Last night 800 of the city’s business and political elite, in black tie, packed into the function room at Luna Park to hear the PM deliver a speech along the lines of ‘Let’s get those horrible dole-bludgers back to work and no ranting shock jocks can stop me from giving you your medicine.’
These were the two themes from Julia Gillard’s address at the Sydney Institute’s annual dinner lecture, Sydney’s premier networking forum.
After the PM, the most powerful person in the room was David Gonski, whose many hats include the chair of the Australian Securities Exchange. He spent a lot of time in conversation with company directors Kevin McCann and Trevor Rowe, no doubt discussing the now-dead merger proposal from the Singaporeans.
Gail Kelly, wearing a rather glam pink and green Diane Von Furstenberg, was there, as were Bob Carr, Tanya Plibersek and her husband, Michael Coutts-Trotter and power legal couple David and Dr Annabelle Bennett. The former head of collapsed bank, Babcock and Brown, Phil Green, did leave rather quickly, no doubt to escape angry shareholders.
Tony Abbott clearly watched the ABC live broadcast, and delivered a pithy appraisal on ABC radio this morning: “What we had from the prime minister was a series of motherhood cliches… Tell me someone who doesn’t believe in hard work and the value of education.”
At our table, which was admittedly heavy on bankers and miners, there were comparisons made with Kevin Rudd’s “gunna do” utterances, most of which failed to materialise. And on a day of much talk about the carbon tax, her failure to utter the C-word was very obvious.
The PM began her speech by referring to the last 20 years of the Australian economy as being ones of “continuous growth”: “Growth which has been nurtured by the policy reforms of successive Australian governments … from internationalisation to domestic competition to tax.”
Clad in a great bronze-coloured jacket, Gillard then talked about the “patchwork pressures” in the economy:
“The social and economic reality of our country is that there are people who can work who do not. We know there are 230,000 people who have been unemployed for more than two years. That there are 250,000 families where no adult has been working for more than one year.”
At a time of record low unemployment, it seemed odd to spend so much time picking on the dole-bludgers. “And every Australian should pull his or her own weight.”
Gillard’s final remarks seemed to be aimed at Alan Jones and his cohorts:
“Behind the wall of sound made by the commentators I know Australians do have genuine concerns about politics and government. At the same time, in the face of this culture of confrontation, I will not accept a false choice between listening to our people and persisting with reform.”
She then listed the reforms: “Remember when the NBN was going to break us? Or the flood levy? Or health reforms? Each of these overhyped claims … each overcome by perseverance and patience.”
We held our breath, as the words “carbon tax” hovered in the air above her head…
Our table thought that Julia’s speechwriter was trying to make her sound like Howard, complete with military analogies:
“A government that is losing to an insurgency is not being outfought it is being outgoverned… Any government which tries to fight an opposition on its own ground of short term media pandering is doomed to policy and political failure.”
That sounded just like a Liberal Party speech, said one observer. We all agreed.
Instead of kicking the dole bludgers Julia could have looked at how organisations like Leighton’s can be prevented from paying huge farewell gifts to CEOs while the company goes down the gurgler. She is a mighty disappointment to us all.
Australia’s Prime Minister taking time out from current national imperatives to ride this issue is so ridiculous, it deserves some sort of medal. Or honour. Or award or something.
Any time i hear such sermons from on high, i lean back and reach for my much-loved copy of Tom Lutz’s magnificent book “Doing Nothing: A History of Loafers, Loungers, Slackers, and Bums in America” (ISBN-10: 0865476500). It reminds me that politicians are very human, and their continual slide into grubbiness is one of the few certainties in life. It also helps me to keep in perspective the whole concept of ‘laziness’, and temper any thoughts i may have about ‘others’ living the life of Riley while we hard workers slave away at the grindstone.
Maybe our Prime Minister had one too many chats with a few of the right-of-right Republican Members of Congress during her recent visit?
This is certainly an issue needing critical debate as welfare reipients (young recipients maybe more so) face huge stereotyping and prejudice. So, what do we get?
“Gail Kelly, wearing a rather glam pink and green Diane Von Furstenberg”…” [Gillard] Clad in a great bronze-coloured jacket…” Why are female fashions mentioned but not male fashion? Why mention fashions at all? C’mon Crikey, you’re better than that.
So a government that is too piss-weak to take on the miners and industry with a mining profits tax and a proper carbon price, goes for the lowest common denominator and takes on the unemployed and disabled pensioners. Can they get any lower, any more base and populist? I suppose we should ask Western Sydney voters – they’ll know what the government is going to do next, surely.
My experience of the job network/’assistance’ scheme (I use the word assistance extremely loosely), through a close family member, is that the unemployed receive little or no help, and lots of harassment and bullying. My family member desperately wanted to work, but by their late 30s was regarded by employers and job network providers as on the scrap heap. We still don’t know why. In seeking a counter service job with Australia Post, they were told they needed a course in money handling to be considered. Yep, a (by then) mid-40s adult, in full possession of their faculties, having handled money all their life, needed training to do this. Would the job network provider fund the training? No. This meant Aus Post wouldn’t even consider the person. We couldn’t find anyone to provide the training, or we’d have paid for it ourselves.
I wouldn’t mind all this offensive crap from Ms Gillard if she had any idea what the system is really like for people who want to work, andif she had any intention, never mind the capacity, to fix it. It’s all too easy to take pot shots, but way too hard to provide real help. My family member started cleaning toilets at various places because they wanted to work so much. And all this, with a debilitating and chronic health condition. Their resilience and perseverance in the face of the shoddy and disgraceful treatment from agencies who are paid to help, is the kind of achievement Ms Gillard should be celebrating. A lesser person would have been broken by it.
I’ve had enough of the ALP. If this is what they are goign to dish up, it’s no longer the party for me.
@puddleduck…judging by that outburst, Labor will be pleased to see the back of you. Just what you hope to achieve under Abbott if God forbid, he manages to lie his way into the Lodge, I doubt not even you would wish to contemplate.