Col Rouge,
You said:
We (the right) always knew it, the idealist of the secular progressive were / are tossers who, like too many gullible folk, bought into the small minded, self righteous, envy politics of socialism and a misguided belief that by disabling the competent and capable, you improve the lot of the incompetent and incapable.

As a former so called "idealist tosser" as you describe, I have to say that to a certain extent I agree with your summation. What I simply cannot understand, is that given that You (the right) are so competant and capable, why on earth haven't you come up with an alternative means of mass production by now? Why do you continue to build factories (albeit out of the kindness of your hearts in order to employ the disabled and incompetant)? Surely it would be a fun thing to try and come up with the technology to replace these human robots? Send the incompetant and incapable back to school rather than to factories. Teach them how to build robots to work in factories, so that human beings are freed up from tedious and mechanical labour. What do you reckon? Would there be a buck to be made in such a plan

If everyone was competent and capable, there would be a lot of unemployment. Just think how many would be redundant in Centrelink alone if nobody was unemployed or poor. It would result in a crisis for industry as well if there was no pool of workers available to work for a pittance.

I was under the impression that charities, to receive funding from governments, have been pressured to act as quasi watchdogs to identify worthy recipients of government welfare. The last I heard, most would not sign up.

I wonder whether the move back to more charity involvement is just a means to not only control what organisations like St Vinnies and the Salvos do, but to give the appearance of less government intervention in social policy.

Of course, this takes away the notion of a right to a decent living standard and places the onus on the individual for his or her own situation. It also fits nicely into the ideology of an obligation rather than a right.

Vivy, It has already been done, but not quite in the way you suggest. The factory is actually called a university, the incompetent are students of Arts and Social Sciences who themselves become robots out in society as counsellors of the afflicted.

Johnj I cant believe it I have never come accross anybody else who has read 'Down and out in Paris and London' a true master piece.

You are right and many religious based 'charities' and even services such as employment agencies employ the same agenda. I will drop the political correctness here and call it Christian fascism because thats what it is. I believe Christian fascist concepts have also corrupted our federal government because such concepts as welfare contracts are constructed of the same ideological contrivance. Not withstanding several ministers have publicly alligned themselves to Christian fascist movements such as Catholicism and Pentacostalism. I am not suggesting all these ministers are neccarsarily Christian fascists but we can saftely say that concepts such as welfare contracts indicates they have at least been duped by the fascist movement.

What Orwell descibes of the Salvation Army is neither real charity nor welfare. From what I have heard the Salvation Army is still selective about who it helps. It spends a lot of money on self admiring propaganda which is a reason why I never donate to their profit. The Salvation Army should take a lesson from a truley positive and successful organisation like the Red Cross. Local governments should be given the resources to address people in crisis. Local governments are accessible to everybody, being democratic they can not turn somebody away because they are not of the right religion ,or homosexual ,or of a culturally dubious marriage status.Local government can also employ professionals to offer real help to provide the needs of people.

I relay back to the previous posting that basic welfare must be the responsibility of the Government. At the moment our Government is neglecting this field and the system leans on welfare agencies, usually religious agencies, sometimes other Government Funded NGOs.

To their credit, Christian agencies can do something Government funded NGOs could never do. They can operate through their principles of faith. They have armies of volunteers, who are quite happy to do it for no financial payment, as they believe that this is for the grace of God. You could see this as exploitation. They don't see it that way.

What would Dr Who, a BBC sci-fi icon say about this? Played by Chris Eccleston, Who said "Never trust cats, nurses or nuns". This was repeated by his regeneration: David Tenant. In episode 9 in “the Hollow Child” London was destroyed by the NAZIS, burning, and it was all doom and gloom. The girl leading the homeless orphins raided people’s houses: straight to the dinner tables, during bomb raids. Seeing the mess left by the bombings, they wept and said that it was all gone, there was no future. The Doctor replied assuring them how wonderful they were. Britain was the mouse that stood up to the giant and said “no”. They were survivors. More interesting this icon said, when you win, rebuild this mess and create a wonderful welfare state. The future depends on it.

Who could argue with a timelord?

I think you could say history could only repeat itself to rebuild. In the meantime, the food van in the inner city run by Sydney City Mission feeds the homeless, they never talk of religion, most don't know who they are. The Sisters of Mercy and Charity have many projects for homeless and health projects, most don't know that it is the Church.

This is not an outcome, this is what they do in the third world when Governments are too interested in war and not interested in managing the social security of their own people.

Wow, so much to disagree with, and so little time.

The entire article seems to be rudderless (sorry!) in that it doesn't bother to set down any parameters for "social justice" (one of those magnificently meaningless phrases that has me reaching for a gun), leaving us to fill in our own gaps as to what constitutes "welfare" and what constitutes "charity".

While it makes passing reference to welfare being "justified more in terms of compassionate help for the long-term disadvantaged rather than as “social security”", we are left in the dark as to what we should understand by "disadvantaged".

Disabled? Sick? Uneducated? Unable to afford a plasma TV? Unemployed? Homeless? All of the above?

As a result, we get notions such as "welfare must be the responsibility of the Government" being accepted at face value, rather than examined.

As has been proven many times over in the past sixty years, every time something becomes "the responsibility of the Government" we get a raft of overfed, over-superannuated public servants hanging off the public teat, justifying their existence by referring to the services they provide to the apparently needy.

The amount of our money that actually reaches the sick in hospital or the student in the classroom is a fraction of what we contribute, so it might be time to look again at the concept of society looking after its own.

Incidentally, of all the charities I have found that the Salvos are the most efficient, caring and non-discriminatory bunch of folk I have ever come across