Frank Stilwell & Hugh Stretton discuss Fred Argy's new book, with Fred Argy

Evatt Breakfast Seminar on equality

Frank Stilwell, Fred Argy & Hugh Stretton on equality.

Australia's retreat from egalitarianism

Australia is in the throes of a major re-evaluation of its egalitarian values. Australians are steadily turning their backs on many of the social norms they once considered untouchable.

In his new book, Where to from here? Australian equalitarianism under threat (Allen & Unwin), Fred Argy considers the disturbing changes: large and often growing inequalities in job opportunities; a stark increase in long term unemployed and jobless households; a deterioration in workers' quality of life; an erosion of the long-standing right to needs-based welfare; the emergence of pockets of real poverty, even among some low income working families; a persistent crisis in indigenous health, education and employment; a growing spatial, regional wealth divide; a widening gap between rich and poor in their access to education, health and housing; and a marked decline in the industrial bargaining power of unskilled, casual workers.

Today, there is less genuine equality of opportunity than a quarter of a century ago. Yet Australia has never been wealthier.

To discuss the issues raised by Where to from here? Australian equalitarianism under threat, the Evatt Foundation proudly presents:

Professor Frank Stilwell (chair)

Frank Stilwell is Professor of Political Economy at the University of Sydney, the editor of the Journal of Australian Political Economy, and a member of the Evatt Foundation's Executive Committee. His most recent book is Changing Track: A New Political Direction for Australia (Pluto Press: 2000).

Fred Argy

Fred Argy has advised Australian governments from Menzies to Keating, has been awarded an OBE and AM for his services to economic planning, and is the author of Australia at the Crossroads: Radical Free Market or a Progressive Liberalism? (Allen & Unwin: 1998).

Professor Hugh Stretton

Date

8 July 2003

Place and cost

Macquarie Room, Quality Hotel (formerly the Southern Cross Hotel), Cnr Goulburn and Elizabeth Streets Sydney, opposite the Goulburn Street Parking Station, and a short stroll from both Central and Museum railway stations.
$14 (includes breakfast

Timing

Breakfast will be served from 7.30 am, the seminar will commence promptly at 8.00 am and finish on the dot of 9.00 am.

Bookings

Please RSVP to the Evatt Foundation by:

Mail: Evatt Foundation
University of NSW
Sydney, NSW, 2052
Telephone: 9385 2966
Fax: 9385 2967
Email: evatt@unsw.edu.au

Note that Hugh Stretton will also be presenting the keynote address at the 2003 Australian Social Policy Conference, which is focussing on social inclusion and is also not to be missed.

Also on the Evatt site:

• Budget ... and fudge it, by Frank Stilwell
• Wanted: social healing, by Fred Argy
• Different dimensions of debt, by Frank Stilwell
• Where to from here? by Fred Argy
• Why bother about economic inequality? by Frank Stilwell
• Why fiscal surpluses? by Fred Argy
• The state of political economy, by Frank Stilwell
• Costello's 7th Budget & Australian egalitarianism, by Fred Argy

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