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maelorin at 02:55pm on 20/01/2006 under attitudes, consequences, decision-makers, privatisation, public policyI would also contend that the exchange highlights how distant many public policy decision makers are from the people about whom they are making decisions. That the very reason people trust non-profits is that they seem more approachable, and more connected to the people they help.It will also be helpful in trying to ensure that community service providers, such as the online 24-hour not-for-profit service depressioNet.com.au serving 200,000 people annually, receive continued funding. If there is ever a need for a paradigm shift by government, consider the following exchange between Sydney talkback radio host Alan Jones and Tony Abbott, Federal Minister for Health, on Friday, October 14, 2005 (listen to the audio file):
JONES: But it’s a half a million bucks. Tony, this is saving lives!
ABBOTT: But even people who are doing very good things can’t deliver ultimatums to government and say: you’ve just got to give us this …
JONES: But if the thing’s going to close. I mean, people have written to me and said: If it weren’t for this site - I put this in my letter to you - I wouldn’t be here writing an email asking for your assistance. This is some poor coot about to take their life, Tony. "I suffered from depression and came across this website when I was looking for a way to end my life". Are we going to allow this thing to close?
...
ABBOTT: I don’t think it is necessary to do the service that they are doing that the Federal Government give them $400,000 a year. We want them to stay open but we owe it to the taxpayers to say: What does the Federal Government legitimately need to spend to help these people? And that’s the discussion that we’re having with them.
JONES: So we send billions of dollars overseas and our own people are committing suicide and dying of a mental illness, and an instrument which actually saves people’s lives, you’re fiddling and arguing over a couple of hundred thousand dollars?
ABBOTT: Alan, I know it sounds …
JONES: It sounds dreadful, it sounds dreadful. It sounds completely un-Tony Abbott. It sounds appalling, Tony. Don’t say you know, it sounds woeful to the people listening to you.
ABBOTT: I’m sorry, Alan, but I owe it to taxpayers not to …
JONES: Owe it to taxpayers? Can you think of the amount of money that’s wasted in Canberra on every imaginable thing - bloated bureaucracies, extraordinary payments to politicians, public servants, and these people are threatening to close the show down because they haven’t got money, and that’s saving people’s lives.
ABBOTT: And look Alan, moral blackmail is moral blackmail.
JONES: It’s not blackmail. These people are desperate.depressioNet.com.au did eventually receive funding - albeit slightly less than what was needed.
However, the practical implications of the Jones-Abbott exchange reveal a much deeper problem: the alienation and humiliation of not-for-profit mental health organisations as functionless and valueless.
People value and connect with organisations they trust and need and this is critical in a system known to push people back in to the community without adequate support.
It may be that the very fact they are not driven by profit means their first consideration isn't "who much will this cost", but "how can we help" - which is the way government organisations used to work before corporatism invaded the public sphere.
In the guise of "efficiency" and "cost-effectiveness", far too many public services have become private commercial enterprises, where the people that used to be the focus of services have become 'customers', 'clients'. It was true that many government organisations had become bloated bureaucracies, but privatisation was not the only solution. Private enterprise is not interested in public welfare unless it is in their own interests to do so.
Privatisation was chosen because it provides buffers between those who make funding decisions, those who make delivery decisions, and those who ultimately get serviced upon™. It was not necessary to 'offload' public assets into private corporations to achieve efficiencies, or whatever.
The sell-off was needed to distance those making decisions from the consequences. People like me.
aggravated
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"we could spnd a half a million of "our" money on this, or you could get off you arses and raise the money for yourself"
... from people who are already sick of being harrassed by charities and others ...
these people use "taxpayers" as if they were some other people. the last time a politician said something like that to me, i looked at him and said, "you're really, really stupid if you think i'm not a taxpayer or a voter".
[here in australia, voting is compulsory (voting is around 99%) none off this election by minority ...]
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Capitalism is not a valid form of government and is morally bankrupt as a philosophy. It's also anti-entropic, in that it violates several tenants of thermodynamics (which it succeeds at doing only at the local level; when the correction comes, it will come hard).
This leaves us the question of what is (responsible) government. What is the purpose of government if it is not to manage tasks beyond the capacity of the individual for the good of all? Why are we paying them so much money for so little return?
Good government is not discovering that you suddenly have a few billion dollars to throw around in marginal electorates around election time.
That's very bad management.
Democracy means we get the government we deserve. [1]
[1] Don't get me wrong, I like democracy and free speech. However this philosophy is not limited to me. It was interesting to read the thoughts of some of the American presidents of last century about what they forsaw America turning into. But nobody listened to Monroe then, and I doubt few will now. And capitalism is a useful philosophy for business although it's not my favourite. But it's not good government. Or rather, our government is not properly structured for capitalistic endeavours. It's a monopoly. Like Telstra. And we all know how good Telstra's services are. Hmmmm. Darwinian competitions between governments in a capitalist arena, rather than elections. Can I have the Reality TV rights?
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neurotypicals are completely unaware of their assumptions on so many topics,and so many levels. many are so driven by their emotions that rational thought not only looks wierd to them, but they resist it as alien.
as for the question you ask "what is government" ... i may be writing about that soon. possibly even a thesis. i'm becoming obsessed with governance, and what good governance might look like.
the discovering money thing is not only bad management, but very unlikely to be true for a groups of people who are so obsessed with cashflow.
democracy used to mean goverment by the demos, the people. now it means the people choose the bastards they want to abdicate that crap to .. with the occasional random accidental truthtelling to vilify.
politics and economics are not the same - but easily confused by the accountants and lawyers who get into politics.
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I doubt this ironical turn of events is unintentional. The politicians and bureacrats think people have by now forgotten about the valuable, physically accessible organizations that were starved of funds.
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few things are unintentional in politics.
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User pays has become a euphemism for user pays twice, or three times, or whatever we can get away with. So you pay with income tax, then you pay through some kind of levy, and then you pay at the point of service. Fuck that.
And on top of all of this, governments are more and more leaning towards using their law making powers to require people to give money to big business - just look at the IP stuff going on with music and movies. They plan to introduce fair use laws in line with the US trade agreement - and then they want to put a mark up on blank storage media such as CDs which they will give to "the Industry" (whoever that is) to make up for imaginary lost revenue.
Not as important as refusing to fund a life-saving service to the tune of a few politician's salaries, but I think it's definitely a sign of the times.
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back in the day, when both corproations and intellectual property were coalescing into real things™, both were vehicles for encouraging innovation and trade. now they're both weapons used to prevent either - at least, inhibit them unless the right people® get the revenue pie.
corporations were special grants of the state to individuals - now they seem to think it's the other way around ...
running people's lives as if they are merely sources of revenue is just a symptom of a deeper malaise, i'm afraid.
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