"-- an end of government support for private schools".
Wow! did St. Vinnies really say that? where, when, and in what context. It is too mind boggling for me to accept that statement at face value.

Go ahead selectively choose statistics to ‘prove’ your point and raise the typical ‘watch out for the Marxists’ insult. We ordinary people know that income inequality is increasing.

We hear about the ludicrous incomes paid to CEO’s and we also understand that these payments do not even depend on performance as they have exit clauses in their contracts that provide them with a significant pay-out even if they fail miserably.

This is ‘evidence’ that ‘proves’ to us that something is wrong.

I wonder if Vinnies really do see the answer as more tax for the rich and more welfare for the poor, I don’t. I want to see more access to resources and real opportunities for meaningful work for the poor

As Peter points out, this is hardly the first time that Vinnies has put out rhetorically inflated drivel in the guise of social analysis. Its report ‘Two Australias – Addressing Inequality and Poverty’ released in 2001 was even worse than this one.

It is sad to see Vinnies well-deserved social capital being used as a platform for such an ideological spray.

I’m no fan of this government’s social policies, and believe that organisations like St Vincents have a vital role in calling attention to poverty and its causes. But it should do so from a position that is reasoned and credible. Contrast this report with the work of the Smith Family, for example, that not only do a good job in providing assistance to the needy but also sponsor credible and authoritative research on the dimensions, causes and consequences of poverty and disadvantage – often to the discomfort of the government.

By providing such and easy target for the government and CIS, this report is likely to do more harm than good to the cause its authors advocate.

At this point, I wish only to point out a contradiction in Saunders article, or rather, a lack of disclosure. Mr Saunders states " The original St Vincent de Paul was a French monk who devoted his life to caring for orphans, founding a hospice, giving work to the unemployed and establishing rural kitchens. Research by the organisation that bears his name today seems to find more inspiration in Karl Marx than in St Vincent." Mr Saunder apparently is one of the directors of a major lobby group The Centre for Independant Studies, funded by tax deductable donations. Part of this Centre's aims are " The CIS is actively engaged in support of a free enterprise economy and a free society under limited government where individuals can prosper and fully develop their talents". I think that, in their own way, the centre is just as biased as St Vinnies. The CIS board is full of CEO's and directors of major public companies, just as St Vinnies is full of Christians - each with their own bias. The difference is...I doubt that any person who volunteers or works for Vinnies will have their personal fortunes, such as they are, increase as a result of any changes that they advocate. Any CEO of CIS may very well find their fortunes increase as a result of changes they advocate. I suggest follow the benefits to check the veracity or motives (however buried or implied) of anyone who advocates changes

What the SVDP report gets wrong and Saunders get right is that socialism is not the only logical anwser to poverty. There is a world of difference between welfare as a safety net for those who absolutely need it and redistributing income so that "inequality" is reduced.

The best way to perpetuate poverty is to hook the masses on passive welfare handouts, make them dependent on the state, and centralise all economic and social power. But there's another word for that - slavery. The best way to promote wealth for all is to support the concept of property rights for citizens and encourage free and fair trade. There's another word for that - western democracy.

If there is one thing that is absolutely certain about low incomes, that is the amount people do receive from Centrelink payments. To suggest that measurement of such incomes is unreliable is a nonsense. The numbers of Centrelink pension recipients are approximately a quarter of all Australians. It is clear that such incomes are entirely inadequate in the first place, and have maintained a declining value over the last 10 or more years in relation to growth of Cost of Living. Unreliability of measurement occurs when people start working, and are taxed at th highest rates of any other Australian citizen, especially if they have the privilege of working in the lowest paid jobs. I understand this practice to be fully endorsed by the said writer !

Rene,

The article does not say that measurement of Centrelink payments is unreliable, but that data quoted by the Vinnies report (for the lowest decile of incomes quoted in the ABS survey) are unreliable, a fact well-known among social policy researchers.

Centrelink and related pensions are adjusted automatically every six months explicitly to keep pace with the Consumer Price Index, and, with occasional increases over and above this, have increased by more than the cost of living in the past 10 years.

Perhaps you could apply for a job as a statistician at Vinnies!

"At this point, I wish only to point out a contradiction in Saunders article, or rather, a lack of disclosure."

There was full disclosure at the end of the article:

"Professor Peter Saunders is Director of Social Policy Programmes at The Centre for Independent Studies"

It's a pity St Vinnies think they need to pontificate as well as do good work - although I think their suggestion to end government subsidy of private schools is absolutely spot on.

Thanks Rhian, I never claimed to be a statistician. I do know however, from the thousands of families we see in Emergency Relief and Financial Counselling that financially the pressure is on. I am not sure about you, but it is pretty clear to me that the increase in numbers of families and individuals relying on inadequate government incomes is a clear sign the present governments policies are not providing an adequate safety net. Further, look carefully at what is measured in CPI, the use of average increase in CPI blurs the fact the basic costs of living, ie those that families out here are most likely to spend their meager incomes on have increased at a far greater rate than what the CPI represents. And what about those awful tax rates for those trying to make a start at work on lousy wages ?

Thanks Rene,

The issues of the adequacy of payments and the number of claimants are largely separate (indeed, an economist might argue that higher payments will attract more claimants – a positive correlation). There are indeed many more benefit recipients than there used to be, and benefits represent a record share of household income and government spending. But this is in part a consequence of this government’s extension of benefit entitlements into middle and upper income ranges, especially family support. It does not necessarily indicate widening poverty.

It is true that the items bought by benefit recipients are not the same as general spending patterns reflected in the Consumer Price Index, and therefore CPI-adjusted benefits may not reflect changes in recipients’ cost of living. Some countries compile separate pensioner price indexes for exactly that reason. However, a quick look at the CPI movements for the past 10 years does not suggest to me that benefit recipients have necessarily lost out through this process. Items whose prices have risen by more than average include alcohol and tobacco, private health and education, meals out and takeaway foods, and holidays. Those whose prices have risen by less that average include clothing, furniture an household equipment, and housing. This is not a comprehensive list, but suggests that the things whose prices have risen fastest tend to be non-essentials.

I agree with your point about high marginal tax rates discouraging benefits recipients from entering the labour force.

The point that I was trying to make, albeit badly, was that the author appeared to equate Vinnies with communism with their reports as evidence of this. Christian organisations, in endeavouring to address the root cause of poverty -rather than being satisfied with merely patching up the problems- are often accused of socialism. Moreover, any lobbying efforts are somehow equated as being contradictory of their charitable aims. I not agree with this view. If anything, trying to address inequity in our society reflects the charitable aims of Vinnies. I point out that the CIS's " work is governed by the following convictions:• the importance of an autonomous and free civil society––a society under limited government where people can prosper, fully develop their talents and live in peace and dignity;
• an economy based on competitive free markets." The CIS Board consists of 19 members, 18 of which are directors, CEO's of major corporations or Bankers. The CIS is a lobby group in the guise of a research organisation. Vinnies is a charity that tries to lobby. Its interesting that donations to CIS are tax deductable (for a lobby group), whilst Vinnies is, with other charities, facing loss of tax funds, for trying to lobby. The statement that Saunders made, does not actually advise the reader who CIS is or what its aims are. It is this point that I consider is an important one to bear in mind, when reading this article.

aniko - what has that got to do with St Vinnie's coming out with alot of old, tired codswhallop? It's a pretty weak old argument to say that because the CIS is for personal freedom and the right of people to succeed that their criticism must be taken with caution. I'm sure the CIS would love to see poor people succeed as well. The major differences between the two philosophies seems to be that one wants to narrow the gap between rich and poor by making the poor richer, and the other by making the successful poorer.

Mollydukes - what business is it of yours what companies pay their executives? Since when is it up to you and the other envious in our society to dictate wages paid to private enterprise leaders? If someones skill and abilities enable a company to increase their profit by many millions of dollars why shouldn't they enjoy suitable recompense? And even if they lose money for the company it's still none of your business. If you're so concerned about it go and buy some shares in the company so you can have a vote. Envy masquerading as compassion is still envy.

With regard to increased numbers of recipients of Social Security payments, I am well aware that middle class welfare payments have been the area of greatest increase since the advent of the Howard government. However, it is clear there has been a significant increase in payments of benefits and pensions (hence not listing allowances). Part of this increase probably results from significant regressive changes to health and work insurance - making insurance companies more profitable at the expense of accountability of employers and a reasonable requirement to make work places safe. A cursory look at CPI figure changes, removing things like furniture and entertainment shows that CPI since the end of the Sept quarter 2003 to the end of the quarter Dec 2004 has grown 38.2%, while the highest paid pension (Aged or sole parents) has grown 13.6% and unemployment benefit by 7.8%. I agree a more intense breakdown of what is measured in CPI would need to occur, but I don't have access to those sort of resources (not being in a think tank)! I suspect the true picture is significantly worse and would just substantiate the fact that our average client in the North West Suburbs of Melbourne, when paying a private rent of $200 per week on a base pension of $280, including rent assistance, but not payments for the children, is unable to cope by any reasonable standard.

Rene

I’m not sure where you got your CPI numbers, but they’re wrong. The all groups CPI rose by 3.3% between Sep ’03 and Dec ’04, the CPI excluding household goods rose 3.4% and excluding recreation rose 3.4% in this period. Over the whole of the past 10 years these indexes each rose in total by about 30%. You still haven’t backed up your contention that:

“look carefully at what is measured in CPI, the use of average increase in CPI blurs the fact the basic costs of living, ie those that families out here are most likely to spend their meager incomes on have increased at a far greater rate than what the CPI represents.”

It seems to me you haven’t looked carefully at the CPI at all.

Centrelink’s total clients number more than 6 million, but these include recipients of dozens of programs, including education, training and business assistance, not just pensions and benefits.

I’m not disputing that people living on benefits have it tough. But I believe two of your three initial criticisms of Saunders’ article are wrong, namely that low income data are reliable (Saunders is correct to point out that the ones the Vinnies report uses are not), and that benefits have not increased to keep pace with the cost of living.

As already mentioned, I agree with your third point about the disincentive effects of taxes; so, I suspect, would Saunders.

Thanks Rhian - but I downlaoded the figures I used from the ABS web site - perhaps they as statisticians need to join the Vinnies as well ! Rene

Rene, I respectfully suggest that you have misinterpreted the data.

It is impossible that “removing things like furniture and entertainment shows that since the end of the Sept quarter 2003 to the end of the quarter Dec 2004 has grown 38.2%.”

Over those five quarters NO components of the CPI increased by that much. The largest increases for any of the CPI component groups or sub-groups were in the prices of fresh fruit vegetables (22%, due to the effect of the drought) and automotive fuel (14.8%, due to the rise in the world oil price).

I know I am not a statistician and it does take some assembling of data off the ABS web site. I am not dealing in averages when I add the CPI change as occurred in each quarter, I am dealing with the actual increase - having just assembled the data again, I still get the same result !! Do we now get into the semantics of experts or is that enough ?

Does anyone have any reliable statistics on the number of people who receive unemployment benefits and smoke.

Anecdotally and from experience in my community, it seems a lot of people who are below the poverty have money to spend on cigarettes, beer and the pokies yet not on healthy meals for their kids.

I know some people do struggle even with their priorities right and we should try to help them but i have no sympathy for the people who go out on pension day and buy a carton of smokes a carton of beer and put $50 in the Queen of the Nile.

DOCS and Centrelink should be on to these people. perhaps food vouchers should be introduced rather than cold hard cash.

Although Centrelink is incompetent enough as it is without extra responsibility ...

t.u.s.

Rene,

This is not “the semantics of experts” but a glaring and basic error that has caused you to magnify the inflation rate you’re talking about by a factor of 10.

My guess is you’re adding the percentage increases in the CPI components over the quarters to get the “total” CPI increase excluding recreation and household goods. Ie price increases over this period were: food 3.2%, tobacco & alcohol 6%, clothing & footwear -2.5%, housing 6.3%, health 5.1%, transport 5.6%, communication 2.2%, education 7.8%, others 4.6%, therefore

total = 3.2 + 6 - 2.5 + 6.3 + 5.1 + 5.6 + 2.2 + 7.8 + 4.6 = 38.3%.

If so, that’s nonsense. You can't sum the percentage changes in the CPI's components like that to get the change in the total. If you spend half your income on rent and half on food, and your rent increases by 5% while food prices rise by 10%, your cost of living has risen by 7.5%, not 15%

It was you, not me, who first demanded that we “look carefully at what is measured in CPI”

As one who has lived through the 30 year period, during which Peter Saunders tells us Australians have become "more than twice as prosperous" ("Australia's Welfare Habit" p5), I think that his figures have to be wrong.

It is well understood that natural disasters and traffic accidents all 'add' to our prosperity as measured by the GDP upon which Peter Saunders bases his claims (and I would add that all the extra red tape which has been added in the last generation and which has made it impossible for anyone without good bookkeeping skills to run their own business would also have 'added' to our prosperity as measured by the GDP). It is for these reasons that Simon Kuznets, the originator of the GDP warned in 1934 against the GDP being used in precisely the way that it is being used by Peter Saunders today.

If, as John Wicks of the SSVDP says (and my experience bears this out), working class families can no longer afford holidays, or if it now requires two incomes, instead of one, to finance a mortgage, we must have (or at least many of us must have) gone backwards in these years, contrary to Peter Saunders' claims.

The GDP does not seem take into account that so much more is necessary for people to get along than what was necessary 30 years ago. For example, almost every adult needs their own car, together with insurance et al. Back then one car per family was easily adequate.

Today, almost no-one can get a decent white collar job without a reasonably current University degree, for which we all have to pay dearly for these days, thanks to the Howard Government's education 'reforms'. Then a HSC, or, sometimes, even year 10, was sufficient. The increase in the price of land has made the ability to grow your own food a luxury, whereas back in the 60's many urban working class people had ample land on which to grow their own fruit and veges. These are just a few of the more obvious examples which come to mind.

(toBeContinued)

(Continued from earlier post)

Personally speaking, for all the wonders of modern technology, the Internet, and for all the cheap gizmos which would have been much more costly two or three decades ago, I felt much more prosperous and economically secure and carefree as an unskilled worker back in the late 1970's than I do today also as an unskilled worker (albeit with a University degree which is of little practical use) today. It seemed that I had much more disposable income then that I have today, so I would gladly go back to that situation if I could.

If all of the factors which affect the true quality of life were properly taken into account (and that is not even taking into account the terrible current degradation of our environment and our scandalously wasteful consumption of non-renewable natural resources), then I think it can be shown that the GDP figures and wage figures, even (supposedly) adjusted for inflation, upon which Peter Saunders' bases his claims, are a seriously flawed measure of prosperity.

The attempt by the Society of St Vincent de Paul to try to argue its essentially correct case, based fundamentally on these same flawed figures, although with the best of intentions, seems to have been a serious mistake on their part.

I think charities should all do us a favour and close their doors. The wider community must then take responsibility for the problems that are associated with living in a democratic society. Assisting the poor should be a matter of course. The benifits: you take away the power that charities hold; you get rid of the costly bureaucracy associated with the running of charities; and you free up all those volunteers to go and get paid employment so they can contribute to the tax pool to help build our nation - and your letter box won't have half a processed forest in it every day. But that is too efficient and would take away the power bases of corporations like St. Vinnies and churches etc. Horror of horrors - certain food chains would miss out on all that free advertising, but then we could get cheaper burgers because they would not require their PR teams to tell the world how charitable they are when they give a zillionth of their earnings away to help some hospice or something. Oprah Winfrey and her new age code of self-indulgence would be out of a job as we see that not everyone in the world can pull themselves up by the bootstraps and walk among the stars. Some, through no fault of their own, end up under trains.
The Australian Government - giving charities a reason to exist. Okay all you statisticians tell us how much it costs for the wider community to fund and run all these charities compared to simply drawing from a tax base and fixing the problems ourselves. Ooops that sounds a little too like socialism.
But then again who can honestly say that church, corporations and state are separate? Mussolini (a Catholic) said that when these three come together then you have the makings of a fascist state. Don't worry PS the Catholics have too much to lose to endorse socialism and Karl Marx. And we no longer have to worry about those out there who have nothing to lose - the media has them under control.

rancid ,get real,Govt is the most wasteful and inefficient way of doing anything.If anything we need more private charities since they put more pressure on people to be self sufficient, rather than Govt bureauracies consumed with empire building.

Too much socialism diminishes us all.As we continue to drop tarrifs however we need to find jobs for the less academically inclined and this is the area our Govt has failed to address.

We should never let anyone rot on social security,since their idleness and resentment will cost us ten fold the value of any cheap products we get from China.

ARJAY How do private charities put more pressure on people to be self sufficient? Who says people using their charities don't want to be self sufficient? Step back for a second from your ideology, your conditioning. You'd see a whole new world where poor folk are nice people who don't always have things go their way. Don't rub salt into their wounds like those silly current affair shows. How does a private (and thus not as accountable) and often religious (and thus selective)organisation more efficient than a Govt. bureaucracy? And private charities do a little empire building of their own - don't they? Look at the wealth and power that Rome and the Throne have at their command. I think it is a myth that privatisation creates a more efficient organisation. All it does is replace a publically accountable (supposedly) bureaurcracy with a private one that has the protection (such as defamation laws and govt. legislation) given to private business enterprises. I won't mention all the subsidies afforded business.
You say that governments are inefficient - do you propose to get rid of governments and replace them with a private corporation (if that is not already the case)? That sounds a lot like national socialism - sometimes called state capitalism -usually leading to fascism.
This blog page has been discussing whether statistics confirm St. Vinnies' claims that poor-income folk are finding it tougher to get on. In this case I trust in the front liners from St. Vinnies - rather than stats with a spin. Socialsim is not the answer; uncontrolled capitalism is not the answer; Australians must continue to fight fascism - that should go without saying; charity is often rich people feeling good about themselves and a PR response; your answer is tariffs (thus putting Chinese workers out of a job). I don't have the answer but I do know that getting locked into society's dominant ideology (Ideology as defined by Karl Marx) is a big part of our problem.

I am no socialist, but I think Vinnies are on to something.
The headlong rush to inequality is happening and it is happening in the opportunities or lack thereof we are offering our children.
30 years ago we had government education policies that at least attempted to counterbalance the inevitable inequalities that are visited upon all of us at birth. We, as a community, at least paid lip service to the idea that equality of opportunity for kids was important, no matter who their parents were.
No longer. We now have government education policies that entrench advantage at one end and entrench disadvantage at the other. The results of this will be horrendous for all of us. As a teacher battling in a tough, underfunded, disadvantaged public school said to me recently; "If the govt doesn't spend some more money on public schools soon, they better start building a lot more gaols."
I'm all for competition amongst adults, but not if we've already loaded the dice against kids as young as 5. That's not competition, that's bloody cheating, in my book.
If a church organisation like Vinnies is advocating for an end to public subsidies of private schools, I'm writing them a cheque immediately.

Enjay,
I’m all for raising spending on schools, and especially those with students from poorer socioeconomic backgrounds, but kids at non-government schools are also entitled to public support.

The key question is how we ensure that kids get the best education they can. In my view, that means: allowing diversity and experimentation in the provision of education, so than innovation leads to improvement; levelling up not down (though competition, if you will, but between schools not 5-year-olds); encouraging the good schools (government or private) rather than penalising them for fear their students might get an unfair advantage over kids from worse schools; and providing the poorer schools with the incentives and the means to do better. The worst thing we could do is blame or penalise good schools for being good or popular.

Non-government schools are attracting a growing proportion of students because they offer what parents want for their kids, to the extent that many families even on even modest incomes prefer to pay to send their kids to non-government schools than send them to government schools free of charge. Rather than complaining about “bloody cheating”, it might be worth looking at why government schools are losing popularity.

Enjay, you seem to share with the Vinnies report the need to back up your ideas with horror stories about how much worse things are now than they used to be. In the 1970s, fewer than 5% of adults had university degrees, nowadays its approaching 20%. In the 1970s, about a third of students stayed on to year 12, now its more than 70%. Education opportunities are absolutely crucial for out kids, and we need to debate how best to deliver them, but I for one would not turn the clock back 30 years.

Rhian,

As I wrote, you didn't need a degree in the 1970's to get a decent white collar job with good career prospects. For example, only a few weeks ago, Kevin Andrews, the Federal Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, when interviewed on Radio National's "The National Interest", "defended" the decline of the proportion of people with disabilities employed in the Commonwealth Public Service from 5.3% in 1996 to 3.8% today by saying similar to, "well back then we took in school leavers. Today you normally need a degree in order to get a job in the public service."

So, obviously that makes it OK, then! It is only fair that people with disabilities miss out, because today anyone without a degree is also denied a career in the Public Service!

For many, it has become a necessity, rather than a choice, to attend University, and in the process, incur massive HECS debts to be paid off over many years.

Is that progress?

I would suggest that this huge new cost, which has been imposed on many in order to be able to earn a decent livelihood, is only one of many factors that have not been properly taken into account when the figures, upon which Peter Saunders makes his claims that we have all have become twice as prosperous since the 1960's, were calculated.

St Vinnies should be congratulated for having the courage to stand up to this Government, and its apologists such as Peter Saunders, even if, as I wrote, earlier, they have made the mistake of trying to argue their case using the same flawed measures of prosperity as are used by Peter Saunders.

Dagget – you ask do I think it is progress that more people have degrees than used to, even if some are doing it from necessity not choice, and people now need degrees for jobs that they previously didn’t?
Yes I do, for three reasons:
Firstly, from the point of view of society as a whole, it is probably a good thing that our teachers, journalists, accountants, public servants etc are more educated than they once were.
Secondly, surveys and economics literature suggest that investing in education yields both a positive private return (people with more education attract higher earning than those with less, making that HECS investment worthwhile) and also a positive social return (the standard of living rises in countries that invest more in education, for the whole community not just the educated). Incidentally, this mix of public and private benefits seems to me to justify a mix of public and private (HECS etc) funding for degrees.
Thirdly, I believe that higher education is a good thing to have in itself, not just as a vocational requirement or ticket to higher earnings. It adds to quality of life in the broadest sense - a theme your earlier post touched on.
I’m the only person in my family ever to go to university. My father was very bright, but his family was poor, and poor working class kids didn’t go to uni in his day. My mother’s family was lower middle class, and she was offered a scholarship, but her father believed that higher education was wasted on girls, so she didn’t go either. Both of them lived productive lives, both were well-informed and inquisitive, but both would have enjoyed greatly, and benefited hugely from, the education opportunities I’ve enjoyed.
I’m no believer in the good old days!
Your earlier post raised some interesting points about the usefulness of GDP as a measure of quality of life. I’ve used up my 2 posts in 24 hours for now, but will comment on that tomorrow if I get time.

Rhian,

Of course having a more educated society is generally a good thing, however my point was that, it has become a necessity to get a degree in order to be able to get the same kind of jobs that our parents could get with year 12.

Again, I ask, has this, as just one of many examples, been taken into account, and many others when people like Peter Saunders claim that we have become twice as prosperous as we were a generation ago?

This is one aspect of what has been referred to as the 'credentials creep' where people not only have to get degrees, but also have to spend many further years amassing post-graduate qualifications in order to secure employment either because it is now a requirement for their chosen profession, or because the marketplace has become so much more competitive.

I think a good many now in Universities, would be happy if they could finally finish their education and just be able to get on with the earning an income and with the rest of their lives.

I would be interested to see if there is any evidence to suggest that today's professionals and public servants are that much better than they were a generation ago, or even if they are, if it necessarily warrants so much more time spent with little income and accumulating ever greater HECS debts.

I also suggest you also have a look at the next 4 Corners on Monday which will be about the effect of Government cutbacks on the quality of our University system.

Rhian, and everyone else...
Level/Quality of education does not equal quality of life...

Yes we are 3-5 times richer than our parents/grandparents but we have not improved our levels of happiness or life satisfaction. Research by the Australia Institute shows that people are actually less happy today than 30-50 years ago. How has a 'better' education (dare I say societal indoctrination into consumerism and blind, irresponsible capitalism... perhaps a little too radical? Or too close to home?) helped then?

But back to the topic of Mr Saunders paper. Coming from a single parent/4 children family (3 of whom went to private schools on a nurses wage: lets see that done today! Ha!) I think that if we (the well off/better off - of which I have become) tried to live as those who rely on the services of those such as St V's do - we'd go crying to our banker/financial planner for our money back. I don't think many actually comprehend the struggle some have. Our comfort has made us... well it's too uncomfortable to think about isn't it...

Perhaps the greatest misused words in these discussions are 'need' and 'want'. What is truely needed as opposed to what we simply want? What about the more onerous words - 'social responsibility'? Have people forgotten the reason for the formation of society was the mutual support and protection it offered? We now act more like the predators we hid from!

I am not saying that the poor don't have a responsibility to help themselves (there are plenty who work hard and try) but if one continues to expect more and give less (as so often is the case), then when/if the time comes around for oneself to seek help and compassion, remember ones own thoughts of "help thyself"...

Greed is growing and it is killing the world as surely as pollution.

Best of luck too all... try to see it coming.
JustDan

Rhian,
The Australian public funding support of private schools is almost unique in the western world, a strange hybrid which largely arose because of the Catholic/Anglican sectarian divide from last century.
I'm all for innovation and diversity in schools, but why not in public schools available to every kid regardless of whether their parents can or will pay for it?
Many government schools are getting "worse" because all their good kids are being drained away from them by both low fee (and often not very good) private schools and public selective schools. Government propaganda encourages this shift, its cheaper for them to pass the cost of educating their kids to the middle classes. But public education doesn't have to be second rate or monolithic, it just needs the community will to change it. Now the middle classes have largely deserted public schools, there is no real will to change them. The tragedy that is setting up for all our futures will cost us an enormous amount in the long term. We cannot isolate our kids from one another. You may believe your kids are alright, but if a whole lot of other kids are not alright and know perfectly well their talent and opportuntites are of little value to the rest of us, we, and our kids, will reap what we sew.
Soon the falling birthrate will demand we close schools, currently the only schools we can close are those open to all kids. Soon, rather than increasing parental choice, current policies will leave many parents with no local public schools at all. Heaven forbid they fall on straightened circumstances or the private schools decide they don't want to accept their child.....
Thank God Vinnies, at least, can see the writing on the wall.

Saunders bogus right wing "stink tank" research is just the kind of pseudo-research that neoconservative policy-makers love. It hasnt any serious validity or credibility within the academic community. Prediction; more cries of "hysteria" as the budget cuts begin to blow out into the prison, charity and mental health systems. Yeah, right, they are all only suffering from paranoid delusion.....
Wake up and smell the coffee; this is only the beginning.

Arjay wrote, "Govt is the most wasteful and inefficient way of doing anything."

This article of faith of the least last 25 years has led to massive inefficiencies in our economy which false measures of prosperity, such as the GDP, have concealed from effective public scrutiny.

As I wrote in another forum, based on another article by PS, the Housing Trust of South Australia never cost taxpayers a cent, and yet helped keep decent housing affordable for all South Australians for many decades. Compared to the massive overheads that many of us are forced to pay in today's almost totally privatised housing market, I would say that that is pretty damned efficient!

If other Government enterprises have been inefficient and excessively feather-bedded, I would suggest that it is because of a lack of a political will. In a healthy democracy, with accountability and transparency, the HTSA example shows that there is every reason to expect that Government run services should be more, rather than less, efficient than private buinesses, particularly in natural monopolies such as Telecommunications.

(PS, in regards to your quip about St Vinnies "attack(ing) the privatisation of Telstra as a social crime", could you please tell us all why you believe the privatisation of Telstra is in the public interest? If you have already written an article about it, I would see to it that it gets put on http://www.citizensagainstsellingtelstra.com).

Many private charities require huge overheads to raise funds. Remember how most of the funds raised in a recent Cancer appeal went to pay $200,000 to Cherie Blair and an equivalent amount to the organiser of the appeal? So, whilst I am in favour of charities, I still think (and I suspect that St Vinnies would agree) that we would be far better off if Govenments assumed much greater responsibility for areas now looked after by charities.

The table of "average private household income" for the period 1994-95 to 2002-03 provided in Ann Harding's NATSEM Paper, dated 31 March 2005; is sourced from ABS income surveys, and ignores households with zero income.
These data have been variously interpreted since, by the Prime Minister, the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul, and Peter Saunders from CIS.
I too have subjected the data to a rigorous back-of-envelope analysis, projecting the trends now evident for the second decile and the highest decile, to a longitudinal study of the current period
2002-03 to 2010-11
A reported 53% increase in decile 2, and of 38% increase in the top decile, results in 2010-11 figures of $462.00 and $3842.00 respectively, a difference of $3342.00. Compared with the documented $2450 difference at the end of 2002-03; this does suggest to me the rightness of the St. Vincent de Paul claims of an ever widening chasm.
Peter Saunders' sarcasm and indignation is just business as usual for the CIS

clink,

Could you please explain your point further? The figures you have given indicate to me that the gap is narrowing rather than widening. If the second decile are to be 53% wealthier in 2010-2011 and the top decile are to be only 38% wealthier in the same financial year and the trend were to continue indefinitely, then surely the gap would eventually close, regardless of the absolute values of the respective increases?

If the effect of John Howard's policies were to be the redistribution of income back to the poorest, as your figures seem to indicate, even if it were not as fast as I would like to see it happen, then I, for one, would be pleasantly surprised.

Perhaps, you can convince me that I am wrong, but it looks as if you have also based your case on a flawed mathematical argument.

However, as I have said earlier, it should not be necessary to resort to such arguments. The ABS income and GDP figures are obviously not giving an accurate picture of our overall prosperity, and are unlikely to be a useful guide in the future.

For example, the claims that we are all, on average, twice as prosperous now as we were in the 1960's, when, today, two incomes, instead of one, are normally required to pay a mortgage, and the work week for the full-time workforce is being extended, are clearly nonsense. Obviously many factors have not been properly taken into account when measures of prosperity are calculated.

The late Bob Santamaria, was clearly much closer to the mark, when he stated that incomes have fallen, and not risen, since the mid 1970's.

Wow, Peter Saunders and those like him really do live in fantasy land. Anyone with half a brain that has experienced real life, will tell you that the gap between the elite and the people is getting wider and wider. When those in power give themselves pay rises and tax relief that is worth more than lots of peoples total annual income, you have all the evidence you need. It is all well and good to sit in ivory towers provided by the people of Australia by their hard work and gloat. Luckily, reality certainly doesen't favour the elite academics that seem to have this idea that they are the only ones that know anything. Just go and live with people and not illusions, travel and spend time in the rural and outlying areas of the cities. It won't be long before you see the real world. I may not be that academic, but I have spent a lot of time with those that academics put down. What right do they have to live in luxury at the expense of their fellow citizens. If you have a look at the track record of the beaururcatic academics, you will find that it is they that have brought about the situation we have and they fail to accept. Mind you when the reality overcomes the illusion, lets hope that those in power get what they deserve and the people get what they have a right to. Rather than the dregs handed out by the elitists within our societies. History will show you that in the end, those that force their control onto those that have supported them, by being bled dry to support the elitist lifestyles, will in the end provide the proof that elitism fails all the time. Pity they don't learn from that fact.

Going to stick my neck out here and fully expect to have my head lopped off.

However, I do believe there is an ever widening gap between the haves and have nots. The money paid out to CEO's as just an example.

I request some latitude here;

Imagine, overnight all our leaders, CEO's, captains of industry, politicians et al disappear from the face of the earth. The next morning trains, electricity, water, buses would still run. Kids would still go to school, teachers could still teach, carers would still care for the infirm and elderly and mills would keep churning, factory assembly lines keep on turning.....

We would still function as a society. I am not going to get bogged down in the anarchy that would ensue as we find ourselves leaderless; the point I am trying to make is that the true value of our world are the 'coal face workers' those who keep our society afloat. We can find other leaders, but who calibrates the machinery? Who maintains the water flow through our pipes? It ain't CEO's and it ain't our pollies.

Our priorities are surely reversed when the powerful state that if we pay peanuts we get monkeys. I ask do we want to employ monkeys in our hospitals, schools, electricity supplies and at the controls of a bus or train?

Alchemist wrote:

Wow, Peter Saunders and those like him really do live in
fantasy land. Anyone with half a brain that has experienced
real life, will tell you that the gap between the elite and
the people is getting wider and wider.

I cannot agree more. In Saunders' book "Australia's Welfare Habit" there is no reference to any narratives of how the welfare system in either the US or Australia affects ordinary people. He argues his case based on abstract and selective statistical data and by quoting the conclusions of reports which support his case.

As an example, even though Saunders bases much of his case on the supposed success of Clinton's welkfare 'reforms', he makes no mention of US journalist Barbara Ehrenreich's "Nickel and Dimed" (http://www.nickelanddimed.net) an account her working in low-paid occupations.

Given that this book was first published in 2001 and had received considerable publicity in Australia well before "Australia's Welfare Habit" was published in 2004, his failure to attempt to refute Barbara Ehrenreich's conclusions suggests an unwillingness to confront facts which don't support his view (and I won't be holding my breath waiting for Peter Saunders to comment on a similar book "Dirt Cheap" by Australian journalist Elisabeth Wynhausen published this year).

He dismisses the value of government job creation progams because of the supposed failure of Keynesian economics in the 1970's (p158). In fact the "stagflation of the 1970's" was primarily caused by the oil embargo following the Yom Kippur war of 1973, of which Saunders makes no mention.

He claimed that "growth rates accelerated" from 1983 until 1993 "as the effect of the Hawke/Keating economic reforms kicked in" and "between 1993 and 2003, the economy surged at 4% average annual growth."(p5).

However, no mention was made of the period prior to 1974 when Keynesian government intervention was practised. The average growth figure from 1960 until was 5.2%, which even given the flaws of the GDP measure, compares quite favourably with the above figures.

If Peter Saunders is serious about wishing to reduce welfare dependence, then perhaps he should re-think his prejudice against Government spending.

Yawn, snore. More sociopathic raving from ayatollah peter of the economic rationalist taliban. Has he ever actually lived in the nightmare world he's so keen to inflict on the rest of us? Fat chance.