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A DUTY OF CARE
Elderly left in the lurch as new model fails at first hurdle
The Boroondara City Council, the Mornington Peninsula Council and the Department of Health and Aged Care have between them played their parts in outsourcing in-home care. The contracted “private providers” have proved incapable of delivering the services.
Apparently neither of the councils nor the department got the memo about the failure of neoliberalism. That political philosophy has a record of inefficiency, of handing unwarranted profits to private companies and failing to adequately provide contracted services.
The companies in the current circumstances can’t find staff to do the work. Perhaps a sufficiently attractive pay rate would put too much of a squeeze on their profit margins. Meanwhile, 60 Boroondara Council care workers and more than 110 employed by the Mornington Peninsula Council have been made redundant. Elderly people are left in the lurch. It seems unfair that the elected representatives and bureaucrats responsible for this fiasco have kept their jobs, while more than 170 carers previously employed by the councils have lost theirs.
Lawrie Bradly, Surrey Hills
Something doesn’t add up
Maths is not my superpower but something doesn’t add up. Australia’s population is ageing. One day, most of us will be old and experience the multiple vulnerabilities and challenges that come with ageing. The economic, social, physical and mental health value of helping older people to stay in their own homes, connected to their community is well-established.
With current funding changes though, it’s no longer economically viable for councils to provide in-home aged care. How then, can for-profit providers do so? What makes this an attractive value proposition for them, if it’s not for local councils?
Someone is benefiting, and it’s not our elders.
Jennie Irving, Camberwell
Hoping the problem goes away
The Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicides has noted that many of the problems are well known, with 50 inquiries making 750 recommendations since 2000 – but few having been acted on (“Minister vows to act on veteran failures”, The Age, 12/8).
It is pretty clear that these inquiries are simply a “holding strategy”, a means of saying we have heard and are looking at the problem; and hoping the problem goes away … until next time.
But for governments to act they need resources and we have been voting in governments that provide tax cuts. The Albanese government has an opportunity to show that it is prepared to be a government of action, and the best way to signal that will be to cancel the legislated tax cuts.
Jeff Moran, Bacchus Marsh
Scale back the upgrade. Put the money to better use
The upgrade of the Australian War Memorial in Canberra has blown out to around $550 million, meanwhile our veterans are struggling to get recognition of their injuries.
Where are our priorities? Please, scale back the work on the war memorial and redirect the savings to support our veterans in their time of need.
Paul Chivers, Box Hill North
THE FORUM
Doing the time warp
Steven Hamilton (“Unions’ jobs plan a time warp”, Comment, 11/8) berates the ACTU’s contribution to the upcoming discussion about employment policy, invoking “economics 101” to ridicule its position. But is he not in a time warp of his own?
When I studied economics (admittedly several decades ago) I spent one year learning economics 101, and three years learning why it didn’t apply to a real-world economy that was far more sophisticated than the models allowed. I don’t believe that the rich are hoarding lettuces, or that inflation is the result of a conspiracy, but equally economics 101 usually means that those of us who are much less affected by inflationary pressures rarely have to contribute much to the cost of addressing the issue.
The ACTU is to be congratulated for trying to craft an economic argument that recognises that people matter.
Alan Shiell, Lorne
The core of the problem
Annika Smethurst, writing about Matthew Guy (“Guy needs to turn his fortunes around”, Comment, 12/8), inadvertently skated over the core of the problem facing conservative political parties across the world.
They are universally defined by what they are against. The list is endless but generally includes gender equity, abortion, environmental protection, indigenous rights, blended families. Finding out what constructive, innovative policies and ideals they stand for is nigh impossible.
This does not arise only in opposition. In Australia we have just seen the end of a conservative government that stood for nothing and did virtually nothing in nine years in office.
Victoria’s conservative parties need to tell us what they stand for – they will not win government this year by being “not the Andrews government”.
Geoff Wescott, Northcote
In the box seat
Some 20-plus years ago my wife and I went to an Elton John gig in Melbourne. We had very good seats and as the lights went down two happily chattering women took the seats next to us.
Throughout the evening I exchanged comments with the delightful woman beside me, but with Elton John to the left and her on my right, I only saw her through sidelong glances. At one stage I remember her tapping me on the knee as she exclaimed “Oh I just love this song don’t you?”
The show finished and as we got up to leave a bunch of girls came running up the side aisle shouting “Livvy! Livvy!” The penny dropped. I’d had no idea that for two hours I’d been sitting next to Olivia Newton-John.
Nigel Dawson, Lavers Hill
Finding the right people
Attracting and retaining good teachers is far more complex than increasing salaries or offering bonuses to get people in other professions to retrain. With many teachers burning out, and the job of teaching having become so much more demanding, it is even more critical now that the “right kind” of people become teachers.
“Teachers colleges” used to be where the majority of teachers trained. The colleges attracted people who were committed to teaching from the outset and willing to spend three or four years to achieve their qualification. They were people who related well to primary age children, or were passionate about helping high school students to explore their specialist subjects.
Becoming a teacher needs to be more than an afterthought. Tacking a “Dip.Ed.” onto the end of an unrelated university degree doesn’t prepare people for what life in the classroom is really like, and throwing “bonuses” at people isn’t going to change that.
Claire Merry, Wantirna
Moving the goal posts
Talk about moving the goal posts. The AFL match review officer is asked to assess incidents using three criteria: the mindset driving the conduct (careless, reckless or deliberate), the area of contact
(e.g. high) and the severity of the impact. Applying those criteria both the MRO and the initial tribunal determined that Patrick Cripps should be suspended.
When the matter went to the AFL appeals board, all of a sudden those three criteria were forgotten, with the focus switching to whether or not Cripps had technically bumped Callum Ah Chee and what the tribunal chairman might have advised his colleagues. What kind of sports disciplinary system allows an appeal body to arbitrarily introduce totally different criteria from those on which a suspended player’s behaviour was originally assessed?
By allowing its appeals board to be dominated by technicalities of judicial procedure the AFL has caused the question of whether Cripps’ action was safe, acceptable or reasonable to be totally overlooked.
Mike Smith, Croydon
A weird consolation
With the state of the hospital system and the shocking situation of the increasingly privatised aged care services, I’m starting to be scared about the prospect of getting old.
A weird consolation is that with all the problems the world is facing, it could end before I’m faced with old age. A selfish thought I know.
Tony O’Brien, South Melbourne
Making a break
Beijing mouthpieces like to ask Australians how they would react if Tasmania wanted to secede.
I think I speak for almost all of us in saying we would never support Canberra threatening military action against the Apple Isle. We would not send our sons to kill their sons. In the unlikely event Tasmania really wanted independence, there would be a long political process of negotiation including referendums. This is the way civilised people behave.
If China wants to see a non-hypothetical example, it can look to the referendum for Scottish independence. No petulant diplomatic tantrums from Westminster. No trade sanctions imposed. No missiles fired over Edinburgh.
Chris Lloyd, Carlton
Unsettling bipartisanship
As Waleed Aly suggests, the level of agreement between the government and opposition regarding China and Taiwan is unsettling (“Bipartisan US tilt carries risk”, Comment, 12/8). Each side is in furious agreement that Australia must prioritise the “national interest” but rarely tries to state clearly what that is.
Unlike domestic policies such as health and education, it seems foreign policy is beyond the public’s grasp and is best left to the “experts”.
Surely it is time Australia had a real discussion about the merits and drawbacks of the cliched view that the alliance with the US is the bedrock of our foreign policy?
Rod Wise, Surrey Hills
A list of failures
Almost every week we are confronted with yet another sector of the community suffering the consequences of privatised services.
The major essential services of electricity, water and gas have seen massive price increases and recent disruption in supply processes – all post-privatisation.
Aged care, welfare services, much of the health service structure in Australia and aspects of the public transport and road structures have all reflected the adverse impact of privatisation, while the privatised sector of the education system increasingly reflects a two-tier society.
In principle a state-run system might seem an anathema to many people, but even it couldn’t be much worse than the inadequate and expensive systems we have now, foisted on us at state and federal level by governments of both political persuasions.
Your correspondent (“When has this worked”, Letters, 12/8) is “loath to suggest yet another royal commission”, but I would like to see one into the effects of privatisation, particularly of the essential services in our society.
Brian Kidd, Mount Waverley
The other alternative
It’s absolutely correct that emissions standards are essential to Australia’s transition to electric vehicles, and the federal government should act quickly to implement standards with teeth (“Bold policy can lift brakes on electric cars”, Editorial, 12/8).
However, buying an electric car is not “the most effective way of cutting your personal vehicle emissions” as claimed – the most effective way is to leave the car at home, and walk, cycle or take public transport.
No need to wait six months for a Tesla – you can jump on the bike or the bus tomorrow morning, and instantly slash your carbon footprint.
Tony Morton, Public Transport Users Association, Melbourne
AND ANOTHER THING
The footy
Who authored the AFL rule book – Monty Python?
Kevin Rugg, Sandringham
Credit:
The AFL appeals board’s decision on Patrick Cripps demonstrates the AFL is the All Foolishness League with its technical clearance of a player who concussed another player.
Brian Morley, Donvale
Privatisation
I can answer your correspondent’s query about privatisation successes (“When has this worked”, Letters, 12/8). There are none, not one, but there have been plenty of spectacular and ongoing failures.
Ross Hudson, Mount Martha
Qantas
Unfortunately fixing the Qantas luggage crisis won’t happen without baggage .
Bryan Fraser, St Kilda West
Politics
Would the last person to leave Matthew Guy’s department please turn off the lights.
Rob Prowd, Box Hill South
Annika Smethurst is right, the Liberals are policy bereft (“Guy needs to turn his fortunes around”, Comment, 12/8) and simply wanting to lead the state is no reason to be voted in. Matthew Guy has enough baggage to fill the Titanic, which is what his party is looking more and more like.
Frank Flynn, Cape Paterson
Our teachers
Anyone who believes in the value of good teaching will be depressed by the letter “Ease the workload” (12/8) from a retiring teacher disillusioned by the bureaucratisation of schools. Teachers teach. They are not clerks.
Tony Haydon, Springvale
Furthermore
Anyone who thinks we should go to war with China needs to read the article by Hugh White in the Quarterly Essay “Sleepwalk to War, Australia’s Unthinking Alliance with America”.
Loch Wilson, Northcote
Finally
Yet again Ross Gittins (“What’s the cost of productivity?”, Comment, 10/8) hits the nail on the head. This should be compulsory reading for all Australians.
David Eames-Mayer, Balwyn
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