My Monday Morning Mumblings: Justice takes a dive - Greed serves a poisoned apple

In January, the Australian Council for International Development responded to the cuts to the Australian aid budget. They wrote about their disappointment with this decision but said despite this they welcomed "the government’s commitment to ensuring our aid is working for poverty reduction and sustainable development." 

Four weeks later the government removed "alleviating poverty" from the goals of aid programs so that funds can be redirected to partnerships with private sector agencies, blasting out of the water the one positive that ACFID had identified in the revised foreign aid arrangements.

I understand that many people at home think that trade agreements and supporting private enterprise can build stronger economies and eventually this will help everyone, even those who don’t have jobs, homes, health or hope. That has been a key belief behind most Liberal Party recruitment strategy and voters’ justifications for decades.  

I also see, though, how this approach leaves our most vulnerable brothers and sisters ripe for exploitation. Not just here in Laos, but in Australia, too. While we pad the nests of the haves so that they can oh-so-kindly offer below minimum wages for unsafe jobs to the have-nots, corporate profits (and the subsequent demand for more, more, more) expand to sickening proportions.

"The rich get richer, the poor get the picture..."

And then we go and sign that Trans Pacific Pact handing over power, authority and resources to feed the interests of big, powerful corporations and the foreign powers that support them. At what expense?

Welfare is not a dirty word. It’s a responsibility. Sharing the wealth is not just an idealistic socialist slogan. It’s a social duty. I’ve been paying taxes for many years. Knowing my money was paying for pensions and medicare and court cases that produced better laws and building wells and fighting child exploitation around the world made it OK to hand over so much of my (usually low) salary. I am happy to help refugees find jobs and settle into my suburb, changing its face and making it better. I am happy to let artists pull the dole (for a while) while creating and destroying and improving our world; I am happy for people with children to access public money to pay for their snotty kids to get an education; I willingly pay union dues so that workers could have a say about their own work conditions; I have been happy to march on the streets or gather outside the library to add my drop into the ocean of dissent about war and mysogyny and other decisions I didn't agree with.

And now I read about Rupert getting $882 million while the disability pension is being cut; domestic education and health services are scaling down while CEOs salaries are flying sky high; workers’ unions are being attacked and disempowered; old growth forests are still being turned into office paper; the Great Barrier Reef is threatened by chemical run off; jobs are lost to overseas sweatshops; penalty rates and other hard-won work conditions are threatened; asylum seekers are bashed and hated and treated as less than human; Morwellians are breathing shit into their lungs every day while politicians faff around about putting out the fire and people with disabilities are STILL working like slaves in sheltered employment, paid less than $1.80 per hour and being told “it’s for their own good”.

And the front page of The Age today is bursting with colour and ads and football politics, fashion, recipes and celebrities.

Are we all bending over and saying to Murdoch and Fox and Exxon and Halliburton and  Monsanto etc... etc... etc... – “by all means, do what you want – just leave the money on the dresser afterwards”?  Has Justice lost the fight? Maybe it tried hard, gave it a red hot go, but basically didn’t have the skills, numbers, goulies or insider knowledge to win.

It would be easy to just give in and accept that mediocrity, greed and self-interest are the ruling powers, the bosses, the kings of the empire, the evil queen - a poisoned apple in one hand and a sharp dagger in the other.

Should I give in and just eat the freakin’ apple?

Could I sleep at night? Perhaps I would sleep forever. Or would someone eventually come along, kiss my cheek, dislodge this apple and save me from a lifetime of despair?

Or do I, and perhaps you, keep fighting, responding, writing, expressing, protesting, voting, signing, posting, commenting? Even if it seems we are not being heard, do we still scream "Not in my name!"?

ACFID response: http://www.acfid.asn.au/media/media-releases/breaking-135-days-silence-government-announces-aid-cuts

Aust Financial Review report on the decision to NOT alleviate poverty: http://www.results.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Aid-AFR-Feb-18-2013-2.pdf

The Greens Response to cutting out poverty alleviation: http://greens.org.au/node/3584

The TPP – these guys are worried. Maybe we should be too. http://www.upworthy.com/a-secret-trade-deal-so-outrageous-that-congress-isnt-even-allowed-to-talk-about-it-publicly?c=ufb1

Stella Young on Sheltered Workshop wages: http://www.abc.net.au/rampup/articles/2014/01/21/3929175.htm