Editors routinely hand out assignments such as interviewing rebel leaders in Iraq, or hang-gliding over minefields in Cambodia, as if issuing an invitation to a barbecue. So I sensed danger when one editor began a briefing with an apology. Joining a US patrol in Baghdad, perhaps? No, worse. A four-day economics conference. It would take Hunter S. Thompson to make a story from this.
The Window On Economics conference was designed to give policy advocates and social service employees a better understanding of economics. The introductory material failed to mention that economists and policy advocates are not typically fond of each other. All the economists who spoke were male, while 32 of the 40 policy advocates were female. (Apparently social services are ‘staffed by women but run by men’, in part because women often lack the training in finance that boards of not-for-profit organisations now require.) I was about to witness a clash of cultures not seen since Nino Culotta arrived in Australia.
Participants indicated that they were attending the conference to learn the language of economics. There was an implicit assumption that economists speak a distinct language, presumably to exclude the outside world from their evil cult. From the outset the battle lines were drawn.
Conference convenor Tim Moore, from economic consultancy firm ACIL Tasman, began by defining economics as the allocation of scarce resources. Economic rationalism, he added, was a divisive term, best avoided, since this rather slippery, non-technical phrase perpetuated the stereotype of economists as heartless conservatives. The phrase was little more than a term of abuse, and the participants needed to engage in real economic debate.
Sitting beside me at the introductory session was Bryan Lipmann, CEO of the residential aged care provider Wintringham. Bryan’s facilities cater to the homeless aged, with the majority of residents in his care having less than $1,000 in assets. He confided his view that many of the participants in the room who provided aged care should have their not-for-profit status revoked, with the resulting savings to be channeled into facilities like Wintringham.
Three days later, at the closing session of the conference, I questioned participants about Bryan’s comments on aged care funding, particularly in the light of the Salvation Army’s announcement, made that same day, that it was selling most of its residential aged care facilities. The response was radically different to what I imagine it would have been prior to the conference. If