CHRISTMAS stockings are going to be bare for a lot of families this year as more than a million Australians were expected to be unemployed by December. The Australian Government warned unemployment was expected to peak at 9.25 per cent – that’s another 240,000 people out of work. With a deepening economic crisis came a worsening participation rate, which meant ... Read More »
AUSTRALIA’S new $688m HomeBuilder package has been described as “hitting the jackpot” by some potential homeowners, but there are warnings that the initiative has failed low-income families. The package offers a grant of $25,000 to build a new home worth less than $750,000 or to spend between $150,000 and $750,000 renovating an existing home. The scheme is limited to owner-occupiers ... Read More »
A CHURCH human rights advocate claims Indonesian militia are working alongside soldiers in a brutal crackdown on independence demonstrators in West Papua. “It’s right in our own backyard. They’re human beings being treated with contempt by Indonesian security forces and migrants,” Brisbane Catholic Justice and Peace Commission executive director Peter Arndt said. At least 20 people have died in clashes ... Read More »
A BRISBANE father-of-three shudders when he thinks of the terror inside Eritrea. “It is a dictatorship, a brutal dictatorship,” former Eritrean Catholic school teacher Tek Tesfaldet said. “The country is a big prison. I got out.” Mr Tesfaldet (pictured) fled Eritrea without a passport 15 years ago, spending time in neighbouring Sudan, before eventually reaching Australia with the help of ... Read More »
THE Queensland Government is to set up a Truth, Healing and Reconciliation task force after accepting more than half of the recommendations of the Royal Commission into child sexual abuse. The government has accepted or “accepted in principle” 244 of the 409 Royal Commission recommendations, and says a task force will be set up within months to carry them out. ... Read More »
WHEN parliament returns from its winter recess, Greens Senator Lee Rhiannon has vowed to renew her push for the Lord’s Prayer to be ditched from Federal parliamentary proceedings. She describes the opening of each day of parliament as “insulting”. “Considering there’s many people who aren’t religious, there’s many people of different faiths, it’s time we started having an institution that ... Read More »
PRO-life supporters have warned that a bill to decriminalise abortion in Queensland could be debated in Parliament within weeks. “Yes it’s possible for the first of two abortion bills – the bill that would allow abortion on demand anytime for any purpose – could be debated and voted on during the last sitting week of Parliament, which starts on November ... Read More »
MICK Sullivan is 77 and has lived an active life. The Dutton Park pensioner, lives a simple, frugal life, but he does miss a few of the pleasures that he once took for granted. “I love a leg of lamb but I haven’t been able to afford one since I’ve been on the pension,” he said. Mr Sullivan also waits ... Read More »
FOUR dollars. It’s the cost of a cup of coffee. For some of our most disadvantaged, with an empty wallet, bills to pay and two or three days until the next benefits payment, it can be the tipping point. And yet, until a last-minute turnaround yesterday, the Federal Government was proposing to cut more than $4 a week from the Newstart ... Read More »
The Catholic Leader Keeping Faith with You
