AFTER this Budget, the ABC should take the Tories at their word. The yapping conservatariat say the government broadcaster should not unfairly compete with, and replicate the work of, good commercial broadcasters. The ABC’s response should be – what do the commercial broadcasters cover comprehensively so that there is no need for us to do it? Well, it is not politics, arts, science, foreign affairs, defence, education, religion, children’s programs or even finance. No, it is sport.
In the face of what ABC managing director Mark Scott says is a $120 million budget cut, why would the ABC do a salami slicing exercise of reducing the quality or quantity of everything when it can pick one area and axe it totally without affecting the lives of Australians one iota.
Do we have to have a public broadcaster’s reporter covering a neckless rugby league player saying, “No cliché will be left unturned in making sure the boys know they have a job to do?”.
Is a world of games between geography-free Titans, Dragons, Cowboys and Sharks filled with bought players from anywhere in the nation the necessary subject of the national broadcaster. Groins, hamstrings, suspensions, proving fitness, injury clouds, scorelines and personal bests can safely be left to the commercials.
The public broadcaster need only concern itself with corruption and drugs in sport – something the compromised commercial broadcasters never investigate or even go near unless the ABC or serious press has already uncovered it.
So, Mr Scott, (and SBS, come to that) junk all the day-to-day sport coverage. Let the commercial broadcasters do international cricket, the major football codes, all racing (horses, dogs and motor), golf, basketball, ice hockey and, yes, the Olympics and Commonwealth Games. They do it so well. It is pretty hard to mess up a scoreline or to mess up the putting a microphone under a breathless competitor thanking the coach, “the boys”, supporters and “Austraya”.
And then the ABC and SBS can continue public broadcasting’s excellent work in the things that no commercial broadcaster comes near.
DOT DOT DOT
LEAVE aside the ideology, the unfairness to the poor and the easy-go for the wealthy. The things most detestable about this week’s Budget are its sheer unintelligence, its dumb stupidity, its utter brainlessness. And its selfishness.
What sort of government spends $245 million over five years on school chaplains, and yet cuts $116 million from the CSIRO and $80 million from Co-operative Research Centres?
If the government were serious about a Budget emergency and the need to tighten the belt, it should have just scrapped the chaplaincy program altogether.
There are so many other more important things for a government to spend money on.
The program is completely flawed. The government should not be spending money on people spouting religion in schools. And if they are not spouting religion, what are they doing? If they are merely counselling, they are unqualified to do so, and could be doing more harm than good.
Churches can spend their own money in their own buildings to preach to people who want to hear them, and not be paid and given access to susceptible children who by law have to be in school. It verges on child abuse.
Turning to science, the framers of the Budget seem to be too dumb or ignorant to understand the importance of science to economic prosperity or how science works, either generally or in an Australian context.
The $20 billion medical research fund is all very well, but history shows that while Australia might do well in core research, we are not very good at exploiting it economically.
My guess is that the big international pharmaceutical companies will get the biggest benefit from the fruits of the fund.
The CSIRO, on the other hand, has a fairly good record of producing practical, economically worthwhile results from its research. Often, of course, the results are serendipitous, but that is the way of science – investment in pure research leading to unexpected results.
The culling of climate-change and environmental work also reveals a dumb government. Yes, it cleverly used the carbon tax and climate-change denial to win the propaganda war and the last election. But in government, why can’t they grow up?
It would be better for Australia to lead on climate change rather than be dragged late by the rest of the world into reducing carbon emissions.
The rest of the world will soon start insisting, on pain of trade sanctions, that countries pull their weight and contribute their fair share, to borrow Hockey’s heavy-lifting phrase.
A smart government would see this and start reaping the economic benefits of clean energy.
A smart government would also see the benefit of prevention in health, not the $20 billion cure after the event. We should be encouraging people to go to their primary health carer – the GP – not discouraging them with a $7 fee. GPs often prevent hospitalisation and greater costs later on.
So that’s stupidity and ignorance.
Now to selfishness.
How, in all conscience, can the government of one of the top five wealthiest countries on earth cut $7.6 billion over four years from a foreign aid budget which is already mean?
It is less than $2 a week per person. In Hockey’s language, a little more than half a schooner of beer or a couple of cigarettes (or a little bit of a cigar).
Finally to inequality, elitism and cowardice.
Of course, the Budget should fix the deficit. The bottom lines over the next three years are commendable aims. But how they are obtained is not. Indeed, it is detestable. The government has attacked two 40-year-old core values: universal access to both health care and tertiary education.
They want US-style expensive, inefficient and elitist health and tertiary-education systems.
They should have had the courage to look more broadly at the revenue side. Rather than wait for income bracket creep to hit lower and middle income earners, they should have increased the GST and removed the exemptions for education (private-school fees) and health (better than a GP tax). Instead, they want the states to do it for them.
In this Budget, values, morality and character are writ large: the four horses of this Budget are: stupidity, selfishness, elitism and cowardice.
CRISPIN HULL
This article first appeared in The Canberra Times on 17 May 2014.
Spot on.
Get the priests out of schools. In regards to foreign aid world wide it is a disjointed and a political practice. There are too many Aid Agencies as well as too many Gov employees in each of the countries. That means a lot of the AID is used in ADMIN.The US bans aid where condoms are sent, that is to pursue religious goal of no sex before marriage. AID is also used as a cover for spy agencies, why do AUSAID need top secret security clearance?, CIA immunization etc.
We can’t even get our own indigenous AID right. Many of our indigenous localities resemble scenes we see on SBS. Yes money should go to AID, here and overseas but it should be invested for self sustainability (except famine and war zones) .
The $7 doctor payment will lead to Doctors being robbed, this is already happening (guns syringes, knives), and when the desperate realise each doctor will have $1,000 they will go for it.
There are 700,000 unemployed here and only 100,000 jobs it is not right to vilify the unemployed, it time the gov was honest and said 5% is the full employment rate, in the 1980’s 3% was considered full employment, they should also give each council $14.5 million to build tourism, we all want a glass and a half.
Pretty much agree, Crispin though from a slightly different angle.
Forced religion in schools is obscene and possibly unconstitutional. Apart from appealing to a mythical religious lobby, already disgraced, I’m not sure who they’re trying to please here. CSIRO – I would rather see them keep the money too, though their efficiency leaves alot to be desired. Overseas welfare: it’s wasted or results in kickbacks to corrupt people anyway, so no problem cutting what is already pretty useless. The only foreign aid should be that which improves governance – there’s a bit of data on why this is the only welfare that actually produces sustainable results. Private schools – overdone in Australia, and risks creating a two-tiered education system, based on the fear of middle class parents that their kids might have to associate with dysfunctional families. Partly true, but grossly overstated. A high school with ordinary parents is as good as any private school. $7 for GP’s – I agree with the government we need a pricing signal – bulk billing clinics are a blot (I’m professionally familiar with them). They have a business model based purely on overservicing, and should not be subsidised by the taxpayer. Unfortunately, this budget relies on assumptions, which may be true, or may be false. The biggest outrage is these budget cuts have been made without any data eg. how much overservicing goes on? Are there that many people under 30 who could get a job, but instead get the dole. It’s this lack of evidence that makes me think the whole budget is ridiculous – I’m in favour of big cuts, but it’s not unreasonable to see some data before making such potentially disastrous decisions. Pigs will fly before the ideology is backed up by data!
Re chaplains, I recently sat and watched the High Court lawyers for the Commonwealth and the Scripture Union practise their sophistry over what chaplains do or do not do. I predict that Williams will win again, and that Abbott and Brandis will immediately bypass him, just as Gillard and Roxon did in 2012.
Like Kevin Donnelly’s secretive curriculum review, the chaplains play a minor role in the bipartisan assault on secular education. The main act is non government schools (general support), up 37% on last year’s spend, to $9.2bn.
I couldn’t agree more; but then what can we expect from the self-professed love child of Ming and John Howard?