Dystopian Australia: just the tip of the iceberg.....

 

In Australia it sometimes feels as though there has never been any hope of a genuine level playing field developing in a society whose institutions are hampered by a thick 18th century British-European exoskeleton.

That the notion of universal welfare has always been distorted by perceptions of class and a false narrative of the deserving and undeserving poor.

In modern Australia the following is just another example of what happens when instead of the creation of constructive social policy, poverty merely stops being an exploitive cottage industry for religious charities and instead expands into a gold mine for rapacious secular opportunists.

The Saturday Paper, 26 August 2023:

Outsourced employment service providers are funnelling millions of dollars in government funding earmarked for people on welfare through their own companies, related entities and labour-hire outfits, creating paper empires out of their impoverished clients.

Under the $6.3 billion, five-year Workforce Australia model, private and not-for-profit job service providers are able to receive “outcome” payments for placing jobseekers in “work” within their own organisation and receive funding to refer them to other services and training, which can also be delivered by subsidiaries or related parties.

In short, a provider can be paid to take on a welfare recipient by the federal government and then be paid to place them into training within their own organisation and then be paid again by placing the person into work somewhere else in that organisation’s network.

This comes at the same time as an increasing awareness that mutual obligations – the system by which people on welfare must apply for an arbitrary number of jobs, enrol in training or perform set activities each month under threat of payment suspension – is damaging and does not lead people to employment.

Data released under freedom of information laws and through budget estimates reveals that in the year to June 30 the Employment Fund made $33.6 million in commitments to job providers within their own organisation, for example for counselling services provided by an entity with the same ABN.

Excluding wage subsidies, which cannot be claimed in this way, the spending represents a quarter of the more than $100 million allocated from the Employment Fund in total. One provider alone made $5.5 million worth of claims via its own entities in a nine-month period to March 31.

While the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations has tallied the figures for organisations using the same ABN, it took longer to come up with a figure for how much providers were spending on related companies – such as those that shared a director or major shareholder – because providers self-report and the reports are often unreliable.

The Saturday Paper has been told the dollar value for related-party claims from the fund is $9.2 million in the year to June, bringing the total amount of money being recirculated within companies to $42.8 million…..

Read the full article here.

The start and finish of 'charity' according to Hartsuyker

The Federal Member for Cowper and Shadow Spokesperson for the Dog Whistle on the NSW North Coast forgets that old saying that although charity begins at home it should not end there and that Australia has international humanitarian obligations as well as domestic commitments:

THE Gillard Government is refusing to support university students from regional areas whilst doling out millions of dollars to keep asylum seekers in hotels and motels, The Nationals federal member for Cowper's Luke Hartsuyker said today. Mr Hartsuyker was commenting on media reports the Government is forking out $2.5 million a month to house 500 asylum seekers and that an extra $290 million will be required this year to fund Labor’s failed border protection policy. “The Gillard Labor Government simply has the wrong priorities,” Mr Hartsuyker said. [Stock and Land,15 February 2011]

With the Leader of the Opposition Tony Abbott now heading a coalition which appears to be fast redefining itself as anti-immigration and anti-Muslim, it is hardly surprising to find Hartsuyker seeking media attention by parroting yet another dubious version of Abbott's "With so many schools destroyed or damaged in Australia we do think that charity begins at home".

This week:

• Michelle Grattan's analysis of the current state of play in the Coalition
  
• Federal Minister for Immigration and Citizenship Chris Bowen's speech to the Sydney Institute on immigration and multiculturalism and the Liberal Party

Income Management by Basics Card: NSW North Coast Business Shame File

The following businesses operating on the NSW North Coast participate in the Gillard Government’s paternalistic and punitive income management policy applying to welfare recipients (with a focus on quarantining payments to indigenous recipients and long-term recipients of pensions, benefits and allowances) aka the Basics Card.

The Basics Card providor for the Federal Government is apparently London-based Retail Decisions Pty Ltd.

On the NSW North Coast:

Alstonville

Coles

Ballina

Coles, Woolworths, Caltex, Target, K-Mart

Byron Bay

Caltex, Woolworths

Casino

Woolworths, Bi-Lo, Coles, Target, Caltex

Coffs Harbour

Caltex, Woolworths, Coles, Target

Grafton

Woolworths, Bi-Lo, Coles, Target, Caltex, City Beach

Lismore

Woolworths, Bi-Lo, Coles, Target, Caltex, City Beach, K-Mart

Nambucca Heads

Caltex, Woolworths

Tweed Heads

Woolworths, Bi-Lo, Coles, Target, Caltex, City Beach, K-Mart

Woolgoolga

Coles

Yamba

Coles/Bi-Lo

The full national Merchant’s List can be found here

If Baby Boomers were worried aged care might be stuffed by the time they turned 75 - worry no more

Read and enjoy current aged care recommendations in the Caring For Older Australians: Draft report presented to the Gillard Government by the Productivity Commission and released on 21 January 2011.

Less direct accountability for government, less transparency if that is actually possible, a freer hand for aged care providers (including the ability to palm-off aged care bed categories with low profit margins) and the potential for all manner of agencies to increase costs on a whole range of services (including removing the cap on high care accommodation charges), ‘supported’ beds for low-income frail aged eventually assigned to the lowest tenders, a more market-driven provision of aged care services for special needs groups, and as an added bonus, the continuing option of being faced with no nursing home bed available in the area in which you live in your retirement – I give you A framework for assessing aged care: draft recommendations.

However, as has been the case down the centuries, if you enter old age with significant assets and investments you will still be able to afford the best on offer and probably do a little better out of those same proposed aged care provisions.

The entire report can be found here.

We have all been invited to examine this report and make written submissions to the Productivity Commission by Monday 21 March 2011.
Email agedcare@pc.gov.au for further information

Australia 2010: When the welcome mat is never put out for you

SANE Australia has released the findings of a recent survey in Research Bulletin 12 Social inclusion and mental illness - hopefully in time to assist with mental health policy responses from the major parties contesting the Australian Federal Election on 21 August 2010:

"The survey was conducted in March-April 2010 using a convenience sample of 559 people who completed an anonymous questionnaire.

The most common diagnoses reported were depression (40%), bipolar disorder (22%), anxiety (13%), and schizophrenia (12%)........

Over 50% of respondents to the survey, however, reported that mental illness had cut short their education, and they had not been offered support to continue this later.....

Most respondents (75%) were Centrelink clients. Of these, two-thirds (66%) were dissatisfied with the help provided by Centrelink and the disability employment services to which they referred people. Centrelink staff often did not understand the impact of mental illness, it was reported.

Many employment service staff also had difficulty understanding the needs of clients with mental illness, or had unrealistic expectations of them.......

Over half of the respondents (52%) reported that they did not feel part of their local community. Many reported that they had been treated disrespectfully at some time because of their mental illness (42%).

A 'digital divide' was also identified. While 72% of the general population use the Internet from home to engage with others, only 47% of respondents reported being able to do this.......

In summary

Many people with a mental illness experience disruption of their education, and receive no support to resume this.

Centrelink and employment service staff are inadequately supported and trained to help people with a mental illness find work.

People with a mental illness often feel they are not part of their local community, and are not welcome there. They are also far less likely to be connected to others because of a lack of Internet access.

Most people with a mental illness do not know where to go for help regarding discrimination, or find the process unhelpful. While other groups in society are protected from vilification (on grounds of religion or culture, for example), this protection is unavailable to people with a disability.

And the Rudd Government wonders why its reputation is in tatters....

On 20 May 2010 the NT News reported:

LABOR backbencher Marion Scrymgour has once again spoken out against her own party's policy by attacking a decision to continue welfare quarantining.
Ms Scrymgour criticised Federal Indigenous Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin's dismissal of a recent report that revealed income management was not working.
Chief Minister Paul Henderson this week backed the Commonwealth's decision but said the report by the Menzies School of Health Research needed to be examined.
But Ms Scrymgour lashed out at the Federal Government by making an online post on the Crikey website.
She said the Menzies report was based on "concrete sales data", but the Commonwealth was relying on its own "subjective anecdotal" study.
"It is time to revisit the hype and spin that prevailed back in mid-2007 when this measure was introduced," she said.
"To its great discredit, the Commonwealth Government has maintained the destructive combination of universal income management and the winding down of CDEP, asserting all the while that it sought to act on the basis of 'evidence'."
"The evidence compiled in the Menzies report speaks for itself."
Mr Henderson said Ms Scrymgour was "entitled to her view".

This very public spat was based on the finding of the Menzies Report which was published in the Medical Journal of Australia as Impact of income management on store sales in the Northern Territory.

The Australian Medical Association alerted the media in a press release:
Income management, introduced as part of the Northern Territory Emergency Response in remote Northern Territory communities in 2007, has had no beneficial effect on tobacco and cigarette sales, soft drink or fruit and vegetable sales, according to research published in the Medical Journal of Australia.

Then Crikey followed up with The Government campaign against researchers who dared question income management on 11 June 2010 and then reported on an incredible piece of government spin on the basic card issue.

This spin included a 16 May 2010 media release from the Minister's office which addressed reducing sugar consumption in indigenous communities as its principal response to the research findings. However this particular release appears to have disappeared from the Internet and only this response from Jenny Macklin survives on the FaHCSIA website.

Now the original document exchange in this disagreement is on record:

The FaHCSIA Critique of the Menzies Report
Response from the Menzies researchers

Lack of public facilities such as transport in rural and regional Oz

Last year the local community of ***** (name removed) buried young ****** (name removed).


***** hanged himself out of despair. Centrelink hounded him.

In order to pacify Centrelink ***** drove everywhere to find work, often in an unregistered vehicle as he had not the means to pay for registration.

Individuals like ***** end up driving, often without a licence, and more often in unregistered vehicles. The seeds of criminality begin this way, from despair.

Truth is, this is not an isolated incident.

Over to you Mr Rudd et al.

Source: Read this

Shame Rudd Shame: government gets a fail on pension increase

State government housing authorities and community housing are lining up to take a bite out of the Rudd Government $60 per fortnight base pension increase for single pensioners.

Those on low incomes in public housing normally pay 25 per cent of their total income in rent, however the NSW Government has already changed rent calculation rules for community housing so that single pensioners are often paying more than 25 per cent of their total income on rent each fortnight and, in many parts of NSW that steep late 2008 rent increase was implemented in one fell swoop despite the Federal Government being told that there would be a graduated increase over years.

That particular fiddle saw at least an extra $22 per fortnight immediately removed from the pockets of single pensioners living in community housing.

At present state governments are considering a twelve month delay of any rent increase based on the higher fortnightly pension payment, but there is no guarantee that incorporated community housing won't take a cut of the extra money before the end of the year.

When the Rudd Government first announced it was considering a pension increase it assured the electorate that the additional income would be exempt from consideration by nursing homes, aged care hostels, and supported accommodation when factoring accommodation costs. No ifs, buts or maybes.

One now wonders if even these pensioners will actually be getting the full benefit of the additional payment.

The Rudd Government had within its power the ability to make this pension increase an exempt fortnightly allowance or exempt pension supplement for other pensioners but it chose not to do so.

I suspect that this failure to quarantine the increase was a deliberate pandering to state interests and Rudd, Swan, Macklin et al hoped that pensioners would keep quiet as greedy state governments cut into their payments to subsidise fiscal mismanagement.

If Ms. Macklin has a red face as the Brisbane Times cartoonist infers - it's probably only due to media scrutiny and a caught-out Treasurer Wayne Swan needs to do more than threaten to take on the states over this issue - he needs to act this week.

Shame, Rudd & Co, shame - you have treated single old age, disability and other pensioners living independently in the community as though they are the undeserving poor.

What I think of the Rees Government is of course unrepeatable in polite company.

What I think of a virtually silent federal and state Coaltion Opposition defies description (I'm particularly looking at you Nationals MP for Clarence Steve Cansdell, who thought previous NSW rent increase tactics were fair).

Saffin announces new deal over Centrelink employment benefit compliance

The Far North Coaster reported last Wednesday:

Member for Page Janelle Saffin says the Rudd Government's new welfare compliance system will be good news for job seekers in Page.

The Government has introduced legislation to give effect to measures announced in this year's Budget, to introduce a fairer job seeker compliance system from July 1, 2009.

Ms Saffin said the current penalty system, introduced by the previous Coalition Government, often hurts the most vulnerable job seekers.

"Figures show that 15 per cent of those who have payments cuts for eight weeks have a mental illness, and another five per cent have unstable housing," she said.

"These are the ones we know of for sure, but my local experience tells me that the figures would be higher.

"In the last financial year a total of 321 people in Page had their payments cut for eight weeks, an increase of 92 per cent on the previous year.

"But the Howard Government's punitive system didn't work because there was no improvement in attendance at job network interviews, job search training or Customised Assistance."

"The primary goal should not be about punishment, but about helping people secure work."

How well this new policy will work in practice depends in large measure on the attitude of Centrelink staff.
It is hoped that the somewhat punitive culture which has developed within this agency on the NSW North Coast will now fade from existence and a more realistic approach take its place.

Nevertheless, well done to those Labor federal ministers and MPs involved in bringing this change about.

Perhaps the Labor Party could now turn its attention to the woeful state of mental health services in regional areas like the NSW Northern Rivers, where badly underfunded and under resourced health systems can't even afford to pay their postage bills and local GPs frequently close their books due to pressure of work and where getting an appointment with a doctor can sometimes take between two weeks to a month.

Last week a Murwillumbah Hospital staff member went to the local Post Office to drop off the mail only to be told that the letters would not be accepted until the hospital paid its postage account.
The hospital on the NSW far north coast is so cash-stretched that it can no longer afford to pay its running expenses.
In State Parliament yesterday, MP for Tweed Geoff Provest said Murwillumbah’s sister hospital at Tweed Heads could close its doors in two weeks because of its financial crisis. [Crikey.com.au, 23 October 2008]

The latest ABS data indicates that many of the socio-economic factors prevalent on the NSW North Coast are factors in forms of mental illness.

An ABC Local radio interview also highlighted this:

PAULA KRUGER: It isn't only young people that aren't getting access to mental health services. Despite a $1.8-billion package from the Howard government in 2006 and many other cash injections most of the people who need help aren't getting it.
The Mental Health Council of Australia says the most startling find of the report is that more than two-million Australians, that is 60 per cent of people who experienced a mental health disorder, did not use a mental health service.

Living life on your uppers in the Northern Rivers

I've just received the October newsletter from my community housing company which contains mind boggling information.
It informs me that my entire rent assistance will be taken by North Coast Community Housing Company Ltd and that this will go towards a rent increase.

In this newsletter a member of the Tenant Council also tells me that "While $50 a fortnight is a lot to lose out of our income, Housing NSW and the Community Housing Companies have agreed that no more than $10 per week increase will be taken out in the 1st year. That means that $10 per week will come out in the 1st year, $20 per week in the 2nd year, $30 per week in the third year. Most, if not all of this will be covered by CPI increases."

Where on earth did this nonsense come from?
"Most, if not all of this will be covered by CPI increases" - who on earth lives in a world where the Commonwealth Government gives pension CPI rises which amount to $60 a fortnight?
And what about all the other cost increases, like groceries and transport, that are also supposedly covered by the real minuscule pension increases? Also, why on earth assume that every tenant gets $50 in rent assistance because many don't, and why does the letter which came in the same envelope say that money from my "own pocket" might also be needed to meet the rent increase? What pocket would that be I wonder and where can I find it?

This is a blatant rip-off!!

Disgruntled Pensioner
Grafton NSW

* GuestSpeak is a feature of North Coast Voices allowing Northern Rivers residents to make satirical or serious comment on issues that concern them. Posts of 250-300 words or less can be submitted to ncvguestspeak@live.com.au for consideration.

Single, living alone, no assets, on a full pension and in community housing? Rudd and Rees want to starve you out

It is rather difficult to find Housing Commission accommodation in regional New South Wales these days. I'm told that most subsidised housing in recent years has come online under community housing management so that state government can save a bit on the cost of regional bureaucracy.

I've had a few phone calls in the last couple of days about this community housing.
With pensions and other income assistance not really keeping up with the cost of living and little hope that Kevin Rudd's increased pension 'promise' will come to fruition as anything more than a token, it was a shock for many Northern Rivers community housing tenants already living in straightened circumstances to recently receive a version of the item below.

Community housing rents changed

The government rent policy determining how community housing rents are set has changed.

Community housing rents for new tenants have risen from July 1.

Most of this increase will be offset by an increase in the tenant’s entitlement to Commonwealth Rent Assistance (CRA).

Existing tenants’ rents will increase following their next scheduled rent review.

The new rents will be calculated based on a combination of 25% of ‘assessable’ household income, 15% of Family Tax Benefit, and 100% of Commonwealth Rent Assistance Entitlements (as long as the new rent is not more than market rent).

The new rent will mean a net increase in housing costs (after taking the increase in CRA into account) for most current tenants.

This will be phased in over a number of years.

While the Federation welcomes the general approach to ensure stronger income streams which will allow associations to provide more housing opportunities for future tenants, we have expressed strong concerns to government about the impact on current tenants.

As far as I can tell, an average single pensioner living alone in community housing will be losing around $31 to $33 dollars minimum a fortnight due to this change in policy.
In practice this would mean at least an extra $23 to $25 dollars less on pension day as community housing already takes 25% of any Commonwealth rent assistance.
Even if the community housing company agrees to stagger this money grab to $20 per fortnight in the first year, this is twenty dollars more than most single pensioners (or for that matter the single unemployed without family) can afford.

NSW Premier Rees and Prime Minister Rudd should be ashamed of themselves - they have quite literally endorsed taking food out of the mouths of the elderly, widowed, disabled and carers.

It's a low dingo act, from two pollies who have forgotten what the Labor Party once stood for.

Both these men had better hope that their next respective election dates do not fall in the second week of the pension payment cycle - voters with empty bellies tend to feel a mite uncharitable when faced with a ballot paper stuffed with well-fed candidates.

Oh, and by the way Rudders, don't think that single pensioners in community housing haven't noticed that you are willing to back Aussie investors, as well as home-grown and foreign banks to the tune of around $600-708 billion while you've agreed to help Rees snatch the food out of the mouths of many of those who wouldn't have more than a dollar in the bank as 'savings'.

Rudd & Rees family pic came from Google Images

Update:

Link to list of Australian and foreign banks/financial institutions whose deposits and certain debts the Rudd Government has pledged to guarantee here.

Wrong side of the great divide perpetuated by Rudd Government

Rudders and Jackboot Jenny Macklin still haven't got the message it seems.

Despite Kevin Rudd's public apology to the stolen generation, there is a very ethnocentric view of Australia alive and well in the corridors of Parliament House and no amount of solemn prime ministerial 'air-chopping' in front of the cameras will change that sad fact.

On Monday The Sydney Morning Herald ran this story which illustrates the point:

"The Laynhapuy Health Service told the intervention review panel it was "beyond belief" that Centrelink came into the communities and signed people up for welfare quarantine programs.

"Residents travel up to 210 kilometres, paying $1400 for a return [taxi] trip to town, to buy groceries," the service said. "Taking into account that most people on CDEP and Centrelink benefits earn less than $20,000 a year and that grocery prices in Nhulunbuy [the nearest supermarket] have recently been reported as being 25 per cent above those in Darwin, it is a wonder that children get fed at all."

In its scathing submission to the intervention review panel, Laynhapuy Homelands said the intervention was not based "on an accurate understanding of the situation on the ground or the real issues that affect child welfare and wellbeing in many areas, especially homelands/outstations". Yananymul Mununggurr, the Laynhapuy Homelands' chief executive, told the Herald that the intervention had tackled the wrong issues and was "making life harder for us". "We want to develop education resources, our ranger programs and business enterprises in our homelands and create our own opportunities out here," she said. "Our land is who we are and it is important for us to remain there."

The Laynhapuy submission said the intervention had created "a sense of disempowerment and confusion and therefore stress among Yolngu about where things are heading". It said the income management imposed hardship and did not effectively handle issues of substance abuse, child neglect or gambling. "The ban on investment in new housing in homelands will prevent the welfare of children and others in overcrowded houses being addressed."

The submission said direct Commonwealth involvement in the intervention should be wound up and resources transferred to the Territory Government to expand its "closing the gap strategies".

We drove with Barayuwa Mununggurr for 90 minutes from Yirrkala along a dirt road to Garrthalala, a cluster of seven neat houses overlooking the sea.

The Yolngu leader and traditional owner, Multhara Mununggurr, told us her people were fed up with indigenous leaders from elsewhere speaking on their behalf and influencing government opinion. One leader did not speak for all Yolngu, she said."

Google Inc. gets hot under the collar over California's Proposition 8

It's Goggle Inc's 10th birthday and, apart from explaining the birthday logo and a brief post on the presidential debate, the only Press Center release on its blog site last Friday is about California's Proposition 8 (Eliminates Right of Same-Sex Couples to Marry Act) on the ballot for the November general election which seeks to remove the right to same-sex marriage in that state.

Our position on California's No on 8 campaign

9/26/2008 03:23:00 PM

As an Internet company, Google is an active participant in policy debates surrounding information access, technology and energy. Because our company has a great diversity of people and opinions -- Democrats and Republicans, conservatives and liberals, all religions and no religion, straight and gay -- we do not generally take a position on issues outside of our field, especially not social issues. So when Proposition 8 appeared on the California ballot, it was an unlikely question for Google to take an official company position on.

However, while there are many objections to this proposition -- further government encroachment on personal lives, ambiguously written text -- it is the chilling and discriminatory effect of the proposition on many of our employees that brings Google to publicly oppose Proposition 8. While we respect the strongly-held beliefs that people have on both sides of this argument, we see this fundamentally as an issue of equality. We hope that California voters will vote no on Proposition 8 -- we should not eliminate anyone's fundamental rights, whatever their sexuality, to marry the person they love.

Posted by Sergey Brin, Co-founder & President, Technology

As there does not appear to be majority support for this proposition among Californian voters, one wonders exactly how this issue might affect Obama and McCain.

It appears that Obama has publicly opposed Proposition 8. However, this runs contrary to attitudes to gay marriage among demographic groups which are his strong supporters.

McCain flatly rejects gay marriage.

Another curly one for candidates in the run up to November 2008, which makes for an interesting national poll.

Is it beat up on pensioners week?

* First we had Today's Apathetic Youth making a case that pensioners are whingers who caused some of their own financial problems by allegedly voting for John Howard.

While older voters have traditionally been thought to vote for conservative parties, this tendency has been somewhat overstated across time (largely because available data can only indicate tendencies for age populations) and just like other age groups voting intentions can vary markedly across election years.

Newspoll data on stated voter intentions from 1987-2007 show that over all election years a combined total of 38.9% of those 60 years+ intended to vote ALP, 51.2% intended to vote Coalition and 9.9% to vote for other parties/independents.

In the same period the data showed that a combined total of only 45.7% of 18-24 year olds intended to vote Labor.

* Then we had the mainstream media writing about the gambling habits of pensioners and suggesting limiting elderly access to poker machines, based on a 2007 survey of 414 people over 60 years of age conducted by the University of Queensland Social Research Centre and published online last January.

What the media articles failed to understand is found in the following survey report observation:

The analysis undertaken suggests that certain age-related circumstances of older people—such as being without a partner, having a disability that impacts on everyday activities, having a low annual income, and no longer participating in the workforce—are associated with higher overall levels of motivation for playing EGMs and greater reliance on EGMs to meet social, recreational and mental health needs.

Some significant factors associated with clinical depression are contained in that sentence, but all the newspapers could say was ban pokie specials on pension days and Poll: Do older people need pre-set limits on poker machine use? Vote below.

All ran with an unproven possibility:
"Compared with younger segments of the population, older people are more commonly retired and thus have more limited opportunities to replenish savings once they are used," the report said. "It is thus conceivable that long-term regular electronic gaming machine use may gradually whittle away older people's financial security."

One has to wonder whether this media response was a targeted beat up coming from Senator Fielding and the Family First stable.

It reeks of blame and punish the pensioners, instead of wondering why a large sector of Australian society is so socially isolated and inadequately supported that some individuals turn to gambling to make themselves feel better.

It also ignores the fact that a great many pensioners have no assets, savings or investments and couldn't afford to enter a social or gambling venue even if they wanted to.

Hold on a mo, Joe!

According to ABC News last week, Joe Ludwig was talking up a digital welfare debit card:
"The federal Human Services Minister says almost all of welfare recipients in prescribed areas of the Northern Territory are now having half of their payments quarantined."

He also went on to say that "about 500 Northern Territory businesses have expressed an interest in accepting the new welfare debit card." and "there is wide support for the new welfare debit card".

Widespread support from which group, Senator?
The indigenous communities, the 400 people who have so far managed to avoid having their welfare payments quarantined?

Oh, you meant the 500 Northern Territory business owners and the big supermarket chains!
Joe, a dingo has more honour than the Labor Right these days.

Rudd oversteps the line on his way to becoming John Howard Lite

The Prime Minister is either getting a little too big for his boots or has been listening to Jackboot Jenny Macklin again.
Now he wants to cut or suspend welfare payments, for up to 3 months, in families where a child is a chronic truant.
Yeah, that'd be right.
Cushioned by his family money, our Kev wants to make it even harder for ordinary people to put food on the table - in a simplistic attempt to curb truancy.
What next? Making everyone go to Sunday services before they can get their pensions?
Shame on Julia for encouraging him in this highhanded bullying.

Nicola Roxon has only herself to blame for that binge drinking hangover

The Federal Minister for Health, Nicola Roxon, has only herself to blame for the hole she teeters on the edge of over the excessive use of that ill-defined, social (not scientific) term binge drinking.

Although to be fair, every frontbencher from the Prime Minister down appears to have been eager to blow the same moral dog whistle.

Although the draft revised Australian alcohol guidelines for low-risk drinking is littered with the term binge drinking (and cites at least one study where this is defined as more than 4 standard drinks per day), it is careful to acknowledge the difficulties in using such a term.

Intoxication
‘Intoxication’ is a widely used term with no consistent or formally agreed definition. It is usually taken to describe when a person’s blood alcohol concentration is elevated to a level at which they cannot function within their normal range of physical and mental abilities. Levels above about 0.05–0.08% are sometimes taken as a proxy measure of intoxication (see Section 3.3). In lay terms, intoxication is a subjective feeling, the experience of a substantial effect of alcohol on mood, brain function, and psychomotor function. However, there are
marked variations in the amount of alcohol different people need to consume in order to experience intoxication.
Binge-drinking
This term is avoided as far as possible in these guidelines because its meaning is ill-defined and unclear. It was formerly used to refer to an extended period (usually more than a day)devoted to drinking at levels leading to intoxication. However, more recently, it has been used to describe single-occasion drinking of a substantial amount, particularly by adolescents and young adults.

In Crikey yesterday, Geoff Munro takes the media to task and states; Despite Albrechtsen et al, the NHMRC draft did not employ the term binge drinking because medical scientists do not agree on how many drinks constitute a "binge", or the period of time in which they must be consumed to qualify as a binge.
Which makes me wonder if the pre-24 November 2007 draft differed in some respects from the archived community consultation draft now displayed on the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) website.

What is glaringly obvious is that a new government rushes to redefine social problems at its own peril.

Families Minister and Member for Jagajaga channels Mal Brough and throws compassion out the window

ABC1 AM:
TONY EASTLEY: The Federal Government will quarantine the $5,000 Baby Bonus from parents who neglect or abuse their children. Families Minister Jenny Macklin says parents will instead receive the bonus in the form of vouchers to buy items like prams and nappies.

Leaving aside the fact that Minister for Families, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs is merely parroting the former Howard Government and the previous ministerial incumbent; the Welfare Rights Centre pointed out in 2006 that such a move was not going to solve the problem of bad parenting and would be unlikely to stop individual abuse of welfare payments by recipients with an established alcohol, drug or gambling addiction.

Since then Ms. Macklin has moved from endorsing a straight voucher system to talking of implementing a debit card or store cards which would be useable at approved stores and for approved purchases.

The aim still appears to be to progress that old neo-con agenda. Starting with the Baby Bonus and other family payments as a trial of the electorate's gullibility, before moving onto the unemployed, disabled and finally introducing universal income management for all pension, benefit and allowance recipients from groups which are not seen as politically powerful.

Such income management would eventually stop 50% of the fortnightly welfare payment from going directly into a recipient's own personal bank or building society account, and 100% of all advance or lump sum payments would also no longer be given as cash payments into accounts.

Now here's the rub for any rural or regional parent receiving one of these debit/store cards (who even lives within commutable distance of one of the government-favoured big three, Coles, Woolworths and K-Mart) covering the Baby Bonus or other family allowance. These future guinea pigs who are already being identified as 'bad' by both the media and the Minister.

Rural and regional towns and villages are by definition reasonably small - if you don't actually socialise with the person standing next to you, you frequently know a friend of theirs or their children go to school or weekend sports with yours.

Store clerks and cashiers have no training and often no tact when it comes to welfare recipients as it is. They sometimes have no compunction in identifying store gift vouchers, being presented for payment of purchases, as having come from a non-government welfare agency.
In one instance I witnessed a cashier confiscating a packet of sweets from a very average pile of groceries a developmentally challenged adult (whom she only knew as a regular store customer) wanted to purchase with his gift voucher, on the stated grounds that lollies are not good for you.

When under any income management scheme almost inevitably one of these cashiers loudly and publicly tells a parent accompanied by a child that an item the parent wishes to purchase is not on the Centrelink/Community Services/Government list, everyone within earshot will be able to identify that family as 'dysfunctional' and the child as possibly considered to be neglected or abused.

Just how long do you think that child's privacy will last and his/her dignity remain intact when the local rumour mill will have that checkout incident across town and in the schoolyard within days?

One of the saddest aspects of Labor's rush to create its own form of Big Brother has been the sight of Ms. Macklin rising to her feet in Parliament last week and relying on a caller to the Alan Jones radio show for evidence of a need for Baby Bonus income management. A show notorious for setting up straw men to further its namesake's own biased arguments.

Ms. Macklin and the rest of the Rudd Government need to slow down here and develop a little political humility and compassion.
They are displaying nothing less than an arrogant paternalism. At the same time ignoring the fact that the Baby Bonus is currently not being handed out as a lump sum to identified dysfunctional families, but rather is being successfully and discretely delivered in instalments - without placing any child's right to privacy at risk or exposing a family to malicious gossip.

Clarence Valley Council looks into affordable housing scheme

Yet another NSW North Coast council is deciding that there may be a role for local government in the provision of affordable housing.

Clarence Valley Council is looking into the feasibility of creating a not-for-profit charitable body provisionally called the Affordable Housing Trust, with an aim to help meet the need for affordable housing in the valley.

Given the level of public housing stock in this region is lower than the state average, it is good to see Mayor Ian Tiley raising the profile of this issue.

 

According to the Northern Rivers Social Development Council; "No one can escape the affordability crisis that affects households across Australia. The Northern Rivers has one of the highest rates of families living in housing stress in Australia.  Average rents in our region are the same as Sydney, but people here earn on average less than two thirds of the average Sydney income. In our coastal towns and major centres up to 65% of low income households are living in unaffordable housing.  Key workers in industries such as Community Services, Children's Services, Health, Aged Care, Hospitality and Retail have problems finding accommodation close to work and services.  For the most disadvantaged finding any accommodation is difficult."

Read my lips, Mr. Rudd. I will never vote Labor if you continue down this path

For over a decade the former Howard Government ignored this country's own democratic heritage, international law and UN conventions; as it sought ways to quash many of the historic human and legal rights of Australian citizens, turn the safety net welfare system into a form of alms giving dependant on a whim of the government of the day, commence the transformation of public infrastructure/services delivery into 'user pays', and convert a significant part of government pensions, benefits and allowances into a non-cash component.

 

It was easy to turn away from the Liberal Party and the Nationals when faced with this concerted effort to destroy what was left of the ideal of an egalitarian society and the notion of a fair go.

 

Now barely four months after the federal election which saw it installed, the Rudd Government continues to support most of the legislation and regulations which the Howard Government created as its preferred vehicle for the destruction of our civil liberties and the idea of a fair go.

 

We still see racist law operating, habeas corpus remains missing in action for some criminal charges, draconian sedition laws chill dissent, judgemental and punitive attitudes to the poor still flourish within government policy, and there is a continuing push to transform certain pensions, benefits and allowances into a modern version of food stamps under the guise of income 'management'. 

 

The Northern Territory intervention clearly demonstrated that this current push to replace a percentage of welfare cash payments with vouchers or cards has nothing to do with the cited reason of protecting children in dysfunctional home situations. Because income management there was immediately applied across the board in designated indigenous communities and involved people without children, family commitments or any form of addictive/anti-social behaviour.

 

This push originally started as a possible method to control and restrict the lives of welfare recipients in an effort to disguise the fact that the former government was intending to dismantle the welfare system overtime and the Rudd Government allows the push to continue for very similar reasons.

 

Like the Howard Government before it, this Federal Labor Government is first targeting groups which society has always felt comfortable about negatively labelling before it inevitably widens its 18th century net and goes after the unemployed and those with a disability. 

 

Sadly, modern Labor governments right across Australia are turning out to be nothing more than a collection of self-righteous suits eager to assume the position in front of neo-con think tanks, big business and professional god-botherers. Always happy to demonise the weak and vulnerable if doing so pleases these politically powerful sectors. Seeing nothing wrong with the diminished autonomy, discrimination, humiliation and financial loss that ensues.

 

So read my lips Mr. Rudd. If you continue down this path towards establishing debit cards for any or all 'welfare' recipients, I will not be voting for a Labor candidate at any future election.

What's more, I will treat Labor as I treat the Coalition and make sure that my ballot is likely to be exhausted long before my preferences could flow on to its candidate.

 

Therefore, although the Labor MP for Page may be a genuine and hard-working local member she will never see my vote.

No Labor candidate for the NSW Clarence electorate will ever get my vote in the future. Nor will any Clarence Valley local government candidate identified as a member of the Labor Party.

The ball is now in your court, Prime Minister.