Craig Hill Media and Consulting

Patrick Gorman MP took to Reddit on Tuesday night to answer questions from the general public. The Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister opened the discussion stating that the Australian Labor Party has been the greatest driver of progress in Australia over the last 122 years of Federation. He added that the Albanese Government has … Continue reading →

In 2007, I moved to Hawaii in the United States. While it was meant to be a two week visit, it turned into a six month stay. I was surprised to find that even this tropical paradise has its share of social issues, including homelessness. I had travelled to Honolulu with an old friend I … Continue reading →

Rent caps work in many countries around the world and will not lead to a decrease in supply. Indeed, Australia has had rent caps in the past, and it has not had any drastic effect on availability. Rent caps already exist in the ACT, which has been put forward by the Tenant’s Union of NSW … Continue reading →

Originally posted on Kangaroo Education Services:
As a special introductory offer, Kangaroo Education Services will offer a 50% discount on Australian Certificate III in Business courses to all Centrelink recipients who enrol at our school before 31 March 2023. A 50 % discount means you only pay $1500 for a Certificate III in Business. As…

Mutual obligations is a punitive system introduced by the LNP government in their dying days as a final swipe at Australia’s most vulnerable. Under the system, jobseekers must complete a range of tasks each month – such as job applications, education or training, or other personal development activities – to meet their requirements. The various … Continue reading →

In 2007, I found myself in Seattle, in the United States. I was meeting with a friend who wanted to tell me about the homeless in the underground city. The following are my observations from that time: Are homeless people living in undeveloped parts of Seattle’s abandoned underground city? From speaking with some of the … Continue reading →

Thousands of Australians took the opportunity to participate in citizen-led democracy on Reddit on Tuesday 15 March, engaging Jordon Steele-John, Australian Greens Senator from Western Australia, with questions on a wide range of topics including the NDIS, nuclear submarines, cannabis legislation and inclusivity during an Ask Me Anything (AMA) session. Asked about whether The Greens … Continue reading →

Centrelink payments will rise from Monday 20 March, as part of the twice yearly increases driven by indexation. While the rises are welcome, they are still not enough. Single age and disability pension recipients and carers will receive an increase of $37.50 a fortnight, and couples a combined $56.40. The maximum fortnightly pension rate will … Continue reading →

Peter Dutton has called for cuts to the NDIS to help pay for AUKUS, while steadfastly attacking superannuation changes that would affect only the very rich. This is yet another attack by the LNP on Australia’s most vulnerable, and one can only surmise that this was the LNP intention when they first announced the AUKUS … Continue reading →

In 2005 I was in Brisbane, Australia, working for Big Issue Magazine. It was here that I got to help the homeless get off the streets. After returning from China in 2003, I ended up living on the streets in Brisbane for a short while. Then I found The Big Issue, and started selling the … Continue reading →

Owen Miller, Fusion Party candidate in the Aston by-election, took part in an open forum discussion on Reddit on Tuesday 7 March. In this discussion, he took questions from the general public. In his opening, he stated that Fusion aimed to bring about a return to real Australian values, innovation and a fair go for … Continue reading →

With Labor introducing changes to superannuation and the LNP promising to repeal those changes, Australians are once again left uncertain about whether they will have enough to retire on. Compounding that issue is the fact that it is now extremely difficult to get a full aged pension. First, let’s look at superannuation. For many years … Continue reading →

Peter Dutton’s announcement that he will repeal Labor’s superannuation laws if he miraculously becomes Prime Minister is all the proof we need that the LNP should not be in government. The problem is that every government does something similar whenever they gain power, meaning there is no certainty for future retirees about their retirement. This … Continue reading →

On my third trip to China, in 2003, I was teaching university and writing for an English language magazine in Guangzhou. I was also arrested for inciting freedom of speech and dissent. Guangzhou is one of the most populated cities in the world, situated about 120 km northwest of Hong Kong, in the southeast of … Continue reading →

The Robodebt Royal Commission has heard that the former LNP government had a strong view of “deserving” and “undeserving” poor when it came to Centrelink. Exactly what this means is unclear, but it sounds very ominous. It seems to want to create division between those that the government see as worthy, and those they see … Continue reading →

Negative Income Tax is an alternative to the Universal Basic Income, and reverses the direction in which tax is paid for incomes below a certain level. It provides that wage earners above a certain level of income pay tax, while those below that level receive support from the government. As a grossly over-simplified example, the … Continue reading →

Thousands of Australians took the opportunity to participate in citizen-led democracy on Reddit on Thursday February 23, engaging Senator Malcolm Roberts from Pauline Hanson’s One Nation with questions on a wide range of topics including Lidia Thorpe, housing, inflation, and tax reform during the Ask Me Anything (AMA) session. Asked about Thorpe’s position on Indigenous … Continue reading →

On my second trip to China, in 2003, I was teaching at Jiangdu High School in Jiangsu Province. It was here that I became aware of foreign predators preying on Chinese high school students, infanticide, the Chinese student army and the city’s links to my home town of Goulburn. I was teaching English as part … Continue reading →

The safeguard mechanism that Labor are proposing is far from perfect, but it is much better than what the LNP gave us when they first introduced it. The LNP did not properly enforce their mechanism, and it failed to reduce emissions. Now that Labor want to make it better and enforce it, the LNP are … Continue reading →

Peter Dutton is calling for the reintroduction of the cashless welfare card, blaming it’s scrapping on the rise in alcohol-related violence in Alice Springs and Indigenous communities. Dutton is not basing his assertions on facts. He is using a social crisis for political purposes to incite emotions against Aboriginal people. He has singled out the … Continue reading →

Labor’s plan to implement a $10 billion Housing Australia Future Fund is under threat from the Greens and the Opposition. Both parties need to take a breath and consider the realities of their situation. The Opposition need to realise that their job is to oppose government legislation if it is bad, and offer a better … Continue reading →

In January of 2003, I made my first trip to China, to Huai’an in Jiangsu Province. I was contracted to lecture about Aboriginal people in Australia, but it ended up being just as much about campaigning for human rights in China as anything else. In total, I lectured at nine universities and schools throughout Jiangsu … Continue reading →

In any other workplace in Australia, distributing explicit photos of a work colleague to shame them would result in dismissal, yet Dominic Perrottet has gone in to defend Peter Poulos for doing just that. At the very least, Poulos should have been sanctioned. By failing to take any action, Perrottet is sending the message that … Continue reading →

Julian Assange, the Australian publisher who founded WikiLeaks in 2006, faces 175 years in prison if extradited from the UK to the US. Assange’s case is the first time in history that a publisher has been indicted under the US Espionage Act, but the Australian government have so far not stepped in to help him. … Continue reading →

“Your call is important to us. Please stay on the line until your call is no longer important to you.” Anybody who has ever tried to use Centrelink’s automated phone system will tell you it doesn’t work. Only Centrelink seem to think it does, and they’re doing nothing to fix it The current system automatically … Continue reading →

In 2002, I moved out of Queensland to manage the Mrangalli Aboriginal Corporation in Tingha, NSW. This proved quite rewarding, but it wasn’t without it’s problems. Sadly, the corporation no longer exists, for reasons we will discuss later. Before non indigenous settlement the area now known as Tingha was mainly inhabited by people from the … Continue reading →

Allegations of fascism are thrown around frequently to describe the far right, and often the term is misused to incite an emotional response against political ideologies that opponents don’t agree with. However, in the case of the Morrison government, the use of the word may have had some merit. Wikipedia describes Fascism is a far-right, authoritarian, ultranationalist political ideology. It … Continue reading →

There can be no doubt that Lidia Thorpe has achieved a lot in her time, but like many before and still to come, she has shown a political naivety since coming to federal politics. Although she made significant achievements prior to entering federal politics, which we will acknowledge, she has been an absolute nightmare for … Continue reading →

There can be little doubt, given the timing, that Alan Tudge has resigned from parliament because of the stress of the Robodebt Royal Commission. While he cites the death of his father and death threats against his teenage daughters, sometimes what is not said speaks volumes about the character of a person. In his resignation … Continue reading →

Yesterday I won my 11 month battle with the NDIS (National Disability Insurance Scheme). It was only a small win, but highlights the lack of empathy and bloody-mindedness of those charged with administering the scheme. This was an incredible waste of government time and money, when one considers that the cost that NDIS was trying … Continue reading →

Yesterday I had my first hearing at the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT), and it went exactly as expected. The AAT rejected the law and affirmed Centrelink’s decision. This was in relation to a periodic lottery win that I received in October 2022, $5,000 a month for 12 months. If the win had been a $60,000 … Continue reading →

Another learning experience I had was in 2001, teaching Aboriginal street kids in Rockhampton. I came to learn the problems these kids faced, and their genuine desire to overcome these problems. This was shortly after I had left Woorabinda Aboriginal Community, where I was running the TAFE at the local high school, and at the … Continue reading →

There can be no doubt that the problems in Alice Springs are extreme, to say the least, but similar problems exist on Indigenous, remote and rural communities right throughout Australia. Nor is the problem confined to Indigenous people. It is happening right across the community. Alice Springs has come to the forefront in recent times … Continue reading →

The Australian Government has recently announced proposed changes to the country’s Medicare system. The proposed changes aim to create a more efficient and equitable system for the delivery and funding of Australia’s health care services. Let’s take a closer look at these proposed changes. The proposed changes to Medicare are intended to make the system … Continue reading →

Poverty in Australia is a growing concern as it affects more and more people every year. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, over 3.2 million Australians, or approximately 13.5%, are living in poverty, meaning that they live on less than 50% of the median income. This means that more than one in eight Australians … Continue reading →

Over the years, Australia just like other developed countries have been thinking of introducing a universal basic income (UBI). But what is it, and what are the arguments for and against? A UBI is a form of income that is offered by the government to its citizens with disregard to their employment status. This form … Continue reading →

Constitutional recognition through a Voice to Parliament would give Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people agency to help inform decisions that impact their lives. Yet there are those that are against this purely on principle, rather than on any facts or details of the proposed Voice. Why is this so? First, let’s look at what … Continue reading →

More than 40,000 Chinese university students could arrive in Australia in the next few weeks as a result of a Chinese government ban on online studying. The ban affects all students located in China who are studying university courses online through an Australian university. China have decreed that they will no longer recognise these online … Continue reading →

Now in its fourth year of implementation, the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) is an Australian Government initiative providing funding for disability support and services. This insurance-based scheme is designed to provide people with a significant and permanent disability with the necessary and reasonable support they require to enjoy an ordinary lifestyle. While the NDIS … Continue reading →

The Australian government established Centrelink with the primary purpose of providing aid to individuals who are in need of it. Unfortunately, Australian residents don’t believe the agency has performed effectively, which is why a Royal Commission is needed to intervene and restore order. But why is a Royal Commission necessary, and what will its objectives … Continue reading →

This was my very first story published in Big Issue Magazine as part of a regular fortnightly series back in 2006. Big Issue employed me with money they received from Sarina Russo and The Vodafone Foundation. Dear Mum, Sorry I haven’t written for a while. Okay, so it’s been three years. This is just a … Continue reading →

A nation’s national day of celebration is meant to unite a country, but in recent years that has not been the case in Australia. So is it time to change the date we celebrate our national day? The date of 26 January has always been controversial as our national day of celebration, even though it … Continue reading →

Income averaging was found to be illegal by the Federal Court in the Robodebt Test Case of Amato vs Commonwealth (2019), yet Centrelink still use this methodology when calculating income for certain windfalls. These windfalls include lottery wins, inheritances, gifts, bequests, insurance payments, bursaries, scholarships and anything else Centrelink decide is income, if they are … Continue reading →

One thing I learnt in my time as a prison officer is that there is no such thing as the justice system, and we should stop referring to it as such. It is the judicial system, run by judges and with little concern for victims or offenders. My jump to social justice campaigner started with … Continue reading →

Centrelink is a totally dysfunctional organisation, due in large part to the fact that it has become too big to be able to function efficiently or effectively. They administer all forms of benefit payments, and the call centre staff rarely know the answers to an enquiry when they are called. That is, if one can … Continue reading →

Back in the year 2000, I was honoured to be invited to live and work on the Aboriginal community of Woorabinda, 170 km south west of Rockhampton in Central Queensland. Woorabinda had a population of about 3000 then, and there were only 21 non-Indigenous people living on the community. I was employed by the local … Continue reading →

Jason Ryman, the architect of Centrelink’s infamous Robodebt scheme, was seconded to the NDIA with the task of using a similar scheme to target recipients of NDIS funding. The NDIA (National Disability Insurance Agency) is the agency charged with overseeing the running of the NDIS (National Disability Insurance Scheme). The secondment was made by former … Continue reading →

Job Services Australia, or Workforce Australia as it is now called, has failed to live up to the promises the Howard government made when they introduced it in 1998. Originally known as the Job Network, it has devolved into a giant money making venture by about 30 multinational organisations, and offers few tangible services to … Continue reading →