The death of the ‘fair go’

Date: 04 July 2003

Hugh Stretton, on inequality

An important public seminar on 8 July will consider how Australia came to be in the throes of a major re-evaluation of its egalitarian values.

There is no question about it: we are steadily turning our backs on many social norms Australians once considered untouchable.

Fred Argy spells out the shocking changes in his new book Where to from here? Australian equalitarianism under threat, published by Allen & Unwin in April 2003.

Wherever you look - job opportunities, unemployment, workers' quality of life, welfare rights, the pockets of real poverty, Indigenous health, education and employment, regional differences, access to health education and employment - the story is a grim one.

"Today", Argy concludes, "there is less equality of opportunity than a quarter of a century ago".

"Yet Australia has never been wealthier. Why is this happening?"

To discuss the issues raised by Fred Argy's new book, the Evatt Foundation proudly presents Argy himself in a public seminar with two other distinguished Australian economists, Professors Frank Stilwell, head of the discipline of political economy at Sydney University, and Hugh Stretton, one of Australia's most gifted and influential post-war public intellectuals.

This is an unlikely ever to be repeated event.

The three economists will discuss the alarming deterioration in Australia's commitment to the 'fair go' on Tuesday 8 July at a Breakfast Seminar at Sydney's Quality Hotel (formerly known as the Southern Cross Hotel).

The seminar will be chaired by Professor Stilwell, a member of the Evatt Foundation's Executive Committee, and will take place in the Hotel's Macquarie Room on the corner of Elizabeth and Goulburn Streets.

Breakfast will be served from 7.30 am, the seminar will commence at 8.00 am, and the discussion will conclude on the dot of 9.00 am. The cost is $14 (which includes breakfast)

For further information

Contact:	Jeannette McHugh,
Union:	The Evatt Foundation
Phone:	(02) 9387 3199.
Fax:	+61 2 9385 2967
Email:	evatt@unsw.edu.au
WWW:	http://evatt.labor.net.au/events/60_20030618.html

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