Blog

As COVID-19 restrictions slowly lift and borders begin to reopen, emergency payments and increased benefits introduced to mitigate economic and social damage are about to be wound back. Besides the economic impact, a return to pre-pandemic welfare income will plunge many back into poverty. Click here to view the opinion piece by SACOSS Policy Director, Dr Catherine Earl published in InDaily, 23 September 2020.

When social distancing and isolation at home was first required as a response to the coronavirus there was recognition of the potential for increases in domestic/family violence as families would be closely confined and violent and abusive patterns exacerbated. However, while these family violence issues are in the public domain, less acute but more widespread are the differing and gendered economic impacts of the pandemic.

The government is looking to utilise a location app for tracing people who have come into contact with someone carrying coronavirus. Such contact-tracing is vital for controlling the spread of the virus and (if there are appropriate privacy safeguards) an app may be of great use in this process, but not everyone will have the choice to use this service. Those without smart phones and data, or who don’t have the digital literacy to use such an app are at risk of being missed in contact tracing, potentially putting them – and the community – at greater risk.

Industry heads in Construction (Advertiser, 8 July), the Property Council and the developer lobby are issuing “dire warnings” mobilising against the changes to land tax announced in the state budget (Advertiser, 25 June). And why wouldn't they? In recent years business and vested interest mobilisations worked to defeat the many tax changes federally, and the bank tax in SA under the last government. The power of a well-funded scare campaign should not be underestimated, and some upper house MLC’s already seem to be succumbing.