© 2018 Greg & Sylvia RAY

Author: Greg Ray

This author has written 481 articles
Read more about the article The aged are politically expendable
Photo by Dominik Lange on Unsplash

The aged are politically expendable

February 6, 2022 Opinion by Greg Ray Imagine you were prime minister of Australia or premier of NSW. You had decided, for one reason or another, that you wanted to "let Covid rip" in your communities, presumably believing that the death toll and health consequences of that policy would not be as damaging as the economic cost of lockdowns and safety measures. I suggest that, equipped with the knowledge you had gained in your own country and overseas, you would have thought carefully about those of your citizens most vulnerable to the worst effects of the…

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Read more about the article Museum excursion to Port Stephens, 1880

Museum excursion to Port Stephens, 1880

Leafing through old newspapers often yields interesting material, some of it relevant to the Hunter Region of NSW where I live. The following two-part article is a good example. It provides an interesting account of a sea journey from Sydney to Port Stephens in 1880, purportedly to gather specimens for the Australian Museum. The author - who also did some sketches which are reproduced as engravings - describes a new fish-processing enterprise, the inner lighthouse and telegraph station and the down-at-heel city of Newcastle. It's also a rather bloodthirsty account, since the members of the expedition…

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Read more about the article Eight-hour Day campaign may resonate today

Eight-hour Day campaign may resonate today

The idea that employers might be robbed of the power to set work hours for their employees at almost any level they chose scandalised the English-speaking world in the 1800s. Bosses declared the idea was preposterous. It would make businesses unprofitable, drive some to the wall, hurt the poor and upset the natural order of things. Nevertheless, despite those arguments and despite sometimes ferocious punishments for workers found guilty of working together to press for better pay and conditions, some people kept arguing that eight hours was a fair working day. The idea was that, in…

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