This Abbottoir Govt just gets Worse and Worse! Earlier this year Rachel Nolan, former minister in Anna Blighs Queensland Labor government, wrote about Tony Abbotts favourite minority: the older, private school-educated, conservative white men whom he has appointed to key positions since becoming prime minister. Much was then made of Abbotts Commission of Audit – headed by Sydney businessman Tony Shepherd – which recommended sweeping cuts to the welfare state ahead of the budget. Against the Commissions report the budget looked positively reasonable. Today another of Abbotts appointments, billionaire mining magnate Andrew Forrest, has delivered on his brief to report on ways to improve training and education for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Forrest has no particular expertise in this area apart from a compassionate interest and a personal record in looking for innovative ways to promote Indigenous employment. His views would no doubt have been warmly welcomed by a broader inquiry which might have synthesised a range of views and experiences. As it happens, Forrests report goes well beyond his brief, and advocates a return to the paternalistic and punitive welfare models of centuries past for not just Indigenous welfare recipients but hundreds of thousands of others. There are echoes of the poor laws of British mercantilism in his proposal to punish parents for their childrens non-attendance at school. His proposal to extend income management – that attempt at controlling how welfare recipients spend their money which has proven so divisive among Aboriginal communities – harks back to the trust accounts of past decades. Like the Audit Commissions report, Forrests report will be a bridge too far for the government, which begs the question: why does it persist in asking wealthy businessmen to report on matters outside their expertise? Russell Marks
Posted on: Fri, 01 Aug 2014 03:44:16 +0000
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