I agree that the Howard government cynically outsourced employment services in order to cut costs. Small, mostly under funded, agencies are cheaper to run and easier to get rid of than the now absent CES that had to abide by all the rules of public service. I also agree that it was wrong for the churches to leap at the chance to get involved in what they saw as an important public work. What they did not know was that in doing so they simply became the servants of a government who had less of an understanding of social justice than the churches and that the churches now had to punish its clients for not fulfilling their side of the bargain. Some are regretting their actions. It is not healthy for the churches to be so under the control of the state.

While this is the background of Jocelynne’s article she has put a different spin on the situation by playing up the nonbeliever/believer polarity and insinuating dark motives to the churches. This is a rather strange take on the situation. It proposes that ones belief or unbelief is important when we consider who has our personal details. Should I a Christian worry that the secular state has my personal details? The real issue here is that the Howard government has reneged on one of its key duties and given them to a variety of organisations who work for a fee. The problem is not that they are churches, we have good reason to believe that they are mostly more honest that secular businesses, but that they should not be in the business in the first place.

Playing the religious/nonreligious card does not help the argument.

Jocelynne, thanks for the article. I certainly agree that government continues to abrogate its responsibility to care for the most vulnerable in our society.

At the same time, I'm also a little concerned by two particular statements which you make and I would like to know a little more about the background behind them.

The first is your statement that "They [the unemployed] are at the mercy (sic) of the Salvos, Anglicare, Mission Australia, Centrecare and all those other profit-making arms of the Christian (sic) churches in Australia." I wasn't aware that the organisations you have named were 'profit making' but thought that they were registered charities. Are you suggesting that the organisations you've named are profit-making?

The second statement is, "Privacy legislation now applies to the private sector. However, how many of these job providers know this, and honour it? Even honouring it, what do they do with the information anyway?" This is a rather serious allegation - are these organisations illegally contravening privacy legislation? If you have evidence I certainly hope that you report it!

I suppose with unemployment close enough to an all time low the author needs to find something to be picky about. I always thought the dole was a privilege not a right. Where is there any evidence that any of these church groups have used this 'highly confidential' information for any reason other to try and get these people a job. The Government over the last 30 years has shown that it is incapable of preparing many for work. Yet another article with a Government is better than private tone and yet with no results to match arguement.

As a non-Christian, I found Jocelynne's article to be nothing but crud. Surely she could have found a better way to use her hysteria against the churches.

When the CES was abolished, I was very happy for I remember the CES where most of the jobs were taken, those left were only for Vietnamese and Chinese. Majority of the employees did not care about the unemployed, some of them hiding behind their pathetic union to refuse to work.

By outsourcing these resources, we have actually seen a better system develop, freeing up sources that actually help the unemployed. The Howard government has done more for the unemployed than the ALP ever did.

Spider,
Yes Howard has got more people into lower paying jobs than ever before.
I don't see how it makes any difference whether the Churches or private enterprise runs these services, as I see it they should be run by the government. Privacy, is there anyone left who believes that anyone in this country has any private details?

With the amount of government and private intrusion into our daily lives someone knows the last time we went to the toilet. Many families are really struggling under the Workchoices law, lower pay as indicated by two falls in the average weekly earnings since its introduction, thanks JWH.

Do I want my personal information held by a religious organisation for five years? Well no, but it is a matter of total unconcern to me if it is. Presumably similar information is held by religious organisations who run hospitals on individuals who have been their patients. If this is the worst we have to worry about them we do truly live in utopia!