Is the Turnbull Government spending veterans mental health funding wisely?

On the Line Limited state that it is a professional social health business that provides counselling support, anywhere and anytime, primarily via telephone, web chat and online support through the rather bluntly named  MensLine Australia, Suicide Call Back Service, SuicideLine Victoria, a Department of Defence All Hours Support Line After Hours Service and other geographically specific services.

On the Line Limited also provides tailored counselling services for corporate, member and community organisations.

According to its 2016-17 Annual Report On the Line Limited is doing very nicely thank you, with an income of over $11.3 million and $6.2m in new tenders, grants, and business opportunities.

However, it appears that this company may be falling down on the job……

The New Daily, 9 January 2018:

The government is refusing to reveal how often vulnerable veterans are unable to reach its crisis helpline for ex-service members in order to protect the bottom line of a private contractor, The New Daily can exclusively reveal.

The refusal comes as veterans’ advocates warn of a suicide epidemic among ex-service members, with support group Warrior’s Return estimating at least 84 veterans took their own lives in 2017.

The Department of Veterans Affairs claims that disclosing the call abandonment rates and wait times for the Veterans and Veterans Families Counselling Service would adversely impact the company that manages the service outside of normal business hours.

In response to a freedom of information request by The New Daily, the DVA said the disclosure would give the contractor’s business rivals information that could be used to out-compete the company.

The New Daily has appealed the decision on public interest grounds.

The DVA has awarded Melbourne-based company On the Line contracts worth at least $2 million to operate the after-hours counselling service since 2010, according to government procurement website AusTender.

The department also revealed to The New Daily that it does not collect data on the call abandonment rates and wait times for its regular hours service, which is managed in-house.

Doug Steley, an ex-service member who works with a number of veterans’ advocacy groups, said the department’s attitude was “totally unacceptable” and typical of its lack of transparency.

“Their service should be so excellent that they should be willing to boast about how good it is, and they should have absolutely no fear that a private contractor would be able to match the service to those who served Australia,” he said.

“There is no transparency in this department,” he added. “It operates on secrecy and hiding everything from the public.”

The DVA has faced repeated controversy over its treatment of veterans, with an official inquiry last year ruling it had failed to provide adequate support to 32-year-old Afghan war veteran Jesse Bird before he took his own life last June. In August, more than 100 people protested outside DVA headquarters in Melbourne to call for the establishment of a royal commission into the department’s failure to halt suicides among ex-service members.

Opposition spokeswoman for veterans’ affairs Amanda Rishworth accused the department of putting the welfare of a private firm above that of veterans.

“We expect DVA to act in the best interest of veterans – and not in the best interest of a private contractor,” Ms Rishworth told The New Daily.

“Labor thinks it is unacceptable that DVA is withholding any information that will provide greater transparency on services which directly affect those veterans and family members. It is also deeply concerning that DVA is not even collecting data on how the VVCS is performing during business hours.”

This highlighted health statistic would come as no surprise to people living in rural and regional Australia

The Sydney Moring Herald, 18 January 2018:

NSW has been ranked the worst for healthcare affordability among older patients in the latest survey that pits Australia's most populous state against international health systems.

The results released on Thursday showed a larger proportion of NSW patients 65 and older struggled with their medical costs than their counterparts in Australia overall and 10 other OECD countries.

NSW fared worst when it came to the percentage of respondent who said they had problems paying their medical bills (15 per cent), compared to just 1 per cent in Sweden and 10 per cent in the US, found the survey of 24,000 people including 1175 in NSW.

More than one in five (22 per cent) reported spending $1000 or more in out-of-pocket healthcare costs, the third largest proportion after Switzerland (53 per cent) and the US (37 per cent), and well behind the top performer France (3 per cent), according to the 2017 Commonwealth Fund International Health survey findings released by the Bureau of Health Information (BHI)…..

Over 20 per cent of older people in NSW said they had skipped a dentist visit when they needed it due to the cost, tying with the US for the poorest result after Australia (23 per cent).

A total of 14 per cent of NSW respondents said they had skipped prescriptions, consultations or treatments due to cost in the previous year, the second lowest score after the US.

One in four NSW respondents said they found it "very difficult" to access medical care after hours without going to a hospital emergency department, trailing the US and seven other countries. [my yellow highlighting]

Next time you use a plastic bag or throwaway cups and utensils - think about this

A sea of plastic bottles, cutlery and polystyrene plates has been found floating in the Caribbean.
A New Year’s resolution to all of us - cut down on plastic.
Via @bbc5live. #plasticfree #plastic #ThursdayThoughts pic.twitter.com/2sarVxHTOn

— James Melville (@JamesMelville) January 11, 2018

This is what happens when you read news reports generated by right-wing politicians

“Victorians are “scared to go out to restaurants” because of “African gang violence”, Peter Dutton has said, in an interview attacking the supposed lack of deterrence of crime in Victoria. The home affairs minister told 2GB on Wednesday that Victorians were “bemused” when they looked “at the jokes of sentences being handed down” due to “political correctness that’s taken hold”. “There’s no deterrence there at the moment,” he said. The federal Coalition government and Victorian opposition have stepped up rhetorical attacks on the Andrews Labor government using a string of high-profile incidents to claim that “African street gangs” are on the rise because certain nationalities such as Sudanese are over-represented in statistics – although crime overall is in decline. The Victorian deputy police commissioner, Shane Patton, has reassured the public the police are taking youth crime seriously and said that “networked criminal offenders” are not technically “gangs” because they lack any organised structure.” [The Guardian, 3 January 2018]

“The reality is, people are scared to go out to restaurants of a night-time because they’re followed home by these gangs.”

“We just need to call it for what it is… African gang violence.”

Mr Dutton tells Chris that if people aren’t prepared to integrate, then “frankly they don’t belong in Australian society”.

“If people haven’t integrated, if they’re not abiding by our laws, if they’re not adhering to our culture, then they’re not welcome here.” [Australian Minister for Home Affairs Peter Dutton,  4BC News Talk, 3  January 2018]

During this December 2017 to February 2018 Australian Parliament annual recess it was hard to miss the political meme being generated by Messrs. Turnbull and  Dutton.

It was one of ‘Shock! Horror! Crime and violence!’

Lest we were in any doubt of the – ahem – perilous situation the nation finds itself in, the meme was quickly reduced to black violence – perpetrated  by foreign ‘others’.

The state that these politicians have chosen to place under the spotlight is Victoria and the ethnic group identified as Sudanese.

So it is no surprise to find that recent polling now shows a strong belief that youth gang crime has increased over the last few years, that it needs addressing as a matter of importance and, that this belief is highest amongst Liberal and Nationals voters in the survey group.

Essential Report, 16 January 2018:

A majority believed that all crimes have increased.

More than two-thirds believe that drug-related crime (76%) and youth gang crime (70%) have increased – and about half think they have increased a lot.

Those more likely to think youth gang crime has increased were Liberal/National voters (73%), other party voters (86%) and aged 45+ (83%).

[http://www.essentialvision.com.au/perceptions-of-crime]

More than two-thirds think that drug-related crime (72%) and domestic violence (67%) are the most important types of crime for the Government to address.

53% thought youth gang crime was one of the most important. Those most likely to think it important were Liberal/National voters (57%), other party voters (72%) and aged 55+ (60%).

[http://www.essentialvision.com.au/important-crimes-address]

There is a question that needs answering. Is the belief that youth gang crime is an increasing  problem based on fact or fear whipped up right-wing politicians?

First of all the actual number of youth offenders (10 to 17 years) has fallen since 2008-09 when the national total stood at 64,152 individuals.

The total number of youth offenders in 2015-16 was 54,974 or approximately 13 per cent of the entire national offender total.

Of these youth offenders less than 11,000 fell into what could be considered a violent crime category – that’s est. 20 per cent of all youth offenders across the country.

The rate of youth offending is not increasing across the board and has fallen in most of the violent crime categories since 2008-09, with the exception of the non-assaultive sexual offences component of sexual assault statistics.

The majority of youth offenders were born in Australia. This appears to apply to the youth offender population in all states.

There seems to be no national database for youth gang offenders or gang-related behaviour. However, networked youth offending reportedly involves young people from diverse ethnic backgrounds according to a police submission made to the Joint Standing Committee on Migration’s Inquiry into Migrant Settlement Outcomes.

When it comes to Victoria and offender statistics which identify country in which the offender was born, out of the 82,334 total crime incidents in all categories for the 2016 calendar year allegedly committed by offenders of all ages, only 807 were identified as being committed by individuals born in Sudan or less than 1 per cent. Of these only 22 incidents appear to have involved a form of collective behaviour and only 89 incidents involved Sudanese youth offenders.

Quite frankly it is hard to support Minister for Home Affairs and Liberal MP for Dickson Peter Dutton’s rhetoric on violent Sudanese youth gangs based on so small a number.