Guest Post: Getting Social Policy Back on the Election Agenda

By Alison Moffitt. Also available here.

The Policy Unit released a report yesterday that is getting tons of coverage, which is very exciting for us. Nothing like a political media release in the middle of an election campaign. Unfortunately the kinds of issues it raises are not issues that the pollies are engaging with this time around. None of them have talked extensively about social policy or looking after marginalised, until Julia Gillard's announcement today about a new disability insurance scheme.

The report we released focused on three groups in society who are particularly vulnerable:

• people who access Emergency Relief (food, clothing, bills assistance etc);
• African refugees, many of whom struggle to settle because of housing problems; and
• ageing parent carers, that is, older people who are looking after adult children with disabilities. Many of these parents are ageing and developing their own health issues, which makes their caring responsibilities even harder.

So many outlets have run with the story. It's been rad. The best two I have seen so far are:

1. This article from the Sydney Morning Herald (If you don't read anything else, make sure you read this one.)
2. The news story put together by ABC TV, which aired at midday today and hopefully will be on air on tonight's news too. (My colleagues and I are in it!)

Other places to pick up the story include Channel 7, 2UE radio, ABC radio and Sydney Anglican Media.

If you can, please check out the report. These are very important issues to think about, especially if you live in Australia. You can find it here. There is a link to download the report at the bottom of the page.

How to Listen to the World

H/T Byron.

A Regional Refugee Processing Centre in...?

For the past fortnight public discourse in Australia has been dominated by the location of a potential regional processing centre for refugees. The Federal Government proposed Timor-Leste as their preferred location (a somewhat surprising move, least of all to the Timorese Government); the Opposition has promoted Nauru, home of the Howard Government's Pacific Solution.

But I would like to propose a third location for a regional processing centre: Canberra.

As one of the G20 nations, Australia is uniquely placed within our region to host a facility like this, much more so than either Timor-Leste or Nauru. Canberra is also an attractive location because of the Federal Government's executive power in the ACT.

Building a regional processing centre in Canberra would make an excellent contribution to other Government policies. Particularly what I have in mind is the Nation Building program that is currently underway. Canberra's refugee centre would clearly fulfill the goal of the economic stimulus plan: boost local infrastructure and support jobs. This is a win for Australia and the Federal Government. By building in Canberra, we would be supporting the local economy and saving "Aussie jobs" from being moved overseas.

And as a temporary site until the centre is constructed, the Government could use The Lodge. I've heard that's going to be empty until after the next election...

Death in America

According to Stanley Hauerwas, Protestantism in America is dying. Uniquely, America is the "exemplification of constructive Protestant social thought"; the first country where Protestantism did not need to define itself against Roman Catholicism. Bonhoeffer described this as "Protestantism without Reformation."

Which is why Hauerwas believes we are now witnessing the death of American Protestantism. Protestantism has been closely linked to the American national identity, "For Americans, faith in God is indistinguishable from loyalty to their country." This has project has been very successful - too successful according to Hauerwas, so that it is dying of it's own success.

"More Americans may go to church than their counterparts in Europe, but the churches to which they go do little to challenge the secular presumptions that form their lives or the lives of the churches to which they go. For the church is assumed to exist to reinforce the presumption that those that go to church have done so freely. The church's primary function, therefore, is to legitimate and sustain the presumption that America represents what all people would want to be if they had the benefit of American education and money...It is impossible to avoid the fact that American Christianity is far less than it should have been just to the extent that the church has failed to make clear that America's god is not the God that Christians worship. We are now facing the end of Protestantism. America's god is dying. Hopefully, that will leave the church in America in a position where it has nothing to lose. And when you have nothing to lose, all you have left is the truth. So I am hopeful that God may yet make the church faithful - even in America." - Stanley Hauerwas, The Death of America's God

Hauerwas is very pessimistic about the affect of American synthesis between evangelical Protestantism, republican political ideology and commonsense moral reasoning. I'm not sure if this is what will come to pass, but there would be ramifications not only for American Christians, but for the church universal. America has been a powerhouse for Christianity for several decades now. Most missionaries around the world come from the US. Many resources (academic and popular) are produced in the US. Would a demise in American Christianity adversly affect world wide Christianity? Or would it provide the church in the Global South with the opportunity to step-up, and as Hauerwas hopes, grow the American church in faithfulness?

Thoughts?

Where did this rank Australia amongst the world's nations taking in refugees?

Here is an extract from Clarke and Dawe 's take on asylum seekers. You can read the transcript or watch it here.

BRYAN DAWE: Well we might leave that one and move on I think. What percentage of the world's asylum seekers applications were made last year to Australia?

JOHN CLARKE: 98 per cent.

BRYAN DAWE: No that is incorrect.

JOHN CLARKE: 87 per cent?

BRYAN DAWE: No it was 0.5 of one per cent, Iggy.

JOHN CLARKE: Gee

BRYAN DAWE: Where did this rank Australia amongst the world's nations taking in refugees?

JOHN CLARKE: First!

BRYAN DAWE: No, think about this Iggy, half of one per cent of the applications made in the world were made in applications to come Australia. So where did that rank us amongst world nations?

JOHN CLARKE: Yeah, Second!

BRYAN DAWE: No, 33rd

JOHN CLARKE: Oh well a lot of countries are richer, you know, the rich countries can take lots of migrants.

BRYAN DAWE: No, no, Iggy if you take the GDP into account we're actually 70th. OK, what percentage of Australia's immigrants come by boat?


JOHN CLARKE: Oh about 98 per cent

BRYAN DAWE: No, down a bit

JOHN CLARKE: 83 per cent

BRYAN DAWE: Down a fair bit.

JOHN CLARKE: 66 per cent.

BRYAN DAWE: No down from 2 per cent

JOHN CLARKE: About 50 per cent.

BRYAN DAWE: No. I think this next question could help you Iggy. How do most people who emigrate to Australia arrive?

JOHN CLARKE: Oh they come in boats, sort of really small boats with a quite a high front.

BRYAN DAWE: No, the vast majority arrive by plane.

JOHN CLARKE: No they don't they come in boats I've seen them on television they're in little boats with quite a high front, they're sort of low in the water.

BRYAN DAWE: Hey Iggy have you ever seen an aeroplane on television?

JOHN CLARKE: Well, yeah I've been on an aeroplane.

BRYAN DAWE: And when was that Iggy?

JOHN CLARKE: When I came to Australia.

BRYAN DAWE: Correct!

JOHN CLARKE: Oh good I've got one right.

BRYAN DAWE: Which group has the highest rate of success in establishing that they are genuine immigrants: the ones who come on planes or the ones who come in boats?

JOHN CLARKE: The ones who come in planes.

BRYAN DAWE: No the ones who come here on boats.

JOHN CLARKE: Oh do they? I did well then.

BRYAN DAWE: You did very well. Final question Iggy. What's the point of moving the big processing centre for the boatpeople from Christmas Island to East Timor?

JOHN CLARKE: I've got no idea.

BRYAN DAWE: Correct and after that round you are still living in a country which was invaded in the first place and in which you've overstayed your visa.

JOHN CLARKE: Yeah well we won't be having any more of that will we?

BRYAN DAWE: No.

JOHN CLARKE: Not now I'm here.

H/T Byron Pictures: (1) From the ABC 7.30 report website; (2) www.syndesmos.net

On Scarcity and Generosity

"Greed presumes and perpetuates a world of scarcity and want - a world in which there is never "enough." But a world shaped by scarcity is a world that cannot trust that God has given all that we need. Greed, in other words, prohibits faith. But the inverse is also true. For it is in the Christian celebration of the Eucharist that we have the prismatic act that makes possible our recognition that God has given us everything we need. The Eucharist not only is the proclamation of abundance, but it is the enactment of abundance. In the Eucharist we discover that we cannot use Christ up. In the Eucharist we discover that the more the body and blood of Christ is shared, the more there is to be shared. The Eucharist, therefore, is the way the Christian Church learns to understand why generosity rather than greed can and must shape our economic relations." - Stanley Hauerwas, Can Greed Be Good? from the newly launched ABC religion website.

On the Need for Science to be Human

"Science needs to remain human in that sense, to be self-aware of itself as human science, aware of incompleteness, aware of the joy of non-fulfilment. And at that level at least, science is bound to be operating with an image of humanity itself as a life form attuned to truth and to growth. Metaphysics, perhaps, or even worse, faith; and yet it is hard to see how the real life of the scientific enterprise can be sustained without that image of what is properly and joyfully and fulfillingly human. Recognised or not, the resonance of this with the life of faith is worth noting. Faith, our Christian faith, presupposes that we are indeed as human beings attuned to truth and to growth, made by a God whose love has designed us for joy, and discovering that this directedness towards joy mysteriously comes alive when we look into the living truth, the living wisdom, of the face of a Christ who drives us back again and again to question ourselves so that we stay alive."

- Rowan Williams, A Homily for the 350th Anniversary of the Royal Society.