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Brexit shows us why fairness should matter to Conservatives: the failure of austerity measures

Coalition would push us into a less fair society

Eva Cox writes on her blog: ‘I have been compiling a social-policy-on-offer tally with three categories. Firstly, fear-mongering, scapegoating and demonising: 15 negative items. Secondly, missing possible items of needed social policy changes: 38 items. And thirdly, included actual commitments in the social area which were evaluated on whether these contributed to or reduced social trust and well being. (See the details on Crikey.)  I stopped when I got to 88 items overall because that was long enough to make my point about lack of positive policies.

‘The negatively scored examples of hatemongering came from both sides — see asylum seekers and pressure on the unemployed, but more from the Coalition.

‘The missing items included cultural, Indigenous and poor people’s needs, but the identified actual socially oriented policies did not necessarily offer positive changes. The results of my total tally as of last week? The Coalition scored negative 10.5 and ALP scored a bare plus 4.

‘Out of a possible positive score of 50 plus, neither side does well — but on these indicators, the Coalition would actually push Australia into being less fair.’

Labor has a detailed strategy to fight for fairness. This matters.

Van Badham writes in The Guardian (27.6.16), discussing the electoral impact of austerity measures in Britain and their influence on the Brexit vote.

‘… compounding the misery of work is a society stripped of its most basic infrastructure. “Austerity” just means cutting funding to things that conservatives do not like: universal healthcare, welfare, public education and all other means to equalise society.

‘British prime minister, David Cameron, has made plenty of economic excuses to slash funding to these services for the past six years and everything from libraries, to community centres, to homeless shelters even to covered markets, have been stripped, sold off or shut.

‘What’s been done to run down health, education, welfare and community development have left entire communities of exploited, low paid or unemployed workers to fend for themselves.’

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