Economy where, employment when??

It comes as no surprise - the Minister's announcement regarding the abolition of the Community Development Employment Program (CDEP). CDEP schemes operating in Aboriginal communities in various regions across Australia were precursors of Work for the Dole schemes in mainstream communities.

Miss Eagle has made her suggestions previously on economic participation in and by Aboriginal communties:

1. All weather roads to Aboriginal communities. Without this basic lifeline of transport and communication no community, black or white, can begin to build an economy.
2. Air strips - for similar reasons.
3. Building communities which specialise in the delivery of community services. Employment classifications for Tennant Creek are dominated by the number of people employed in community services. This is duplicated across the nation in rural Australia. With investment, intentionality, mentoring and direction, Aboriginal communities - just like white communities - can build themselves up economically as a service centre. Services can be commercial, health, educational, or tourism.
4. Such participation should go far beyond the Work for the Dole schemes. Work for the Dole schemes should be seen as transition schemes of basic economic participation - not as ends in themselves

The Minister says the CDEP will be progressively replaced by real jobs, training and mainstream employment programmes, complementing the work already in train to lift remote area exemptions.

Radio interviews with the Minister earlier this evening indicate that the Government plans have an initial focus on local indigenous replacement in local positions where outsiders (can one read hear non-indigenous outsiders rather than indigenous outsiders?) are presently employed.

This, in principle, is a reasonable idea - but it is clearly one that has been implemented as far as possible by local indigenous organisations. Aboriginal organisations have been active in or actively managing and sponsoring training schemes for many,many years. Is the minister merely re-branding previous ATSIC-funded programs? Is he going to stand up and take credit for operational modes currently in place with strong indigenous organisations?

But, the question to be asked above all is this:

Is the Howard Government going to fund basic economic infrastructure such as transport and public utilities as well as the buildings and staffing levels for public service provision regarded as the norm in mainstream communities?

The Howard Government has been a poor steward in provisioning infrastructure replacement and development in mainstream communities preferring to fund endless tax rebates and refunds to individuals for personal spending rather than stewarding (or should one say quarantining?) the money and channelling it into economically productive infrastructure.

Governments, Federal and State, seem to be establishing public projects which can be built by Thiess and privatised by Macquarie Bank.

If the Howard Government does not come to the party with funding for economic and service infrastructure will it turn to the Mac Bank and the BOO (build-own-operate) schemes to establish infrastructure in regional and remote Australia?

But if none of this happens and people who cannot be placed in meaningful work end up on Work for the Dole schemes rather than the abolished CDEP schemes (as the Minister's media release seems to indicate) what will all this mean? Just more venal grandstanding by Howard and Brough?

Let there be light: trustworthy and knowledgable

Many Australian's are suffering shell-shock in trying to comprehend the Howard Shock and Awe Campaign of intervention in the Northern Territory. Those who have never been to the NT or only done the tour up The Track have difficulty understanding why there is an uproar about the Howard/Brough activity.

The nub of the problem is that Howard and Brough have not been there - except in an adverse manner - to achieve outcomes in the very deep concerns of the Aboriginall people and those who work side by side with them. So who to believe, these people ask?

To-day's The Age carries two articles which fall into the category of :

Here's another point of view which is different from the Government which is trustworthy and knowledgable.

The first is from James Ensor, Director of Public Policy at Oxfam. James is well-known for his articles contributed to On Line Opinion. To-day he explains about the need for solutions implemented over the long term and points us to the Close the Gap Campaign.

The second is from the distinguished John Fogarty, former Justice of the Family Court of Australia. His article seeks to bring some rationality to the debate about parents having social security benefits quarantined in relation to child abuse.

The Howard Government has always been free with its abuse using the pejorative term political correctness slander and/or shut up its critics. Miss Eagle, dear Reader, has seen some funny sights when the ultra-conservative sector of the population seek to prove that they, too, know how to be non-discriminatory. Howard's extension of the quarantining idea to all parents - not just Aboriginal ones - is an example of ultra-conservatism tipping its lid to a heavy hitting policy implemented, in its view, in a non-discriminatory way. Crikey to-day has a good critique of Labor's me-tooism on this matter.

So Miss E's advice is to remember two things:

• H.C. Andersen's tale of The Emperor's New Clothes
• The quote attributed to Edmund Burke : The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.

John Howard's arresting case...

Will someone please arrest John Howard? Where are the AFP when you need them? I hear you ask, dear and gentle Reader, on what charge? Disturbing the peace, and - in particular - my peace.

Between Howard and Keating competing in the Shock and Awe Eisteddfod, it's enough to make one want to reach for the valium

But I only want Howard arrested. He is the one who is threatening to invade the lives of the undeserving poor. With the armed intervention of Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory and the fiscal intervention of Centrelink in child raising, Miss Eagle's blood is on a semi-permanent simmer.

I'll let Denis over at The Body Politic is ill say it for me.

The times they are a-changin' as chickens roost?

Chickens are coming home to roost:

not only for John Howard but for globalization, too

Dear Reader, do you sometimes think you have a different wisdom from the professionally wise? By the professionally wise, Miss Eagle means politicians, senior bureaucrats, leaders of commerce and trade.

Do you think that you recall a certain history of events which the professionally wise - use above definition - seem to have either forgotten or completely bypassed?

Miss Eagle has come across to-day two articles which should reassure you, dear Reader, in regard to your memory and your powers of interpretation and comprehension.

The first is about John Howard in the long, long ago - before he became Lazarus with a triple by-pass - when he was Treasurer and when that name of "Honest John" was coined, not as a compliment as some use it to-day but as a perjorative.

The second concerns the fact that some Americans with strong economic and business credentials are finding holes in that smelly gorgonzola cheese that is globalization. You knew, dear Reader, as did your present correspondent that all was not well in the globalized world. We knew, you and I, that many people were ending up the poorer and missing out on the much- and oft-touted benefits of free and globalized trade.

Now, Miss Eagle is not railing against globalization in and of itself. It is an old and ancient phenomenon. Modern people like some things such as international communications and travel and dislike others like the migration of jobs off-shore, the driving down of wages.

In Miss E's view there should be one catch-cry against globalization and that is Accountablility.



Not the unctious and self-righteous catchcry of CEOs and senior mangers about looking after the stakeholders. No, dear Reader, CEOs and senior managers need to be held accountable in regard to what they deliver and the amount of remuneration, share holdings, and sweet deals they receive. Companies need to be held accountable in their countries of origin as well as their countries of location. They need to be accountable to the communities in which their places of business and their employees are located. They need to be transparent and accountable when governments give them favourable and special treatment. Of course, companies need to be accountable to their shareholders but "stakeholders" goes well beyond shareholders.

Finally, those who believe in free trade, need to be honest - not unctious - about the hidden favours they give or receive from governments and the taxpayers.

For instance, why are companies allowed to go bankrupt or into liquidation without paying workers their wages and entitlements? What happens in Australia is that businesses and corporations can avoid honouring workers entitlements, avoid paying any remuneration, or perhaps pay very poor and minimal redundancy payments and then the shoddily treated employee is thrown on the welfare heap for the taxpayer to take responsibility.

In other words, the employer; the business; the corporation can make a decision to offload employees and offload their responsibility for workers' entitlements. The employer, the business, the corporation can make a decision to benefit itself to the detriment of others. The taxpayer then has the pleasure of paying for the consequences of a decision it had no part in.



But then Australia does not provide subsidies to business! Yeah!?!

Centrelink, police powers, and welfare fraud

OR

The Howard Government wants to give Centrelink the power to apply for warrants - even over the phone - and raid homes.

While Miss Eagle does not support welfare fraud, the Government needs to give statistical and qualitative justification for this extension of police powers. How many cases of fraud uncovered by Centrelink would justify the raiding of homes?

The Prophetic Voice of Vinnie's

While I listened to the ABC's Religion Report on Wednesday 5 April, I thought I could hear Helen Coonan in the background marking down the ABC's Budget. Stephen Crittenden interviewed John Falzon, Operations Manager for one of Australia's biggest charities, the St Vincent de Paul Society. Falzon's interview was a tour de force and is worth listening to. For those of you who can't listen to it, or would like a permanent record, here it is. Fasten seat belts. Hold on to your seats.

The St Vincent de Paul Society says the Federal Government’s new breaching regime for people on welfare is immoral. Under the scheme, people who are breached but deemed to be extremely vulnerable, will be referred to the churches and charitable organisations to receive one-off payments of up to $650 to manage their cases.
Dr John Falzon is the National Operations Manager for the St Vincent de Paul Society.
John Falzon: Under the new Welfare to Work legislation, two major groups of people are going to be brought within the scope of the breaching regime. That’s people in receipt of parenting payments, especially single parents, but not exclusively, and also people with disabilities who are able to work more than 15 hours a week. Now when these people are breached, there are going to be some cases judged by Centrelink as being extremely vulnerable, and they are going to be referred to agencies that have taken up a contract to case manage the extremely vulnerable, and those agencies are going to give assistance in packages of up to $650 of government funds to the people who’ve been breached.What’s Vinnie’s position on this? Well, No.1 we consider the entire breaching regime to be unconscionable and immoral. It takes away dignity, it doesn’t offer hope, it doesn’t act as a mechanism for really enabling people to move from welfare to work. It punishes people who are already vulnerable, it deprives people of their human rights, of their dignity, of bread on the table for children in many cases.
Stephen Crittenden: And you’re not having any part of it.
John Falzon: Exactly. We’ve always held that position and as far as this idea of institutionalising charity and making people feel an even greater sense of humiliation in that even though the government is acknowledging that they’re going to be in a dangerous situation and is funding this period of crisis, it’s going to do so via a charity, to make people feel that the charity is being institutionalised and they’re being forced to go to a charity.
Stephen Crittenden: Yes, I don’t really understand what’s in it for the government. They aren’t really getting people off welfare, and even though the churches are looking after them, the government’s still going to be paying.
John Falzon: Yes, it’s more symbolic I think in this case. That’s what we really find unconscionable, that this is a return to some very old models of charity as being a means of really making people feel like they are to blame for their poverty. There’s a whole moral discourse involved here that we will have no part of. You know the wonderful educational theorist, Paulo Freire, and we really take his lead in Vinnie's, when he spoke very beautifully about needing to engage in a prophetic denunciation of the bad news, in order to engage in a prophetic annunciation of the good news. We denounce the breaching regime as bad news, there is no good news in any element of it. We do announce the good news that there is an alternative vision for Australia, and that’s one of our major concerns with this Welfare to Work legislation which some of our members refer to as Welfare to Work to Welfare - because in fact we don’t believe it’s going to have those sorts of positive outcomes that everyone would hope for. We believe that it lacks vision. Not only does it lack fairness but even from an economic rationalist point of view, it lacks strategic vision, and as the Book of Proverbs says, ‘Where there is no vision, the people perish’. Well where is the vision in pushing people who are vulnerable into that low end of the labour market without any adequate opportunity for skilling, for education, at a time when most commentators will acknowledge we’re facing a skills crisis, at a time when Australia can in fact have a competitive edge, by investing in education skills and innovation.
Stephen Crittenden: Presumably some of these people are still going to be coming to you for help, whether the government’s reimbursing you or not?
John Falzon: That’s true, absolutely, and Vinnie’s will never cease giving assistance to people who have been breached, and they will continue to come to us. We won’t be accepting government money to do that, we won’t be entering into a contract, but what we’ve always maintained is yes we will give the charitable assistance, we will be there as a charity because we consist of so many wonderful people who are giving up their time to do that, and because they believe in a fair go.
Stephen Crittenden: Doesn’t that let the government off the hook?
John Falzon: Well there’s the second part of the equation. We’ll give the charity to people but what we have always maintained is charity is fine, but what these people deserve is justice, and we’ll keep clamouring for that justice.
Stephen Crittenden: The Salvation Army says it will probably take up this proposal. The St Vincent de Paul Society says the breaching regime is immoral and you won’t have any part of it. Shouldn’t the churches be at one on this issue?
John Falzon: Well our position as far as – I’m not commenting on churches, but I will comment on agencies – we have taken the position quite rightly in my opinion, that we in no way wish to give any direction or call to other agencies as to how to conduct themselves. They must follow their own charters, their own rules, their own rationales for how to engage in this quite vexed social policy area.
Stephen Crittenden: But if you’re calling the government immoral, surely the implication is another church welfare agency who takes part in this immoral regime is participating in immorality if you like.
John Falzon: Well, as I said, we’re not commenting on the decisions of other agencies as to how they engage in this entire process, but for Vinnie’s our message is clear: in our rule as a matter of fact, it says where injustice, inequality, poverty, or exclusion are due to unjust economic, political or social structures, or to inadequate or unjust legislation, the society should speak out clearly against the situation, always with charity with the aim of contributing to and demanding improvements. For those people who might think that’s quite strongly worded, it’s not nearly as strongly worded as those words from the Prophet Isaiah, ‘Woe betide those who enact unjust laws and draft oppressive legislation depriving the poor of justice, robbing the weakest of my people of their rights, plundering the widow and despoiling the fatherless.’ That’s where we take our lead from, Stephen, we’re placed in a position by our members because of what they see every day in giving assistance to the people who come to us.
Stephen Crittenden: Let’s turn to a couple of other related welfare issues. Vinnie’s is also particularly concerned about what you’re describing as the nexus between the government’s Welfare to Work legislation and the new IR legislation.
John Falzon: Yes. Look, what we see is that the people who are going to be pushed by the Welfare to Work legislation into that low end of the labour market, are also the people conceivably, who will be subjected to compliance with Australian workplace agreements that potentially will not be family friendly, that will be deleterious to family life. We’ve actually received some legal advice to suggest that there may be a case whereby the provisions in the Welfare to Work legislation can contribute to coercion of sole parents to breach their duty of care to their children which is potentially a criminal offence.
Stephen Crittenden: But you’re also suggesting that the Welfare to Work legislation won’t just have the effect of pushing single mothers say back into the lower end of the workforce, it will also have the effect of pushing them on to individual contracts, which may be deleterious to them.
John Falzon: Conceivably, yes. We’re not in any way saying that that is necessarily going to be the case, but it is certainly on the cards as far as we can see, that that’s precisely where Australian Workplace agreements will be put in place, and who knows what kind of conditions will be removed from those working arrangements, particularly where children are involved.
Stephen Crittenden: OK, just finally, Dick Warburton and Peter Hendy, two Australian businessmen, have this week presented the Federal government with their review of Australia’s tax rates. And the Prime Minister has said that his first priority in this year’s budget is support for lower middle-income families. What is St Vincent de Paul Society saying about tax reform?
John Falzon: What we’re saying No.l is that the Treasurer is quite correct in citing the OECD figures that we’ve got the eighth lowest tax to GDP ratio, and that we’re the second-lowest spending amongst the OECD countries. We have always considered two major points as far as the debate on tax reform. 1. is that the effective marginal tax rates that affect precisely the people moving from Welfare to Work are incredibly high, up to the 70% mark and this acts as a major disincentive for people moving from Welfare to Work.
Stephen Crittenden: Labor’s Wayne Swan is saying this, too, this week.
John Falzon: Yes, quite right. Secondly though, we have always maintained that the far greater deficit in Australian society is not so much in terms of the need for tax cuts, it’s in terms of our under-investment particularly in social infrastructure, particularly in the costs that hit low income households, and middle income households in areas of education, health, transport, housing, child care, these are the sorts of costs that impact heavily because it’s a matter of shifting from the public purse to the private pocket. We would dearly love to see an intelligent and strategic investment in these areas of Australian society rather than putting a few dollars into people’s pockets, because this would have not only a great effect on those individual households, but as a whole, collectively as a nation, it would enable us to go forward and would stand in opposition to the narrow-minded punitive welfare reforms and IR reforms that we’ve seen.
Stephen Crittenden: John, thanks very much for being on the program.
John Falzon: Pleasure, Stephen.
Stephen Crittenden: You don’t often hear a Catholic who can quote the Bible. Dr John Falzon, the National Operations Manager for the St Vincent de Paul Society.