Social welfare seems mired in endless rhetoric, many people in positions which indicate experience directly with the issue state positions and make recommendations yet little seems to ever be achieved. There is more noise with little but argument to back it up than is helpful.

Whether assisting addicts directly relates is not clear to me, but it may provide insights. Dealing with addicts it is clear those who ‘hit bottom’ and take on responsibility for their choices and take hard nosed action make progress. Outside input can assist the process but it never substitutes for it.

There seems to be an enthusiasm for empowerment in work with poverty. The Smith Family has moved from a welfare agency to largely a training agency to assist children avoid staying in a poverty trap – historically TSF support has always ranged from material aid to direct assistance to children with their education through to things such as the BMC Youth Orchestra.

There is a need to help people avoid poverty, but there is a pressing need to assist those who are destitute deal with their material circumstance. This organisation is a shadow of its former self reflecting the world view of those managing the organisation rather than the needs of all those it formerly served.

Will poverty be eradicated? I doubt it. Fundamental values in life preclude it and there is nothing governments can do about that. The impact can be ameliorated.

Playing rhetorical games arguing sociological issues gives those engaged in the debate the thrill of the ‘joust’. Dealing with a mother with children without shoes, no rent money and no food requires practical assistance. Confronting a father who has been sacked just before Christmas and can’t take anything home, food let alone presents, demands an answer.

There are a lot of people arguing from the grand perspective – there is sadly few dealing with the reality of confronting people in dire need in a practical manner. Sadly The Smith Family once did this, but increasingly joins the hubbub of the crowd.

Recently it was reported that the rate of child poverty in the Nordic countries is 3%. In Australia it is 12%.

We have had years and years of a economic rationalism, ruthless regime ramming all sorts of follies like "efficiency" "Choice" "let the market decide" down our throats whether from the Coaltion or the ALP. The result is increasing inequality and poverty.

There is an excellent book called "Spirit Level" with data showing that everyone benefits from a more equal society, from the richest to the poorest.

It is clear that Australia has chosen not to reduce its levels of poverty. Maybe it is time someone worked out why this decision has been taken (ideology? ignorance? something else?) and reverse it.

The most impoverishing thing is to have one of your fundamental birthrights stolen, then sold to the highest bidder. 'Charitable support' & 'education' or a 'hand up' then has to be seen in the context of this theft.

If an end to poverty is the objective, the effect of "education" in transferring unemployment to other peoples also needs recognition.

“Education” needs to be controlled by the poor, not designed to make them more efficient servants of the rich. Establish cooperative pathways instead – see http://bit.ly/bloIB7 and change Centrelink’s Activity Test http://bit.ly/asF4Xy and help make public housing a real asset in any neighbourhood.

While land is chained to the market we are all slaves. No land rights? No choice but to serve someone else's agenda, & don't complain!

Please view the case for a right to housing as grounded in our BIRTHRIGHT to land (see http://bit.ly/b92hFj)
We must show viability of land rights + responsibilities.

Until more of us can relate to the land as caretakers, not as owners/tenants, we can't have sustainable development. http://ntw.110mb.com

How can "landrights4all" be secondary to property "rights" 4 some? Will air water or sunlight be the next birthright commodified?

I would like to point out that most on welfare control their money well. Many on high incomes waste the money they earn. There are good parents that manage the money well. There are also some shocking parents that are wonderful money managers. Sometimes parents with little or no skills can benefit from assistance with managering their money. These are more likely to have other problems that prevent them developing parenting skills. You will find these parents among the mentally ill, disabled and drug addicts. They need extensive family support and other support. The intervention by Mr. Howard was unfair and did not help with the problems it was supposed to assist. The latest child abuse figures in the NT show this to be the case. The intervention punished those who were doing the right thing. It would have had little effect on those who were not.

Too much of this for any genuine progress as it may interfere with the free operation of the pedophiles.

Asked what the federal government planned to do on the issue of clerical child abuse, Mr Rudd said it was important to acknowledge the pain of victims but “the church over some time now has established its own process within Australia for dealing with this”.

“And the church in doing so has dealt with many cases from the past, and where there have been imperfections in the process they have also sought to improve those processes.”

one might also say the same about the Philippines, and wonder why a country, blessed with such rich natural resources and talent, finds its best and brightest fleeing for better opportunities overseas and the poor keep getting more and poorer.

Even with 'conditional cash transfers' there are always strings attached to handouts and it is patronising, paternalistic and demeaning to behave toward the impoverished as if they were irresponsible and needed to have their money better managed. It doesn't take much to become poor - a missed mortgage or other necessary payment, robbery, illness, accidents - and you're a goner. Just look at Will Smith and his son in 'The Pursuit of Happyness.'

Material poverty is temporary, but a poverty of the imagination, of the heart and will, is much, much worse.

The evidence is available in the action taken by Harold Holt in the 1950's, he realised that the top tax which existed during the 1930's depression, allowed high obscene incomes to develope, and a higher top tax was needed to contain that situation, after a bit of trial and error, he found that 66.6% seemed to be the ideal tax, and it worked very well, with one exception, the total take in tax was higher than the 30%(or whatever was needed then) of GDP, and the Prime Minister and others had a welter of a time giving themselves great perks etc. What is needed, is that 66.6% top tax, and no tax up to about $30,000, with appropiate levels of tax between. The low top tax now, is responsible for the obscene salaries and the high prices in goods and services caused by those high incomes. The recession or the conditions caused by it, and near recession, causes the poor economy and the people made poor and destitute, lose any respect they may have had for authority, and other people. I know, I saw much of what happened following the 1930's depression, You can blame those Lawyers etc who have hyjacked the treasurers position over the last 40 years. these "professionals" have proved that they are professional at returning to that recession, with no care for the conditions forced onto the workers, and of course, they protect their own perks don't they.

When will the people wake up to the fact that we have been enslaved and no longer have any freedom? Until they do and overturn the wrongs that have been enacted against us the people it will only continue to happen. Neither the coalision nor the labour party or most politicians care about the general public, all they are interested in is lining their own pockets at the exspence of the people. They continually introduce more revenue raising laws. Our major political parties are registered corporations on the American stock exchange, this may explain why they sold all of our utilities,water, tram and rail tranlport and telstra to foreign investers who keep increasing the costs which ultimately forces more people into poverty. Its time the government acted to benefit the people of Australia and not the foreign investers and the banking cartels. Give us back our birth right, give us back our sovereignty and our freedom. Stop the Dictatorship. We are free-men, women and children of the land and have inalieanable rights as granted in our the COMMONWEALTH of AUSTRALIA CONSTITUTION 1900. We are not the fictitious STRAWMAN entity enabling icc statute maritime law be used against us. We are not corporationss. Most of the people have had enough of treacherous acts of the government and political parties, this became obvious in the recent federal election.

The last three paragraphs of Paul of Bathursts comment are a clear and bald articulation of what is.

It used to be accepted that a certain percentage of the population would always be in need of a welfare support framework and their needs catered for within politically defined paramaters of the times which were usually much less interventionist that today.

Now, it seems to me, there is an industry around that percentage of people and that, in and of itself, will never see poverty eradicated simply because it is needed to feed the industry.

This comment may be seen as overly cynical. I would say it is an honests assessment of the situation as it stands. Lillian in her comment "It is clear Australia has chosen not to reduce its levels of poverty" comes close to the same conclusion.

Nothing will change unless there is a fundamental, clear-eyed review of programmes as they exist and the calling on help from those who actually work at the coalface for their ideas and suggestions, in conjunction with theorists in suits and offices.

But before that could happen the entire system of politics and government in Australia needs to be reviewed. Will this happen? No. Will poverty cease to be an industry? Unlikely.

Have a look at this map of world poverty... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_fertility_rate

Basically the more red, the more poverty... But the surprise is that it is a map of FERTILITY - how many children are being born.

You know how our government seems unable to fund hospitals, schools and roads, and this is with our population failing to produce enough children to replace ourselves... imagine the problems of fundiong these essential services if the population was not declining, but trippling every twenty years... no wonder they are poor. Worse than schools and hospitals, they somehow they also need to find more farmland too!

50 years ago, perhaps we could have ended poverty by donating 30% of outr income to the poor. But now there are so many more poor that the problem is so much bigger. There are 60million shanty-town dwellers in India alone, and only 20million Australians...

Let alone Indonesia, the Pacific Islands, New Guinea... What about Africa? Sth America? etc etc...

Why is China becomming so rich and powerfull? The one-child policy. It means they can finally afford to catch up with the infastructire and education that nations need to get ahead and build wealth.

I don't like the 'one child policy', but Thailand and surging Iran (Think nuclear power) also have zero-population growth due to marketing, free contraception and free choice. It's not really the feminist idea that educating women reduces population growth (think Iran, they're not keen on educating women)...

What succeds is explaining to people that too many kids leads to poverty, and long-lasting free contraceptive implants. Eventually compulsary education and urbanisation also drive down birthrates, because they make kids expensive.

On the other hand, why is the 'aging population' such a bad thing here in Australia? Surely it means we are living longer, and isn't that a good thing?

The problem is not an 'aging' population, it is that we are suiciding... failing to produce enough kids to replace ourselves.

(see more onn next post...

(... continued)

The problem is not an 'aging' population, it is that we are suiciding... failing to produce enough kids to replace ourselves.

Here we need to give tax reductions for kids so middle class parents can afford the kids we want. Those on welfare are pumping out kids like there is no tomorrow because of the welfare bribes to have lots of kids. Meaning that single mums are pressured into having more kids than they can look after. And the incentives make sure that few get married, as this reduces their welfare paynments.

Also making divorce fairer, because Australian men don't want to become dads... because they are afraid of having their kids stolen by divorce lawyers.

These socialists say:

//The truth is that a country as prosperous as ours has no excuse for our relatively high rates of poverty and homelessness.//

Errrr.... actually.. YES we DO!

It's called "give them a nice home and they trash it..every wall destroyed.. kitchen a wasteland of rubbish and blowflies and a jungle outside"

"Poverty" will not be solved by handouts. The way to eliminate poverty is teaching people how to catch fish..not handing them one for one meal.

VALUES. Once a society deteriorates as far as ours has..and we have abandoned the values which made the West great.. the beginning with the small band of believers huddled in fear in an upper room...thinking "looks like you CAN keep a good man down" after Jesus was crucified... but ohhhhh the change..the transformation when they met the risen Lord.. despair turned to dilerious joy and a new force was unleashed on history which first took care of the Roman oppressors (by love and grace not war) and then gave birth to a totally different stream of history. Finally, after that grace had been sullied by human greed and lust for power..we had the reformation, the renaissance and enlightenment.

But now... now? we are sliding ever further down a Neitszchian/DeSade/Machievellian/existential highway to utter hell..

The problem is only solved by national repentance and renewal..at the foot of the Cross of Christ.
Try anything else.. and it will just sink deeper.

Ibbit made the point:

“Nothing will change unless there is a fundamental, clear-eyed review of programmes as they exist and the calling on help from those who actually work at the coalface for their ideas and suggestions, in conjunction with theorists in suits and offices.”

Many of the posts to date argue macro level issues to do with society; those exist but what does a debate about them achieve?

Some points that may have been too implicit in my original post:

1. Increasingly those at the coal face are highly trained individuals who argue about society and fail to deliver assistance – the hungry need feeding, the homeless housing, the barefoot shoes,

2. There is an industry in welfare, and as with many industries it is driven by the egos of those involved (a read of Collins “Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't” may do some of these some good),

3. Many engaged in the debate love humanity but can’t cope with people, and

4. Once an organisation becomes involved in government programs much time and resource is consumed satisfying government accountability and ensuring future funding – a less than satisfactory result.

Let those delivering welfare deliver welfare and leave sociological arguments and government panels alone; let those arguing social issues do so, but not get involved in welfare as they fail to deliver. One should not be blind and stupid in delivering welfare, but one MUST NEVER stray into judgement for humanity’s sake.

lbbit came close, but was not cynical enough.

It comes down to our education system again.

Some have totally incompetent teachers who leave them with not much chance, since we eliminated much manual labour.

Then we have whole departments geared to turning out a flood of social workers every year.

Guess what. Every social worker needs a case book of clients. Yes that's what they call them, clients. So for every new graduate we must find 3 or 4 hardship cases for them to "manage".

It may be an overstatement, but would make an interesting experiment. Close these social worker courses, & watch the number of welfare cases steadily reduce.

Come on, give it a try, nothing else has worked. The greatest problem would be trying to find some form of useful employment for all those welfare workers.