful to Aboriginal people, 49 per cent agreed and 36 per cent disagreed…..
"Australia Day is a day on which the overwhelming majority of Australians – all but a handful – are proud of Australia and its achievements," he told 2GB radio. [my yellow highlighting]
Tuesday 23 January 2018
This highlighted health statistic would come as no surprise to people living in rural and regional Australia
The Sydney Moring Herald, 18 January 2018:
NSW has been ranked the worst for healthcare affordability among older patients in the latest survey that pits Australia's most populous state against international health systems.
The results released on Thursday showed a larger proportion of NSW patients 65 and older struggled with their medical costs than their counterparts in Australia overall and 10 other OECD countries.
NSW fared worst when it came to the percentage of respondent who said they had problems paying their medical bills (15 per cent), compared to just 1 per cent in Sweden and 10 per cent in the US, found the survey of 24,000 people including 1175 in NSW.
More than one in five (22 per cent) reported spending $1000 or more in out-of-pocket healthcare costs, the third largest proportion after Switzerland (53 per cent) and the US (37 per cent), and well behind the top performer France (3 per cent), according to the 2017 Commonwealth Fund International Health survey findings released by the Bureau of Health Information (BHI)…..
Over 20 per cent of older people in NSW said they had skipped a dentist visit when they needed it due to the cost, tying with the US for the poorest result after Australia (23 per cent).
A total of 14 per cent of NSW respondents said they had skipped prescriptions, consultations or treatments due to cost in the previous year, the second lowest score after the US.
One in four NSW respondents said they found it "very difficult" to access medical care after hours without going to a hospital emergency department, trailing the US and seven other countries. [my yellow highlighting]
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