We have recently been informed of concerns by the government about the homeless, aboriginal welfare and of the necessity to increase the time young people will be spending at school. It is these issues which relate to what I would call our ‘welfare culture’. By this I mean those children who grow up in families or communities where possibly up to three generations have depended on welfare because they cannot support themselves through work. Unfortunately, these persons, regardless of race tend to come from lower socio-economic areas.
Our sense of accountability and auditing really works against resolving such inequalities. Inevitably, to fully address these issues, requires the utilisation of resources far in excess of similar intervention for the rest of our society. Today our democratic and bureaucratic structures struggle with such imbalances in a world of anti-discrimination.
Since 1967 we as a community have ‘thrown’ money at Aboriginal settlements but has it helped? As a community we should be sorry for the past injustices, however, will compensation really help to overcome these past wrongs? Equally, when you understand that 75% of homeless people in Sydney have psychiatric problems, will building more places for them to hide really help? All too often so many people end up in jail with psychiatric illnesses because they can’t manage their conditions without support. Building more public housing is good but will this really address the issue?
Jesus Christ lived, walked, healed and taught among the dispossessed in his society. So we need to work with people as they are, by addressing their special needs. We can’t break the cycle of ostracising generations from the education system and it certainly is not going to be solved by lengthening the period at school. While It is true that those with minimal education are almost unemployable within our society, this has created other problems. We need special schools and gifted teachers who are skilled in breaking this cycle. How do we get these assets to the right areas in today’s world? In the past, teachers could get accelerated promotion by serving in the country and this meant outback schools were well served by very good teachers. All these good structural arrangements came to naught with the Anti-Discrimination Legislation and now these people will not ‘go country’ fearing that when their children need higher education they may not be able to obtain a position back in a large city.
We need to inject resources not by some standard into these areas but by their desperate needs. We must be driven by the sense of fairness of results not the fairness of resources. We have to be driven by needs and not by statistics of the number of houses built.
To solve any of these problems requires further analysis of the causes, how culture may be changed and how in the end new futures can be built for such people. This must not be done for them, instead they must be given help to help themselves achieve their goals. This will be neither easy or straightforward. While mistakes will be made we need to be there to support them as they work their way through all the traps of our modern society. My great fear is that we always look for the easy solutions which look good rather than the means by which we truly can help these people to help themselves as was done in the past. We really need new approaches which value and respect the people rather than to see them as the flotsam of our world.
So we wait and see if this Commonwealth can overcome the resistance of the system and really help all these people.
Adrian Van Ash
Minister
Scots Church, Sydney.
http://www.scotspresbyteriansydney.org/cms/index.php?option=com_frontpage&Itemid=1
