Keynes put wages in centre of aggregate demand & healthy economy. Friedman said “no, individuals get paid according to their productivity. Leave it to markets. Govt’s rack off!” He neutralised distribution. Which matters a great deal at this historic inflation juncture. Why? 1/5 Monetarism & fighting inflation was the cover for free markets fundamentalists. A sophisticated theory about control of money supply for economic stability. If unions didn’t block optimal wage pricing, inflation would be handled by central bank monetary policy. 2/5

.@Tony_Burke says 9yr attack on arts ends. Great! COVID hit hard but “market-first” policies had long-plunged arts into vice of grant cycles & philanthropic begging. We need total public arts reboot: funding, jobs, education. Here’s some ideas from report by @beneltham & I 1/6 1. Increase & stabilise direct funding to lifeblood of arts sector in SMEs.

2. Establish new Commonwealth arts fellowships program. Pay 300 artists living wage with basic entitlements. Australia Council to administer. 2/6

SA Election #savotes today! Here’s some key SA facts. SA has highest unemployment rate in country. High youth joblessness. 30% hhlds have no-one in labour force. Median income lowest in country (with TAS). Below $50k. People don’t earn much. 1/4 #auspol SA is older & poorer than Aus avg. 2nd-oldest state (avg age 40). Proportion of households relying on govt payments 90% or more of income v high (18%). Unsurprisingly, SA has big public health constituency. Many ppl have no choice. Pandemic brings this into sharp relief. 2/4

Worker share/GDP at post-war low. Wages growing slowest pace since 1930s. Job quality deteriorating. Millions w-out work. Widening gender pay gap. Youth futures evaporating. Corporate Aus? Never had it better! Here's some ideas to tackle CEO greed: 1/5
theguardian.com/australia-news… (1) Deny tax deductions on CEO pay above certain threshold. (2) Cap performance pay & base salary. .@TheAusInstitute found 4 of 5 Australians think CEOs are paid too much. Most selected $720k/yr or less as reasonable salary. 2/5
australiainstitute.org.au/post/majority-…

As shops fling open consider work & pay of essential retail workers. Of 1.3m in sector: 54% women. 40% casual. 55% have post-tax income <$1k/wk. Higher caring demands than average Australian. UNSW & @SDAunion launch important report 2day w @zdaniel. Some key findings: 1/5 Casualisation of part-time work causing severe work/care crisis. Workers have no control or agency over hrs. Many short shifts scheduled over multiple days. Staff surveyed fear turning down shifts. May not be rostered for 3-4 wks. Employers expect full flexibility & punish. 2/5

In May, Cwth told VIC facing Delta & entering shutdowns: "No financial support. It incentivises lockdowns. That's bad for the economy." By July: "OK, some supports, but only for lockdowns less than 1 wk". 1/3 Delta hits NSW in July. Cwth: "Send urgent financial supports. Lift payments higher. NSW is engine of Aus economy. It's in national interest we put in place different arrangements. Redirect VIC's vax allocations to NSW." 2/3

Far-right riots a shocking moment in pandemic. Majority of Australians support public health, vax & govts that protect lives. They need clear information alongside violent footage on their TVs. It's clear we're FAR past describing riots as "ordinary" elements of society. 1/5 Unions have stated far-right targeting them all pandemic. There's a reason leaders like @sallymcmanus speak with authority. It's not new. Fascist groups world-over target unions as collectivist wrking class orgs. 1 planned to bomb VTHC last yr. 2/5
abc.net.au/news/2021-03-2…

6 years ago this day my life changed. I sat at the doilyed dining table of an old Greek woman's home I didn't know in Hurstville, Sydney. Floor-to-ceiling white. I was housesitting, looking after two yappy dogs while she travelled to Greece. 1/8 I'd landed here through a housesitting website after years of insecure share-housing & crisis accommodation. It was a 1mo stay & I thought I'd hit the jackpot! No stable home in an unforgiving dog-eat-dog-cultured city like Sydney was rough. 2/8

Low vax targets cannot substitute for continued public health restrictions to control disease spread. We need both. Why? We dont have vaccines for children yet. Vulnerable ppl incl many disabled cannot be vaccinated & are at high risk of dying if we allow unmitigated spread. 1/6 Long-COVID among youth rising elsewhere in world like UK. LT impacts on kids not yet known nor costs & capacity of healthcare systm to cope. New variants are emerging, of which current vaccines may not provide full protection in LT (better than no protection tho, get vaxd!). 2/6

Excluding welfare recipients from Cwth disaster payments is a failure on both public health & income security grounds. It will deepen inequality. Take scenario: Two 21yo uni students, both live w parents, & both worked 8 hrs/wk. Earnt $216 p/wk before lockdowns. 1/5 #COVID19nsw The poorer student receives Youth Allowance at $156/wk + PT job income= $372/wk. Pays board to rents to help w bills. The wealthier student never got YA due to high parent income & assets. Both cant work. The wealthier qualifies for Cwth disaster payment- receives $375/wk. 2/5

The mission? Stop people moving & stop transmission. Keep bare minimum economic activity functioning to support most staying home (food, healthcare, utilities). To do this NSW govt need industry & workplace-level plans. It's what VIC did to stop 2nd wave. 1/3 #COVID19nsw Govt coded essential/non-essential sectors. Assigned transmission risk rating. Shutdown non-essential biz. Calculated outputs needed from essential high-risk settings (ie abattoirs). Intervened to reduce output, reduce staffing. +200k workers stood down w income supports. 2/3

There’s a clear reason Morrison lifted multiple-site working rules in aged care. It’s for same reason he introduced IR omnibus bill in March – protecting labour hire companies. Allow me to explain: 1/7 #auspol Labour hire or “agencies” are entrenched in aged care. Facilities pay a fee to labour-hire biz for recruitment & admin costs. Staff perform services at facility but agency schedules & pays them -an efficiency & cost-reduction measure to cream fat off short-term govt contracts 2/7

I’ve undertaken genomic testing on key COVID policy failures: vaccination rollout, insecure labour, hotel quarantining, private aged care. Common strand? Cwth govt policy. What's driving the "outbreak" of govt failure? 1/6 #VicLockdown Uncoordinated, unregulated, private delivery has been underwritten by LNP at every turn (using $bn's of public $). Expanding "markets" like those in insecure work or new private contracts in hotels, GPs, social srvcs is 1 focus. The other? Preventing public sector expansion. 2/6

It’s not a “sex act”. It’s an act of violence. Intended to humiliate & disrespect & make clear she doesn’t belong there. Its a territorial marking that unifies cultural bonds between men based on the exclusion of women (even MPs). It’s why staffer filmed himself & shared it. 1/3 The act’s consistent with systemic gendered violence: the notion men control public domain (streets, workplace, politics) & women belong in private home. Male perpetrators of violence often say “she wasn’t in her right place” & Parl is for big swinging (& ejaculating) dicks! 2/3

Frydenberg said cutting JK & JS at end-March is justified since households & biz increased their savings by +$200B over COVID. Beware of this brazenly dishonest use of macro trends! He is folding low-income people into aggregates w the result that they become invisible. 1/7 Clearly hhlds don’t save at the same rate! While 2020 health restrictions stymied discretionary spending of middle-upper income earners (allowing them to save more), the poorest lifted both essential & discretionary spending (supported by JS/JK). 2/7

Porter's proposed IR changes signal a dangerous return to WorkChoices-era unilateral employer wage-setting power in enterprise agreements; 2 yrs to push non-union below-Award EAs & fix wages for long periods of time in other EAs. A LOT of damage can be done in 2yrs. THREAD 1/10 First, the sum is greater than its parts; parallel proposals to weaken the Better Off Overall Test, stop unions contesting bad EAs, & the relaxation of requirements governing EA approval process at FWC will expand no. of low-wage non-union EAs. How do we know this? 2/10

The government is waging war on the poor. Convincing Australians that millions of victims of this pandemic and economic shutdowns have brought insecurity upon themselves is their aim: "Lazy" "job-snobs" despite a Depression-level collapse in jobs and none to "seek". THREAD (1/8) Their is an unholy alliance between private unemployment services and the welfare bureaucracy. Billions in public $ is handed to parasitic unemployment "industry" with their activities backed by full force of sanctions. Why is Morrison weaponising unemployment payments? (2/8)

JK/JS cuts rip $10b out of economy every month. Austerity is opposite of avoiding Depression! Alongside reintro of Rat-Wheel 4 Poors (mutual obs), cutting govt spending on pretext of economic reboot is totally reckless & undermines public health effort to save lives. THREAD(1/7 ) Morrison says 6mo JK extension needed to aid business planning. But truth is shorter 3mo-extended JS is directly tied into Aus business planning too. It will be leveraged by biz to protect & extend low-wage insecure work. How? (2/7)

Stitch-up alert! PM’s claim reported in @Australian that current #JobSeeker rate is barrier to biz hiring is based on dodgy data. Govt were pre-empting yesterday's release of employer survey data from National Skills Commission. What does this data actually show? {THREAD} 1) NSC surveyed 2324 employers 25 May-mid-June. Far from showing generalised unmet labour shortages only 555 emplyrs (25%) were recruiting additional staff (the rest were not). Of these firms 166 (30%) said they were experiencing "or expected to have" difficulty filing vacancies 2)

As predicted the wage subsidy has become manufactured terrain by govt & biz to drive a sledgehammer through wages & labour protections. I have some serious concerns w FWAct changes Porter has attached to the subsidy. (1) FWAct changes would grant employr’s power to cut wages of FT staff to subsidy rate of $1500 p/fn. Full span of control over hrs of wrk incl. power to ratchet up hrs of part-time wrkrs (to squeeze value out of subsidy) is up for grabs. Low hrs women w caring resp. will suffer (2)