News
- All fires are out in New South Wales!
- It’s International Women’s Day. Celebrate with the horror of this Shell ad.
- Never forget that International Women’s Day began as a socialist celebration of working women.
Coronavirus
- Vox has a detailed and readable summary of what we know about COVID-19 so far. Here’s the direct source for what the experts are saying. The Australian government website is good for a just-the-facts summary of symptoms to look out for and best-practice precautions.
- Missy Higgins dad has COVID-19, but didn’t meet the health department’s guidelines for testing.
- Australians are panic-buying toilet paper. As Buzzfeed reports, it started as a media scare, now its becoming a real panic.
- Panic buying and hoarding is bad for everyone else. It prevents people who are living paycheque to paycheque from being able to purchase the things they need.
- The poorest people in our society — people on casual work and without sick leave, are also the people who come into contact with the most people.
- The Liberal government has a history of trying to make it harder for the poorest Australians to the access health care they need.
- Jeremy Poxon of the Unemployed Workers Union has interrogated Centerlink on the requirements they will place on unemployed people under quarantine, with no clear answer. They have a bad record on this, cutting off the payments of bushfire victims.
Government corruption
- Penny Wong has accused Scott Morrison of being “up to his neck” in the corruption of the sports rorts.
- The liberal party attempted to shut down on questions by calling the word “rorts”, “unparlimentary”.
- Angus Taylor, the government’s minister for Energy and Emissions Reduction, was not interviewed by the Federal Police, after his office falsified documents for a fight with Clover Moore, mayor of Sydney.
- Taylor’s business interests have also raked in $93 million of state and federal funds during his time in office.
- In extra promoted to guest star news: Glenys Beauchamp, who was in the episode last week destroying documents, has now been found intimidating an academic whistleblowing a data breach of 3 million Australians.
- Anne Rushton, government’s Minister for Families and Social Services refused to say that Australia’s social security system should not cause harm to the people within it.
Bushfires and climate change
- The Morrison government is dropping funding to an international emissions research collaboration.
- … along with the Bushfire & Natural Hazards research centre.
- It appears that the much-hyped $2 billion bushfire relief fund may not exist. Only $400,000 has been distributed so far.
- Angus Taylor (who loves to take $93 million of taxpayer money for his businesses) is trying to keep the Liddel coal power station open to at least 2026, even though it’s not economical.
- The Australian government has not done modeling of the economic impact of climate change until at least 2013.
- The gas power plants in Australia have been running at 30% of capacity for the last 18 months — and yet the government are calling for more to be built.
Actions
- Shout out to the Flood Cast from Flood Media — check their series on capitalism and a socialist future. Solidaritus et podcastus ✊
- Wash your hands, buy a reasonable amount of toilet paper and if you can, take time off from work if you're sick.
- If you have COVID and your boss makes you work, make sure to take them aside during the day to apologise for trying to slack off (enclosed spaces if possible).