At KYD this week we’re taking a publishing break, as we cook up more great content and programs for readers and writers. But with a federal election just a few weeks away, we’ve put together a reading list of some pieces we’ve published over the previous parliamentary term, which address just a handful of the pressing issues of this campaign and beyond. These pieces won’t tell you how to vote, but they will hopefully throw a new light on the issues that matter, and the solutions being put forward (or not).

How Neoliberalism Swallowed Arts Policy by Lauren Carroll Harris

In the wake of another disastrous budget, advocates for the arts sector remain trapped in the cursed logic of the free market economy. As an election approaches, we must not settle for crumbs but rethink what we value as a society.

Renters and the Right to Make a House a Home by Dženana Vucic

Even with recent changes, Australian law still privileges landlords’ profits over tenants’ rights to modify and live comfortably in their home. But renting on the other side of the world showed me things don’t have to be this way.

Tiny Homes, Big Capitalism by Patricia Arcilla

In a time of skyrocketing prices and housing insecurity, tiny homes are increasingly sold by developers, architects and design bloggers as a sustainable and ethical ideal. But in reality, cramming more people into less space and charging a premium for the privilege is the embodiment of late capitalist dystopia.

How Workplace Precarity Puts Older Women at Risk by Lianne Broadbent

Older women are the fastest growing group of homeless people in Australia. As a woman in her 50s working in the increasingly precarious hospitality industry, statistically I’m a time bomb waiting to go off.

On Not Becoming a Teacher by Caitlin Doyle-Markwick

Growing up, I always saw teaching as a stable, rewarding and valued career path. But in recent years the teachers I know have faced burnout, a lack of support and their conditions undermined. How did such a vital sector fall into crisis?

The Exploitation of Casual Workers in the University Sector by Saskia Beudel

Australian universities promise students a world-class education, but increasingly rely on underpaid and overworked staff to deliver it. What is the human and cultural cost of a sector built on wage theft and burnout?

The Despair of Growing Up in the Climate Crisis by Zifa Tanner-Kamal

“Us Gen Z kids, we live a weird type of privilege. We have the world at our fingertips, but carry it on our back.” The winner of the 2021 School Writing Prize.

How News Corp Polarised Australian Media by Farrin Foster

Once purporting to occupy the middle ground, Australian news media is now unashamedly polarised. Social media is the usual scapegoat—but what started as a war for advertisers has become an uneasy truce of ideological opposites.

Australia’s Double Standard on Statues and Sacred Sites by Patrick Mercer

Statues tell us more about power dynamics than they do about history. Colonial monuments are protected while mining companies dynamite millennia-old cultural sites. Why are these two Australian histories treated so differently?

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