Many a learned dissertation has been written about poverty. In the mid 1980s, a collection of Federal public servants was assigned to investigate poverty, to describe and come up with ways to mitigate poverty. Unsurprisingly they found they couldn’t even measure it. And this was in the wake of the Poverty Inquiry of the 1970s that had succeeded in describing many of the multifaceted aspects of poverty.
In a rich country like Australia the presence of poverty is a crime against humanity. But that does not mean we should devote excessive resources to investigating poverty. Rather, we should direct our efforts to investigating inordinate wealth and creating ways to distributing wealth more equitably.
Canberra Times 15th May 1984, p.9. A national superannuation scheme would help to perpetuate the financial inequalities inherent in Australia, the ANZAAS congress was told. In a joint paper delivered to the social-welfare section of the congress, Mr John Tomlinson and Ms Helen Creed, of the Darwin Community College, said that such a scheme would […]
Morning Show (2CN, ABC Radio), 4 January 1990 TITLE: ACT Council of Social Services Director claims the complicated nature of our social security system is hindering people from obtaining their full entitlements. A simpler social security system is suggested, whereby a minimum income is guaranteed regardless of other income earned which would be taxed. John TOMLINSON […]
Published in New Community Quarterly 2013, Vol 11, No 4, Issue 44. (A paper given at: The fish always smells from the head down: it’s not the poor but the stinking rich who are the problem. Seminar, Gold Coast Campus of the Southern Cross University on 3 October 2013) After the 193os Depression and the Second World War there was a determination in […]
“The test of our progress is not whether we add to the abundance of those who have much. It is whether we provide enough to those who have little.”
“Globalisation is what makes the world go round” this chap in a suit told me as I sat on the ground. Why then are billions starving?” I replied. “Come now it’s not that bad” and then, in an aside he suggested, “They are not starving, they’re waiting. Waiting for wealth to slowly trickle down to […]
ON LINE opinion – Australia’s e-journal of social and political debate Posted Tuesday, 11 June 2013 also published in New Community Quarterly, Issue 41, 2013 In this article I shall try to answer the question implicit in the title. In order to do this adequately I shall cast a fairly wide net attempting to explain […]
He’s now got a passion for compassion he sent us reeling with his feeling when he tried to sell us, or was it tell us that you don’t need communion with a union we’d increase contact with an individual contract and if we were at a loss we could listen to the boss because […]
Written in 2002 I want to tell you a story; it’s a bit like a fable about the crumbs that fall from off the rich man’s table – they scatter far and wide. They’ll never be enough to enable justice to prevail. All the hand-outs and the hand-me-downs can’t give equality, they’ll never be enough […]
ON LINE opinion – Australia’s e-journal of social and political debate Posted Monday, 11 April 2016 Richard Denniss has penned a remarkably accessible book entitled Econobabble: How to decode political spin and economic nonsense. It is part of the Redback Quarterly series and costs only $20. The book rests on a number of premises, namely: […]
The choice in Australia is stark. Citizens can let governments continue down the existing economic fundamentalist path towards even more minimum income support, increasingly targeted, with greater selectivity and increasingly compulsory ‘mutual obligation’ or they can work to convince government that it should adopt a more liberating, universal, unconditional income support system. Social theorists suggest […]
I don’t want to build my wealth on the dispossession of others. I don’t want to create my health at the expense of others. My liberty can’t emerge by subjecting you to tyranny. Your starvation cannot satiate my hunger. To the extent that the world is unfair, unjust and unequal only the privileged can change […]
You know she’s got cancer? Yes but it’s in remission. I wonder how she’ll feel when she meets her maker and is asked what she’s been doing for the last 5 years? She will no doubt reply: making the unemployed keep dole diaries, cutting 46,000 young people off benefit hectoring the unemployed, single mums and […]
QUT, Student rally against Voluntary Student Unionism 2005. Where do you start with John Howard, the lies about asylum seekers throwing children overboard, the lies about weapons of mass destruction, the lies about the Australian Wheat Board… … no I can’t cover all the lies there are so many… so I’ll just describe some […]
Published in Parity, Vol. 21, No. 1, Feb 2008: 37. The struggle for human rights has taken many forms over the centuries. Some of those struggles have been for: the right of assembly, the right not to be detained arbitrarily, the end of slavery, the franchise, the end of gender discrimination, the right to be represented by […]
Written in 2004 My mate Tony Abbott reckons it is the poor’s problem they are poor. Pass it on – Denigrate the Poor. It’s a game the entire neighbourhood can play. The Real Agenda: Highlights, Income, Revenue, Balance Sheet, Assets, Stock Performance. The Macquarie Dictionary defines mutual as: 1. possessed, experienced, performed, etc by each of two or more with respect to […]
September 2009 I am appalled by your press announcement 12/9/2003 regarding new offences in public places and particularly your planning to give the police the power to sieze unopened alcohol in a public place. I realise that you may regard this as clever politics and in a half smart state you might even get away […]
Australians would do well to learn some lessons from the SARS epidemic in China. Clearly we need an excellent health system if we are to avoid major health problems which emerging viruses might create. Unless people have a universally affordable health system then many who can’t afford to go to the doctor will put off […]
Goofy I’m thrilled you’re skilled in SRV but what does that mean for me. You’ve done the Goofie Wolfie Wolfensberger passing workshops; You’ve passed it here. You’ve passed it there. You’ve passed it every bloody where. But I don’t have the slightest care. Will I go to hell if I can’t spell Social role valorisation? […]
Australians all let us regret that they think we are useless they’ve destroyed our dental scheme we’ll soon be old and toothless. Written in 2005
“I think we’ve been through a period where too many people have been given to understand that if they have a problem, it’s the government’s job to cope with it. ‘I have a problem, I’ll get a grant.’ ‘I’m homeless, the government must house me.’ They’re casting their problem on society. And, you know, there […]
Written in 2001. Strike a light-it’s dark Where ya living? In the Park. Going ok – so they say; not like Ben, he sleeps on the railway roof failed to meet his mutual obligation now he’s living above his station.
* any similarity between this anthem and The Red Flag is incidental. First published Project SafeCom News and Updates 21/4/2006 http://listsperthimc.asn.au/pipermail/safecom- announce2006-April/000125.html also published Green Left 31/5/2006 p.21 Battlers all, come rally round keep your noses to the ground. Doff your caps to interest rate feed off loathing, fear and hate. Praise the Leader one […]
ON LINE opinion – Australia’s e-journal of social and political debate Posted Wednesday, 2 September 2015 Neo-liberal economics has travelled under many names since the late 1970s. Throughout most of the 1980s in Australia its supporters proudly called it economic rationalism implying that neo-liberal economics was not only sound but rational. Their promotion of economic […]
Beyond Poverty: Citizenship, welfare and well-being in the 21st century. In: Conference Proceedings, Mike O’Brien and Celia Briar (editors). Published by Peoples Centre, Box 3813, Auckland. ISBN 0-473-04665-2 pp. 160 -166. Abstract Dependency as well as implying looking to another person or institution for support also means “subordination or subjection; (for example) the dependence […]
Economic fundamentalism promises that by accumulating inordinate wealth the rich will enjoy heaven on earth. It simultaneously promises salvation for the poor if they avoid the moral jeopardy of becoming “dependent” on welfare. Written but not published 2004
First published in National Indigenous Times 2005 http://www.nit.com.au/secure/story.aspx?storyid=4980 There are many ways to understand world hunger. We could: look into the eyes of a child dying of malnutrition, talk to the owner of an arms manufacturing firm, watch looters raiding an aid convoy, sit in the office of engineers building huge dams in Laos, speak […]
Published in Anarchist Age Monthly No.80, July 1998 Pages 32 -34 A lot of nonsense is talked about poverty: clerics see it as a moral quandary, economists conceive of it as an economic question, social workers see it as a social problem, and politicians view it as a political dilemma. No one is prepared to admit […]
ON LINE opinion – Australia’s e-journal of social and political debate Posted 8 August 2005 Live Aid has come and gone, its floodlights extinguished in the final communiqué of the G8 leaders. The TV images of anti-poverty protesters at Edinburgh were erased by pictures of blasts in the London Underground. World leaders have recommitted themselves to […]
The essential problems relate to: the powerful desire to protect their perks the balance of power, the way discretion is used. circa 2004
A response to – “Five degrees of separation: Why standards will not ensure quality in disability services”. Written late 1990s. Not published Michael Bleasdale and Rosemary Kayess have correctly pointed to the reliance of the States, Territories and the Commonwealth on Standards as a tool for improving disability services: and that governments have moved away […]
Want to buy a second hand war? Want to buy the war in Iraq? We went there for oil, made Iraqi blood boil now we’re asking what for and wondering how we ever get back. The profits have gone and hope is forlorn it’s preloved, it’s used and we feel abused want to buy a […]
Who do you trust to rip off workers to promote the interests of all rich shirkers; to smash his antagonists? Who do you trust to crack down on unionists? Who do you trust to massage the economy to lie and steal and invade your autonomy? Who do you trust with climate change with global warming […]
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