Suseonline, "just like the story of The Good Samaritan in the bible"

Would that be the same Bible and religion you continually trash on OLO?

The rest is more of your 'Never you mind' and irrelevant.

Nathan J,

You are like a breath of fresh air on this forum....and it's interesting that you are particularly supportive of increased community-driven involvement.

Western countries with their relative wealth have morphed into societies who depend on institutions to carry out the things formerly done by communities. We still have a huge number of people volunteering, but it's not the spontaneous collective act that welded communities together in the past.

There's far more of an "everybody for himself" attitude abounding today than there was in times past. We're all much more autonomous than we used to be and have lost many of our local affiliations to a more centralised arrangement.

I presume Putnam's "Bowling Alone" was in response to Michael Moore's "Bowling for Columbine" which explored the causes of violence in the US.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowling_for_Columbine

Constance - all those things you listed are more likely to emanate from a modern Western society who, despite their good fortune and wealth, are really just riding the conveyor belt - who have lost to a great extent the art of communal interaction.

Cars and tellys and great big malls full of goodies don't necessarily translate into fodder for healthy and cooperative human interaction.

Nathan, I have to agree wit you but the problem is we now have generations of this who have the mentality that hand outs, in any form, are entitlements, not privileges.

While they may complain about paying a fee to see the doctor, they don't give a seconds thought about those among us who not only go without the handouts, but also provide them.

The reality is that it's taken the entitlement brigade several generations to get to where they are and, it will take several to put them back to a sustainable level, if achievable at all.

As for the co payment, I think Abbott has got this wrong, as I suggest singles, couples and families, who qualify, receive the first x amount of visits free on a monitoring system, then they start to pay, not the other way round. Then, if they have a genuine case that requires extended treatment, then the doctor should decide whether they pay or not, not the government. Of cause this could be corrupted by doctors focussed on making a buck, but no system is perfect.

The other important step must be to stop welfare waste, and a good place to start would be to quarantine welfare payments.

rehctub,

You do realise that "none" of the $7 co-payment is actually going to Medicare, don't you?

You do realise that it's merely the first volley to undermine Medicare.

And the hastily confected "Medical Research Thingy" that attracts $5 of the $7 is a "hastily confected Medical research Thingy" - a puerile attempt to make the white-anting look legit.

You might be interested to know that the govt has simultaneously cut the seat out of the CSIRO's medical research funds.

How's that for disingenuousness?

'new-comers' not 'fitting in'. And yet, here we all are today.
Suseonline,
The newcomers of then have been doing the right thing for many, many years now. I simply can't envisage the new newcomers doing the same.

Simple logic must surely show that any program based in encouraging the differences within society, eg, Multiculturalism, cannot possibly engender unity or a sense of community.
Previous waves of immigrants to Oz have been successful because they assimilated, eventually, usually about three generations in.
Now assimilation is seen as a dirty word and actively prevented, a sure recipe for division and strife.
Complaints about all this are howled down with cries of Racism, yet multilcul' is racist at heart itself.
As far as I can see multicul' was supported as a direct response to the People Power successes of the past, the power elites saw the writing on the wall, the threat to their own control presented by a united community, and they foisted division and conflict on us all as a method of countering the trend.
Divide and Rule, put simply.