Labor has unveiled a $150 million dollar package to provide 600 houses over 5 years, intended to halve the number of homeless Australians turned away from shelters. Community Services Minister Mal Brough, in a remarkable spirit of generosity, has condemned the policy, saying it would fail to make a dent in addressing the problem. Presumably doing nothing would be a better idea.
“But when you make a statement and then you don’t actually have the dollars or the program behind it that will do anything other than to give people false hope, then I think you should be condemned. And that is the difference.”
Sorry Mal, my attention lapsed for a moment there – you’re talking about the NT Intervention and The War on Aborigines, right?
Filed under: Ass Hattery, Federal Election 2007, Politics
The Dog's Bollocks 
This cynical attitude typifies this Government, ala–we’re not going to do anything because it won’t make a difference and (anyway if the truth be told, we don’t really care), furthermore it is not in our (fiscal) interest to address this situation. They could not care less, about anyone so distasteful as to be ‘poor’.
I remember hearing Downer justifying giving aid to Indonesia by saying that it was in our economic interest to do so, ie that was the only justifiable reason. Unfortunately this attitude, of only ever acting on one’s economic interests has infiltrated our society at large and if one is so foolish as to put one’s moral obligations ahead of one’s financial situations then one is considered to be some kind of moron.
It would be telling to see the stats on the (presumed increase) numbers of homeless people over the last decade–I’d hazard a guess there’s been a sharp rise if not an exponential leap.
Although to be fair to Mal, he probably believes homelessness will be solved in the fullness of time by the unfettered progress of the free market principle. In the mean time, we can always lock ’em up.