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Channelling people into a default superannuation fund could be compared with the indignity of income management. But MySuper is geared to protect the human dignity of Australians in retirement against their own indifference, and also commercial exploitation.
Fr Frank Brennan's address to the Melbourne College of Divinity Centenary Conference, Trinity College, University of Melbourne, 6 July 2010.
Kevin Rudd stood in the forecourt of Parliament House Canberra and recalled with great emotion the morning on which he had welcomed the members of the Stolen Generations. There was no mistaking his sense of solidarity: he knew there and then what it was to be dispossessed, alienated and outcast.
Not yet 40, she must live in Perth, hundreds of kilometres from home, to receive dialysis. She is currently in hospital recovering from spinal surgery, and so is separated even from her city-based loved ones. Yet she appears always with a beaming smile.
If we look at income quarantining as an ethical and not as a political question, it raises many questions. To answer them we would need to look beyond its effectiveness in preventing excessive expenditure on socially undesirable goods like alcohol and pornography.
The cost to human dignity makes compulsory income management counter-productive. It assumes that some welfare recipients are unable to make rational decisions that take into account the long-term consequences of their actions. The same might be said for some governments.
In 2009, the Federal Government embarked on consultations with Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory about the Northern Territory Emergency Response, commonly referred to as the Intervention. This is what they said.
Everyone has a story, and they don't happen in limbo. Tony Abbott's comments about homelessness mimic the paternalistic attitude pushed by Margaret Thatcher, where the focus is on supposed individual deficits rather than structural deficits.
Governments are likely to grasp at feeble evidence in order to support preferred policy positions. When reporting on issues such as welfare quarantining as part of the Intervention, The Australian and the ABC ought to read further than the Minister's press release.
Aside from a few fanatical poverty-deniers, there is a broad consensus that we have a serious problem. Frantz Fanon reminded us nearly 50 years ago that we need a redistribution of wealth. 'Humanity must reply to this question, or be shaken to pieces by it.' We have been shaken to pieces.
The largely ignored United Nations World Day of Social Justice, and the task of the crumbling Federal Opposition, are not entirely unrelated. For both, holding governments accountable is the name of the game, or perhaps dream.
Reforms need to be proposed with an eye to compassion, providing real skills and training, and dealing with the underlying issues of racism, mental health, poverty, and education. These have a far greater impact on workforce participation than bone laziness.
73-84 out of 98 results.