Strike Debt – Occupy Wall Streets latest campaign

November 26, 2012 by

Kelly Pope

After some months getting off the ground, Strike Debt, an offshoot of Occupy Wall Street, has grown fast in its efforts to alleviate poor communities from debt. The idea of tackling the issue of debt was first discussed at the encampment at Zuccotti Park, and since then has been developed by protesters including those with banking and legal backgrounds. The basic aim the campaign is to buy debt, which is split up, packaged and sold for much less than its’ worth, and forgive it.

Part of the reason for the slow start to the campaign was the consultation which had to be carried out with the tax department and legal advisors. Packaged debt is usually bought by debt collectors, after which the purchasers make every effort to see the debt repaid, with no thought of the welfare and personal circumstances of those owing money. Contrastingly, the campaign’s goal was to buy debt, but not to attempt to recover it, and through a legal loophole the purchase of debt with this intention was possible.

As a trial run, the campaign bought some of the cheapest debt, and wrote off $14,000 worth of medical loans which it had purchased for a mere $500. Organiser David Rees announced the financial viability of the action saying “as you can see from our test run, the return on investment approaches 30:1. That’s a crazy bargain!”

Since then, the movement has grown, and has been targeting communities hardest hit by the recession. With the donations of financial supporters, the movement managed to buy up and forgive further debt to the value of $500,000 by November 14th. This was the figure on the day before the campaign’s biggest fundraising effort.  [Read more…]

Filed Under: Social Movements

Reclaim The Night: Interview with Margarita Windisch

November 19, 2012 by

Joel Cosgrove conducted this interview after the recent Reclaim The Night march in Melbourne.

 

THE SPARK: Reclaim the Night seems to have been an important event throughout Australia this year, what is reclaim the night and what has driven people to get involved?

MARGARITA WINDISCH: Reclaim the Night originated in the US, with the first march held in 1973 in San Francisco. Reclaim the Night (RTN) was initially about re-claiming public space for women and protesting sexual violence against women. Over time many organising collectives broadened out the demands to reflect the many forms of violence women experience, of which the majority still occur in the home.

RTN used to be dominated by a more separatist feminist perspective, which essentially blames individual men for women’s oppression. This has changed somewhat to a more inclusive perspective that looks at systemic causes, allowing a broader participation, including men.

RTN mobilisations have always played a critical part in the women’s movement by keeping the issue of gender based violence in the public eye. With the ebb of the second wave of feminism in the 90’s we also saw a drop in RTN attendance as with other feminist activities around the country.

Numbers however started to grow again over the last few years, indicating a renewed interest in feminist ideas and activity.  Feminist speakers have been attracting sell-out crowds at writer’s festivals and feminist collectives are springing up on university campuses.

We also have to give credit to the excellent Equal Pay campaign waged by the Australian Services Union over three years, for bringing gender based wage discrimination into public consciousness. The campaign demonstrated that gender was a key contributing factor for the massive pay gap for the social and community services workers in the non-profit sector.

The global ‘Slutwalk’ phenomena which started in Toronto in 2011 is another example of re-invigorated feminist action and protests rape and victim blaming. In Melbourne these protests attracted around 1000 people in 2011 and 2012.

RTN 2012 was big across Australia, and in Melbourne exceptionally large, with estimates ranging from 5000 – 8000 – making it the biggest ever in Melbourne.

The brutal rape and murder of 29 year old Jill Meagher, who walked home a couple of months ago from a night out in the trendy and hip Melbourne suburb Brunswick, traumatised an entire community and broke the silence and complacency around violence against women. Many women not only identified with Jill and started to publicly discuss their own experiences of threats and harassment and lack of police support around their complaints.  A local resident organised a ‘peace march’ via facebook event after Jill’s body was found and a stunning 30.000 people turned up.

A small group of local women took the initiative and called for a Reclaim the Night (RTN) Rally along busy Sydney Rd, the place Jill M disappeared from. The group had three weeks to organise the protest.

The rally was diverse and included many families.  There were a high percentage of young people and at least one in four people at the rally were men. Men had been invited to participate but were asked to march in the mixed section behind women who led the march. The vibe was fantastic and many of us wondered about ‘where to from here’  [Read more…]

Filed Under: Women

MSD Security failure: The technical side of it

November 13, 2012 by

The revelation last month that screeds of personal information were available for anyone to download (or edit) simply by walking into a WINZ office and using a public kiosk was a shock to everyone. Perhaps most shocked though are those who work in the field of computer networking and security. Neither Keith Ng, the blogger who broke the story, or Ira Bailey, the system administrator who tipped off Ng, ‘hacked’ into the computer network of the Ministry of Social Development. ‘Hacking’ would require some kind of circumvention of security. This was not a case of weak security; it was a case of no security.

As Ng pointed out in his Public Address blog post, the kiosks shouldn’t even have been on the same network as client information. There was really no reason for it, but even if there was a reason for the kiosks being on the same network a very basic principle of network security was ignored. The ‘principle of least privilege’ dictates that if a user doesn’t need to access a file or service on a network, they shouldn’t have permission to. The user account for the public kiosks should not have had the permissions required to access client information and invoices.

Computer security can be broken, just as a lock can be picked, but this case wasn’t a lock being picked, it was the digital equivalent of leaving a filing cabinet unlocked with a door to the street wide open. The Ministry of Social Development (MSD) had been warned about their security hole. Kay Brereton, from Beneficiary Advocacy Federation, told Radio New Zealand that she had tested the kiosks not long after they were introduced and found people could get into the ministry’s system.  [Read more…]

Filed Under: Welfare

Why the MSD security breach matters

November 12, 2012 by

ImagePolly Peek

Last month scandal erupted as news broke that confidential client information, and financial records were freely available to anyone using self-service kiosks in Work and Income offices around the country.

The complete lack of security in the system has been the subject of much criticism, with systems administrators revealing just how simple it would have been to create a secure network or fix the security issues when they first became apparent.

Another aspect of the privacy issues which has sparked public outrage has been the confidential nature of the information available, and the ability for those viewing the information to identify the clients concerned, and in some cases locate them, as names and addresses (as well as other identifying information) had all been easily accessible.  [Read more…]

Filed Under: Welfare

Rethinking ‘Domestic Purposes’: Do we need a new approach?

November 10, 2012 by

Byron Clark

As the government ramps up attacks on welfare recipients defensive actions have happened across the country as those on welfare and their supporters advocate for their right to dignity and a living income (not that benefits can really be called that). The status quo we are defending, however, is a much less than ideal situation, what we need is to change the way our society defines and values ‘work’.

The Domestic Purposes Benefit (DPB), which is one of several to be merged into a new ‘job seeker benefit’, was  formed through the Social Security Amendment Act in 1973 with the first payments starting in May of 1974. It was originally set at a level that would enable single mothers to care for their children as a full time job without having to enter the work-force. A year before the Social Security Amendment Act, American feminist Selma James launched the wages for house work campaign, arguing that the work done in the home should be financially compensated.

While the DPB only applies to single parents, New Zealand must have looked somewhat progressive in the early 70s. Several decades later however, there is an enormous stigma in being a ‘DPB mum’. Back in 2002, six years before he would become prime minister, John Key described women receiving the DPB as “breeding for a business”. Work done outside of the wage-labour system- and being a parent is a huge amount of work- is not recognised by the likes of Key as having value. Even from a purely economic perspective, the reproduction of the next generation of the workforce is a service capitalism is getting on the cheap.

One nation has taken steps to ensure that this work is valued. In 2006 Venezuela began paying the nation’s poorest housewives 80% of the minimum wage for work done in the home. “The world is beginning to recognise and value women’s hidden contribution to society but Venezuela goes further” wrote James at the time. “This is finally a wage for housework, something we have demanded since 1972!”  [Read more…]

Filed Under: Welfare, Women
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