Darkness at Noon

I hate when I have to agree with the opposition, but Rudd’s proposed “Community Corps” is “middle class welfare“.

The idea is that you have an “army” of young community volunteers to feed the homeless, care for the disabled and rejuvenate the environment. In return, you might get a reduction in your HECS debt.

There are a few problems with this. Firstly, it doesn’t stand up to even a basic class analysis. Clearly students from a low income family are much more likely to need to work to look after themselves during their studies and are less likely to live at home. This means a lot less free time available to volunteer so less opportunity to benefit from the scheme.

Secondly, it is unclear what would constitute “volunteer” work. Presumably it would have to be charitable, so is it only NGOs with Deductible Gift Recipient status that can make use of his army? That means that 90% of non-profit organisations are excluded (not least of which, the Australian Centre for Democracy and Justice).

I also have concerns about it undermining the role of those paid to work in the Community Sector. If we’ve an army of volunteers to feed the homeless, what will Social Workers do? It could have the effect of deprofessionalising the community sector. There are no shortage of people that think that anyone can care for people with a disability but Disability Support Professionals are often well trained and should be better trained and have their contribution better recognised. It’s not the monkey work that people often think it is.

Finally, Australia has fairly high rate of volunteering. Why do you need to get more people volunteering (not that you could ever have enough)? It can only be seen as a way of cutting funding to the non-profit sector which is already doing it tough and will be one of the biggest sufferers during time of economic downturn. With less disposable income there will be fewer donations.

So Mr Rudd, bad idea.

.. in his address some of the nuttiest folk around, Catch the Fire (who include Danny Nalliah amongst their ranks), for Australia Day:

In my recent trip to Vietnam I spent one long bus trip listening to the audio book God Bless you Dr Kevorkian by Kurt Vonnegut. It included the following quote by American socialist and Union leader Eugene V. Debs that I thought I’d share with you as my first post for the year:

As long as there is a lower class, I am in it
As long as there is a criminal element, I am of it
As long as there is a soul in prison, I am not free

Let’s hope 2009’s a good one. The Centre has a lot install with a couple of new campaigns in the pipeline, all to be revealed soon!