reply to izab:
who or what is running us and our Country?
Stand up Australia
...........................................................................................................................................................................................................
http://workinglife.org.au/2014/01/20/who-will-really-be-running-australia-in-2014/
WHO will really be running Australia in 2014?
No, there’s no surprise election; as far as I know the Abbott Government will continue to hold office. But what we have come to understand is that its approach to governing is not policy based.
It is not embracing leadership through robust community engagement. There is no discussion of how it plans to improve lives and protect jobs. Instead, the opportunity to lead has been outsourced to big business in the form of a large number of reviews – more than 40, in fact.
This year we will see the result of many of these reviews and they will be a major influence on the Abbott Government’s decisions.
Anyone who calls Australia home and plans to live, work and retire here; anyone who wants to use the hospitals, send their children to the schools, and who cares about the direction our nation is heading can’t afford to ignore the reality that our government is seeking the advice of only one narrow section of society.
Vested interests
For example, Tony Shepherd from the Business Council of Australia will oversee one of the biggest reviews, the Commission of Audit. This task will have far-reaching consequences and require the council’s business leaders to assess the role and scope of government, to recommend changes and advise on how taxpayer money should be spent. Ideas already floated include the $6 co-payment for doctor visits.
Considering Mr Shepherd’s vested interests, it is likely the commission will be recommending policies that promote privatisation and small government. Shifting services away from government (under the banner of “cost savings”) will bring big changes in the way Australia is run.
Privatisation of government services would be as detrimental an outcome in Australia as it was recently in Britain when the Conservative Government implemented this same policy. The emphasis on cost over need and on small government over big will see rising unemployment, fewer services and much regret.
Mr Shepherd will be unlikely to ask: What do Australians need their taxes spent on? How can we make lives better? What can we do to promote jobs and equality? He is a bottom-line, profit-driven man.
The opportunity [for the Government] to lead has been outsourced to big business.
Another Coalition favourite is the Productivity Commission, which will be advising the Government on more than half a dozen reviews. These include the car industry, childcare, and the Fair Work Act.
The Government, as per its modus operandi, did not take a firm grip of the leadership wheel and respond with the required urgency to save Holden. It handed over the decision-making job to the Productivity Commission and it’s hard to know what it could do for the car industry at this late stage.
And what will it recommend for low-paid childcare workers, families struggling with costs, or the review of the Fair Work Act, which is charged with protecting workers’ rights and ensuring a fair system? I’m not optimistic.
Workers are likely to bear the brunt. Putting the Productivity Commission in charge is a transparent shift of power to an organisation likely to spend little time talking about improving lives and much more focusing on cutting costs to business.
And the stupefying aspect of all this is that a review sounds so prudent. The public could be forgiven for thinking that a meeting of minds is a safe way to ensure the Government receives advice to make the best decisions for Australia’s future. But if the minds who are meeting are all vested interests, and unconcerned with the wellbeing of workers and families, then the review might as well not take place at all.
A facade of fairness
In fact, why doesn’t the Government take ownership of its own agenda – made obvious by the choice of reviewers – instead of creating a facade of fairness through analysis?
The Productivity Commission recently suggested that a solution to Australia’s ballooning ageing population was to make 65-year-olds work another five years. There was nothing about superannuation reform. Nothing about the contribution of government and business towards solving the problems of a demographic that benefited them when it was of working age and paying tax. Older Australians are already struggling to find employment. Some, as young as 50, are forced into casual work as job security moves further out of reach.
The Productivity Commission failed in its deliberations to consider that there are 140,000 unemployed Australians aged between 50 and 64 receiving the Newstart allowance from Centrelink. Are they suggesting that 65 to 70-year-olds should join the queue . . . or start delivering pizza?
I won’t go through every review, but I cannot finish without mentioning the selection of Andrew Forrest to oversee the review of Indigenous training and employment.
Mr Forrest is one of the richest men in Australia. His appointment to lead the review for Indigenous workers should raise eyebrows.
True to the nature of the Government’s approach, it has chosen a big-business leader to make decisions for people who live in a very different world to him while dismissing the opinions of the rest of society.
This article first appeared in The Sunday Age on 19 January 2014
..............almost like watching a play, act by act, isn't it?
