If Charles Dickens came to Australia today, he would see that we are fast heading to be like 19th century England under John Howard. If Mr Howard thought he could get away with it, he would probably like to bring back the workhouse for welfare receipients.

In 19th century England when people lost their jobs and their homes, they were forced to go to the workhouse, where they did work for nothing for factories who farmed out the work to these institutions, thereby providing less work in factories themselves and causing more people to lose their jobs.

Work for the Dole has some of the same thinking behind it. If there is all this work available for Work for the Dole participants to do, why are people not being employed and paid for doing it?

Now of course, there is the 19th century thinking of the "deserving" and "undeserving" poor, with the talk about regulating how welfare receipients spend there money.

No wonder Mr Howard likes Dickens, his books give him lots of ideas.

Oh please,

Yes 19th century England was not a very nice place to live in, especialy if you were without funds, but you have to remember that during this period England was accelerating herself out of being a developing country and an alarming rate and the economic system that developed during that era is what allowed us to build the wealth that currently substains our welfare state. So please don't be overly critical of the 19th cenutry, for without it we'd all be living in the greatest of poverty.

During the first years of this year we have seen what happens to innocent children incarcerated out in the desert for years on end and any reasonable person who had read a detailed report of the damage done in 1998 as this government did would have stopped doing it.

Instead they worsened conditions, put up the razor wire, brought in the tear gas and water cannons, the handcuffs and total denial of legal rights for children.

Perhaps Howard really just doesn't care - he sure doesn't care to get decent childcare, decent wages for the poor and so on. Doesn't much care about aboriginal children living in 4th world conditions and so on.

Yep, it's no wonder he is a fan of Dickens.

I am also a Dickens admirer, as well as a critic of our present Prime Minister. This is a clever article but I don't expect it to be read by our PM.
Do any of your readers know how we might challenge the PM in a way which leads to a softening of his heart?
Is there a better way of organizing our political system so that people work co-operativcely to share their good ideas rather than our present one in which one has to defend one's side against the other, so we are forever being pushed into either/or situations.
Is it naive to be seeking a better system than our Westminster system?

C'mon Pete, you're not a ministerial staffer, you're an ALP ministerial staffer. It's not against the law.

I thought your article was very good. Dickens did indeed write presciently and it is worth considering his works in the Australian context.

In Dickens' first book Pickwick Papers, Sam Weller declares "we shan't be bankrupts and we shan't make our fort'ns. We eats our biled mutton without capers, and don't care for horse raddish ven ve can get beef". A Dickens' dig at our ALP-aligned AEU and its teaching standards perhaps?

In Dickens' much-loved Oliver Twist we meet up with the Artful Dodger, the world's most famous pickpocket. Dickens reminds us to consider our own Artful Dodger, the world's greatest treasurer. One was able to pick pockets to support a lifestyle while the other filled out T/A claim forms to support his lifestyle.

Dickens' classic Our Mutual Friend introduces us to Rogue Riderhood who fishes dead bodies out of the river. Why are we reminded of a state ALP government forced to count the dead after approving the appointment of Doctor Death? A chilling parallel from Dickens.

Great Expectations by Dickens relates the story of an ALP arriviste. A vulgar person who after a humble beginning rose to high office. He returned to his humble town of Bankstown clad in his Zegna suit only to be abused by the high number of unemployed and those forced to sell their houses. "Don't know ya, and don't wanna know ya" were hurled at him by an ungrateful canaille.

The dysfunctional character Madam Defarge leaps out of the Dickens' book A Tale of Two Cities. Does the rebarbative Defarge who invades Lucie's psychological space forewarn us of Carmen and her hatefulness?

If Dickens did pay us a visit in 2006 he would be mortified. "What has happened to the unique Australian character"? he would ask. What Australians once considered to be vile, disgusting, abhorrent and illegal is now tolerated by the nation destroying policy of multiculturalism.

Both the parents and children of illegal immigrants are here under their own volution.If you release the children,then the parents also must be released.This means that those who subscribe to this line of thought believe in an open border policy.We have an over populated world with billions who want to escape poverty and oppression.We are presently giving our jobs to developing countries and increases the price of fuel and resources are lowering our living standards.

Do we have to become dirt poor to appease the do gooders?How much tax can we afford to accommodate them?At least the Children of the Dickens World were born in England.Sorry I see few paralells and the Author has been very selective about the reality and facts.

Dickens wrote no Classic. He came nowhere near writing anything that would be included in my list of Classics.

I've always thought of Dickens as a lightweight who focused too narrowly on social conditions and inequities of a particular time and place. It is my opinion he wrote little of relevance to the world of today or even the 20th century. Very long bows need to be drawn to give evidence and show his work was much more than shallow social comment.

I've never enjoyed the English authors of his era - apart from the Lord, Bulwer-Lytton and his 'Zanoni'. hmmmm Eternal life ... a topic much more interesting than the tales of grimy and soulless lives.

Howard's love of Dickens...I'd enjoy knowing what he thought of Barbara Baynton.
In fact I'd like to know the author's opinion of her views of the legendary Australian egalitarianism

At least the 'street kids' in Dicken's book had someone to care for them, even if they were taught to steal for their living.
but Marylin Shepherd and her ilk bleat on and on about would be migrant's offspring and detention while ignoring the plight of our own 'orphans'
Anything to denigrate Howard will do, there is nothing lower in their opinion than to put illegal's children in safe detention with food,clothing,television etc while pretending there are no homeless,destitute Australian children.
I know which lot get the most media attention,the lot that sing the saddest song.

As I've said in other posts, I have to wonder how it is that John Howard - who surely has too much on his plate to consider the various English syllabi - finds the time to make broad and sweeping pronouncements about the "quality" of literature being taught in our schools.

Dickens is indeed a fantastic writer, a man popular in his own time with a broad audience. His novels are alive with the senses of his characters' world, his characters have important lessons to teach us while never lacking in eccentricities which make them at once unique and a part of the fabric of the society Dickens seeks to portray.

I agree with Peter: there is absolutely nothing like a passionate teacher to change the way you see a book. I doubt 'The Merchant of Venice' would have held me in its thrall if not for the robust reading and discussion in our Year 10 European English/History class with a fantastic teacher.

The best English teachers (and there are plenty of them) build real links between less accessible works and the students they teach: but if our Prime Minister can't even be bothered valuing the role they play, perhaps they shouldn't bother?

Part of the important role of the English syllabus in the 21st Century is to balance novels with other forms of cultural product, if only to engage those students for whom reading remains a challenge to be overcome, rather than a joy. And there's nothing easy about studying film texts: dissecting their messages and meaning can be just as complex.

Having said that, I'm not advocating for 'Oliver!' (The Musical) to replace 'Oliver Twist'...

I think Howard reads Dickens to give him ideas.
He may also read George Orwell (1984) which seems to be a text book for some of the world's "leaders".