Townsville

Courtesy of The Stringer - http://thestringer.com.au/cuts-to-single-parent-payments-lead-to-hardshi...
Gerry Georgatos - There are 630,000 Australian lone parent families with dependents – 84 per cent are single mothers and 16 per cent are single fathers. 54 per cent of these single parents have a youngest child less than nine years of age. Of the parents with a child less than 9 years of age 59 per cent were in some form of employment end of June 2011 according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (2011).

The Stringer went live February 20. Some of our stories from the last week include:

Rising Renters Stress – 2/3rds of Australian live in rent

March 23, 2013

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) ‘rental stress’ is a term often used to describe households at risk of experiencing difficulty meeting their rental costs. High levels of rental stress mean that affordability may be low and, as a result, those households experiencing rental stress may be less able to rent housing that meets their basic needs.

At 2pm March 18th the Queensland Uranium Implementation Report is expected to be released by the LNP government. This report is expected to give the green light for uranium mining in Queensland. In October 2012 the LNP government broke its clear commitment not to allow uranium mining in Queensland. This commitment was the position of the LNP at the March 2012 state election and was reaffirmed after they took office. In the absence of open, inclusive and evidence based policy making the Newman LNP government has set up the Uranium Implementation Committee.

Gerry Georgatos
The Western Australian remote Aboriginal community of Jigalong is renewing calls for non-sniffable fuel to combat substance abuse and anti-social behaviour, however some ask is this really the answer. Jigalong is near the heart of the mining boom and yet the majority of its Aboriginal peoples languish - they say 'what mining boom?'