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Issues cover Winter 2013

Support alternative media – become a member of Australian Options – and get to download copies of the journal. The Winter issue features articles on taxation, climate change and more – including an interview with Frank Stillwell, political economist.

If you thought that Governments reducing taxes, but spending on health, education and the things governments should invest in (not to forget saving the planet), doesn’t add up … you were right.

Here are a few cartoons from the issue:

 

Mug pic  more tax pic privatisation Stillwell pic sorcerers apprentice pic

 

 

 

 

 

 

The plight of asylum seekers being trafficked in boats from coastal villages in Indonesia to Australian shores, mainly Christmas Island, is a major political issue – and certainly a  major humanitarian one. How to handle it, and just how to think about it , are complex. A bottom line however, is provided in an article posted on the Pro Bono news website: Salvos Staff Condemn Nauru’s ‘Cruel & Degrading Conditions’. To quote the opening lines,

‘A Public Statement by past and present Salvation Army Staff Members about asylum seeker conditions on Nauru claims that recent rioting there is an inevitable outcome from a cruel and degrading policy.

‘The strongly worded statement comes from a collection of former and current Salvation Army staff who have spent the last ten months working with asylum seekers at the Regional Processing Centres in Nauru and Manus Island’.

Here is today’s Pro Bono News cartoon:

Nauru situation  LR pic

Invisible stuff LRpic

This whiteboard style animation is for Monica Redden’s Coaching Ourselves training program:

Important reforms languish as the sitting days of parliament peter out, as some sort of compensation the political soap opera has taken an exciting (and distracting) twist.

Pro Bono is the online hub for people involved in Australia’s Not-for-Profit organisations. Here is today’s Pro Bono website NFP Kneebone cartoon.

Hello-NFP Reforms

After spending almost 3 hours in the Monet’s Garden exhibition (National Gallery Victoria), I think I now understand what he was on about…

Monet explainedA

The role that philanthropists play, in partnership with the not-for-profit sector, is highlighted in a number of posts on the Pro Bono News website.  In particular, a call to young Aussie philanthropists from the Founder and CEO of San Francisco-based Tipping Point Community, Daniel Lurie.

As Philanthropy Australia’s New Generation of Giving Manager, Caroline Vu says: “This generation of young philanthropists isn’t content just writing cheques. They want to be engaged in the giving process, using their skills, resources and networks to maximise return on investment.”

Here’s the cartoon the article inspired:

Make a difference pic

The Scratchy Lines cartoon in this month’s New Internationalist:

Super market LR pic

This cartoon for today’s Pro Bono website update may well be out of date by this afternoon as more Australian politicians feel uneasy about the cosy deal to fund the major parties a dollar for every vote they get …

Pro Bono is the on-line hub for Not-For-Profit organisations; an ongoing issue has been the slow pace of the Statutory Definition of Charity Bill, which ‘would help support charities by providing a succinct and clear definition of charity which is easier for charities and the community to understand’.

Vote for NFP pic

Here are my cartoon ideas for the Pro Bono news website. Pro Bono is the online hub for the Not for Profit (NFP) sector in Australia. The ideas came from a couple of articles: Budget: Gaping Hole for Poorest Remains, and the 14 May SACOSS Responds to Federal Budget media release (can’t find a link to it). To quote a couple of paragraphs:

However, the enormously disappointing part of this budget remains the failure to address the longstanding inadequacy of our support for unemployed Australians by not increasing the Newstart allowance.

SACOSS Executive Director Ross Womersley said …”Interestingly, this budget contains $3 billion to purchase 12 attack aircraft. Increasing the base rate for single allowance payments by $50 per week would cost approximately $1.8 billion per annum.”

Budget pic2

Budget pic1