The St Vincent de Paul Society advocates on a wide range of social justice issues. Click on the links below to read our most recent Articles & Speeches.
For national media enquiries please contact: 0400 845 492 or media@svdp.org.au
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The proposed welfare bill will push people further into poverty. We have to stand together against it
With discriminatory and demonising policy measures the government is again taking from those who have little and giving to those who have much.
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Politics is concentrated economics
Stark displays of inequality, such as the concentration of homeless people in Martin Place, challenge us to unite in solidarity with those oppressed...
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Inequality is a political choice. No matter how long it takes, we will defeat it
Under a neoliberal agenda, governments are effectively arming bullies with sticks and instructing their victims to stand still for their tormentors.
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Hope versus humiliation in the Federal Budget
This year's budget neglects the structural causes of inequality and continues the ideological attacks on people excluded from the labour market.
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The housing crisis in Australia is not an economic inevitability
The housing crisis in Australia is the result of political decisions and government policy, not an economic inevitability.
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Housing inequality is a failure to govern, and the market is not the answer
We need to change the way we think about housing. Like access to education and health, having a home is a human right.
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Australia does not have a welfare problem. We have a poverty problem
It’s time we started investing in our communities instead of putting people down and blaming them for their own exclusion.
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Early recollections of injustice
Early recollections of injustice The St Vincent de Paul Society is strong on tackling issues of social injustice. For the winter 2016 edition of The...
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Waiting for the wealth to trickle down
Thursday 23 June, 2016 by Dr John Falzon. Wealth does not trickle down. It's the job of the tax system to make sure it gets shared around. That is...
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The Issue: Rough Justice
Recent evidence suggests the number of homeless people sleeping rough in the streets of our major cities each night is growing rather than sinking. A...
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Opinion Piece - Under the guiding stars of struggle and hope, we can have a truly inclusive ideas boom (from The Guardian)
This article first appeared in The Guardian Australia website at...
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Anti-Poverty Week Oration - Sick with worry
Sick with Worry - Dr John Falzon Anti-Poverty Week Oration, ACT Legislative Assembly, Canberra 14 October 2015 We are reflecting on inequality and injustice on land that always was, and always will be, Aboriginal land. I acknowledge the traditional owners
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Speech on domestic violence prevention
Presented at Ending Domestic Violence conference, Sydney Boulevard Hotel, 11 June 2015 Policy Advisor, Rik Sutherland, presented a speech to the Ending Domestic Violence Conference in Sydney outlining Vinnies services...
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St Vincent de Paul calls for change in political attitudes towards Australians living in poverty (AM, ABC Radio)
St Vincent de Paul calls for change in political attitudes towards Australians living in poverty (AM, ABC Radio)
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Resistance and Hope Speech to Progress 2015 Conference
Resistance and Hope Progress 2015 Keynote, Melbourne, 7 May 2015 Dr John Falzon We are reflecting on inequality and injustice on land that always was, and always will be, Aboriginal land. I acknowledge the traditional...
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The history of the Society working with migrants and refugees
St Vincent de Paul’s History of Work with Migrants and Refugees Presentation given to the Fourth National Conference on the Pastoral Care of Migrant and Refugees hosted by the Australian Catholic Migrant and...
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The bigger villan
By Dr John Falzon You learn a lot when you listen to people’s stories. Like the man who explained to me last Saturday night that he was OK even though he was sleeping in doorways in Canberra’s CBD, and even...
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You don't have to be a communist to stand up for the poor
By Dr John Falzon Helder Camara, the Archbishop of Recife in Brazil, famously said: 'When I give bread to the poor I am called a saint, but when I ask why they have no bread I am called a communist.' The St Vincent de...
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The history of colonisation
The history of colonisation “In the Absence of Treaty” Book Launch, Australian National University, 6th February 2014 Dr John Falzon I’m speaking on Aboriginal land. I’m not from here. I came...
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Budget night statement to the press gallery
Budget Night Statement to the Press Gallery 14 May 2013 Dr John Falzon When Labor handed down its first Budget in 2008 we said that Robin Hood might have just fired off his first humble arrow. There are some good things in tonight’s Budget: major...
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Love is at the heart of everything
Launch of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference Social Justice Statement, 2012 Sydney, 21 September 2012 Dr John Falzon Long before there was such a thing as Australia there were families who lived here, people who cared for each other and the...
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The intrusion of the excluded
Keynote Address from WACOSS Conference, Perth, 10 May 2012 By Dr John Falzon We are discussing social justice on Aboriginal land, land that was unjustly taken from a People who were, and continue to be, unjustly subjected to the crime of colonisation....
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Another world
Media Launch, 2012 CEO Sleepout, Sydney 1 May 2012. By Dr John Falzon The French poet, Paul Eluard, famously said: There is another world but it is in this one. This other world is one in which no one is left out in the cold. It is the world that our...
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The cost of poverty is more expensive than the dole
The following article was first published on The Punch news website on April 17, 2012. By Dr John Falzon It’s easy to blame people for being outside the labour market or on its low- paid fringes. It’s easy when you’re passing judgment...
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Easter manifesto
The following article, Easter Manifesto was first published Eureka Street in April 2012. By Dr John Falzon …when he saw the multitudes he was moved to compassion for them, because they were distressed and scattered like sheep without a shepherd....
