crisis

Kelvin Thomson will be speaking at an event organised by the Builders Collective of Australia on the 25 August 2019. 'In light of the cladding crisis, Builders Collective of Australia present a public event to discuss the causes, consequences and solutions'. https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/cladding-conversations-tickets-65666711903

About this Event

With an aggregate rectification bill of billions of dollars, the fallout from flammable cladding is unfolding through the building industry, property market, and legal systems.

As well as immediate practical challenges of making buildings safe and compliant, flammable cladding raises broader questions around risk in our buildings and cities, and the frameworks that govern them. How do we, and how should we, assign responsibility for cladding issues and for fixing them? How do governments balance tensions between accountability, certainty, and the immediate need to make buildings safe? How did we get here and what are the options moving forward?

In light of such questions, Builders Collective of Australia, present a public event comprising an expert panel with a primary purpose to discuss the causes, consequences and solutions to flammable cladding. The expert panel draws together a range of perspectives to help illuminate how the flammable cladding problem came about, what the range of consequences are, and what could or should be done to fix it.

Speakers will discuss government, consumer, academic and industry-based insights into different aspects of the combustible cladding challenge. The discussion will cover questions around the building industry, litigation, regulation, owners corporations, fire engineering, consumer rights, and planning processes.

The event will comprise a short facilitated panel discussion, but more importantly it then gives the Moreland residents and the wider Victorian community a chance to particpate in an audience discussion on the issue.'

https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/cladding-conversations-tickets-65666711903

Youth unemployment has reached crisis point in Australia, the Brotherhood of St Lawrence says, as it releases an analysis of the latest official figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

The number of young Australians out of work has reached ''crisis point'', as more 15 to 24-year-olds struggle to find jobs in the ripples of the global financial crisis.

The Age: Youth unemployment reaches crisis point says Brotherhood of St Laurence

An average of 12.4 per cent of young people between the ages of 15 and 24 were out of work in the year to January. Executive director Tony Nicholson has described the result as a disaster. "And in our modern economy that means that they're really being sentenced to a lifetime of poverty."

He has called on the Federal Government to invest in a national strategy to turn things around. The national strategy should be to turn our economy around, and end the "growth" model.

Youth unemployment at Crisis Point

There's a lot of intellectual dishonesty, and while agencies are sweeping up the mess of human fallouts and poverty, and welfare dependency, governments still continue with their "growth" agendas! Instead of trying to "grow" out of the mess, and make the hole deeper, they should be making the logical U-turn from economic growth, to stability.

While youth especially are facing high unemployment, there's nothing being done to mitigate the myth of "skill shortages" in Australia! With over 1000 new arrivals each day in Australia, at airports, the competition for jobs keeps getting harder. Our economy can only "grow" to a natural height, determined by natural resources and prices, and forcing higher population growth ignores the costs of growth.

A leading migrant and refugee settlement agency AMES Chief Executive Officer Cath Scarth has told a conference at the Federation of Ethnic Communities’ Councils of Australia (FECCA) 2013 Conference on the Gold Coast, that effective unemployment rate among some communities from non-English speaking backgrounds in Australia could be as high as 20 per cent.

ProBono Australia: migrant unemployment higher than reported

Over the past fifteen years, hundreds of thousands of sponsored workers have come to Australia, with just under half opting to take out permanent residence. Unemployment among skilled migrants and their families is 30% higher than for the population as a whole, but those who do have a job are more likely to be in a professional role.

Approximately one quarter (26.1 per cent) of Australia’s total population were born overseas and a comprehensive survey last of recent migrant labour force data showed that recent migrants have significantly higher unemployment rates.

The Brotherhood of St Lawrence and other do-good agencies trying to be a voice for Australians who are unemployed should end their obstruction of the real facts. Our population growth, driven by record levels of "skilled" migration and family reunions, is at a runaway rate and can't be justified. It is out-pacing jobs creation, and housing and infrastructure building is only a short-term fix, and adds to the misanthropic "growth" agendas of governments.