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Text from the 4th Annual Gerald Ward Lecture 'How do we design a dignified welfare safety net without becoming a Nanny State? — Lessons from Catholic Social Teaching', presented by Fr Frank Brennan SJ at the National Library of Australia, 18 November 2011.
Recently I received an email from a young man in Queensland. He was writing to thank the St Vincent de Paul Society for the stance it takes on the side of people who are demonised for being unemployed. He told me his story. Here are some bits of it.
The Government has crafted a historic package of reforms: driving long-run reductions in carbon pollution, simplifying personal tax and making it fairer, and reducing poverty traps and barriers to work. It's exactly the kind of smart and gutsy approach we want to see from this Government.
The Budget contains a number of positive measures to promote mental health, employment and training. But without greater investment in individualised support for job seekers and those on disability support pensions to assist their transition to work, we are not likely to see major change.
Prime Minister Gillard's speech to the Sydney Institute last week, and Tony Abbot’s policy announcements two weeks ago, drew unanimous response from the community sector — that getting people into work is a sound objective, but it's harder than it looks.
In a recent interview on ABC radio, Abbott argued that work isn't just about the economy, it's also about individual welfare and the social fabric. He's right to point out that the Disability Support Pension focuses too much on what recipients can't do and not enough on what they can.
Dear Father Brennan, I do not accept the way you have characterised the Government's actions in relation to the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 and the Intervention, and am concerned that your article could mislead people into considering that the Government's measures in the NT are discriminatory.
Ireland's election was all about how to repay the country's debts. One hundred and fifty predominantly well-educated and skilled young people are expected to emigrate each day over the next two years; not only because they have no jobs, but because they have no hope.
Despite extensive welfare activities, Catholics have made only a modest contribution to public debate about the economic foundations of family life. Yet the Australian institution that is most associated in the public mind with 'pro-family' policies is the Catholic Church.
Three years since Kevin Rudd's National Apology to the Stolen Generations, discriminatory aspects of John Howard's Intervention are still in place. Let's hope that by the fourth anniversary, we are no longer singling out Aborigines for such 'special treatment'.
Dylan Thomas wrote that 'A good poem helps to change the shape of the universe.' Our 'good poem' is the listening to, and learning from, the people on the margins. But it will only be a 'good poem' if these whispers are translated into collective action.
A hopeful sign has been the emergence of commentators, mainly secular, advocating the transformation of the economy to a model based on values like the common good, solidarity, environmental concern, equality, active and inclusive citizenship.
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