Well Said!

  By Helen Said, semi-retired single mum   Single mums need superannuation to look after ourselves later in life. We are less likely to own our own homes, and more likely to become homeless if we don’t have retirement savings to fall back on. Unfortunately, some Australian Tax Office superannuation rules are stacked against single mothers. The government offers low-income earners up to $500 per year, as a superannuation co-contribution, until we are 71 years old. If single mums were given this money, we could retire with a nest egg of tens of thousands of dollars or more. But most single mums will never get this money, at least not while we are bringing up children. To get $500 a year from the government, paid into your superannuation account, you need to lock away $1000 every year. When you are struggling to pay rent and put food on the table for your children, how can you lock away $1000 each year for your old age? How it works : if you earn less than $47,488 thi...

  By Helen Said, Autistic advocate, Melbourne Australia Some people who come across this blog might wonder,  do we really need another "ism"?  "Isms" are needed to help us think critically about our attitudes and the world we take for granted. When we notice a pattern of bad attitudes and structural problems that cause disadvantage to a group of people, we need to discuss it, name it and address it. The term "racism" was coined in 1902 by Richard Henry Pratt, a brigadier-general in the US Army who opposed racial segregation. It was to be many decades before the word "racism" was commonly used and understood. As I was growing up, after Martin Luther made his historic "I have a dream" speech, the words "racial prejudice" started being used. In those days, many colonised countries, such as the US, Australia and South Africa, legally segregated Black people. As there were no anti-discrimination laws, racial prejudices were openly ...

By Helen Said, a proud migrant living in Naarm (Melbourne, Australia)  Pictured above is the anti-refugee boat trophy that conservative former Prime Minister Scott Morrison kept on his desk, which had a sign reading "We stopped these". The sign has been corrected to say "We arrived on these", to remind Australians that 97% of us are of immigrant origin. Last weekend, a misnamed "March for Australia" was organised in a number of cities in Australia. The marches scapegoated immigration for domestic problems such as the current housing shortage. People who marched had varying motivations. These marches were led and addressed by aggressively racist politicians and violent Nazis, however many who marched were not violent racists.  Australia's mainstream political parties condemned the marches as racist, however many people have been manipulated into believing that migration levels are responsible for the current housing crisis and they were unaware of the v...