THE FEDERAL Government is getting a lot of short-term mileage and kudos from the quite small amount of money allotted to its new family program announced at the weekend.
The program will give more child care to people outside cities who work outside normal hours and will provide a cadetship program for youth. The Government will spend $240 million on its “”stronger families and communities program”. But it is spread over four years, making it $60 million a year. Compared with a total Budget outlay of about $160 billion, it is chicken feed. It is one-thirtieth of 1 per cent of government spending.
It does precious little to redress the huge slashes to child care made in earlier years … according to Labor’s health spokeswoman Jenny Macklin, totalling $800 million in the term of the Howard Government .
The Government says its scheme will provide more choice in child care, especially in regional areas, because it will be delivered by non-institutional providers. Maybe so, but individual child care in the home is very expensive. The money will not go far.
Similarly with the cadetship scheme. It is fine as far as it goes, but it will not go far. Moreover, both schemes are geographically selective and fail to address the essential difficulty facing many mothers … the high cost of child care, and the increasing cost since changes brought in by Mr Howard.
The Government says this program has had a long gestation period and is not a quick-fix to stem mounting criticism over social welfare, Aboriginal affairs and the GST. Well, if this is all the Government can come up with after a year or so’s gestation, it is not very much for a lot of work.
However, there is something more disquieting about the Government’s program and its defence of it. It indicates that the Government thinks it is acceptable to work hard early in the term to build up a surplus and then in the lead-up to an election, to throw some of the money back in the hope of buying votes among critical parts of the electorate.
In the case of the Government’s welfare policies, it does not want to be seen as one-directional. It does not want to be seen only as a cutter. It wants to also be seen as a social-welfare initiator.
Well, the weekend’s package is not enough to give the Government credentials to be awarded the title of social-welfare initiator.
The surprising thing is that the Government wants to go down this path. Big-spending, big-welfare policies are ultimately self-defeating.
Mr Howard was on much more solid ground when he said yesterday that the economic achievements of his Government were the Government’s greatest welfare contribution.
What is the point of a big government hand-out if inflation and high interest rates erode its value or if high taxes erode the capacity of business to provide the jobs that end welfare dependency.
The Government must resist the temptation to buy votes with sectional benefits. It must resist the temptation to squander the fruits of fiscal rectitude.
On child care, it should stop seeing it as welfare, but as a means to provide people … mainly women … with the wherewithal to pursue fulfilling careers, with its attendant economic spin-off.
If Mr Howard wants a new social image he should address the flaws in his policy on Aboriginal Affairs.