The small government experiment has been an abject failure

Kaye Lee

3 years ago

I don’t profess to understand how other countries operate but, in Australia, we rely on our government to make things work.

Or we used to. Until politicians decided that the private sector, whose survival depends on making a profit, could do things better for cheaper.

And where has that got us?

The royal commission into the aged care sector described it as “a shocking tale of neglect” and “a sad and shocking system that diminishes Australia as a nation.”

That was before COVID hit which led to hundreds of deaths and required the government sending in the army to help provide minimal care to residents.

Also pre-COVID, the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability was established in April 2019. The title is an apt description of the evidence that has been presented and a shameful indictment on our society.

I remember when the Commonwealth Employment Service hooked people up with jobs. Nothing demeaning about it – if you were unemployed, they would find you a job or give you a payment in the meantime. We now have the Jobactive system which participants describe as “broken” and which is beset with countless allegations of rorting.

We used to own stuff. Until politicians decided that selling assets to give a sugar hit to the budget bottom line was a good idea.

We used to own Telstra and the Commonwealth Bank and Qantas and Medibank Private. We used to own our sea and air ports, our energy infrastructure, and the Commonwealth Serum Laboratories. We used to have a tax on the mining superprofits made by those who have approval to mine the resources that we own. We sold government buildings and now lease them back from the new owners.

Instead of a public service with the collective experience, expertise and continuity to advise the government of the day, we have political appointees who use consultants to justify whatever position they choose to take. Cue Brian Fisher.

The COVID pandemic has starkly illustrated the dangers of the small government approach. From using hotels and untrained security guards for quarantine to suddenly expecting people to source their own Rapid Antigen Tests, the whole thing has been a reactionary debacle rather than anything resembling preparedness and co-ordination of a planned response.

For a government who prides itself on cutting red tape to have to wait for letters from premiers asking for help and then a meeting with the governor-general to, weeks later, approve the idea that we are suffering a national emergency before they can mobilise help is Pythonesque. I don’t think they thought through the significance of the word ‘emergency’.

We have more army personnel thrown into emergency roles than a military junta but none of them know the local areas they are dealing with or the resources they have or need. Hence the constant meetings – or photographs of them anyway – as locals head out in their tinnies and on jet-skis and kayaks to save people’s lives. Because the small government acted too slowly. Again.

Ask yourself, would you trust these two in a crisis?