Australian society is comparatively peaceful and cohesive but the more we employ the ‘tough cop on the beat’ approach, the more we are factionalising and marginalising different groups and splintering society as a whole into chanting antagonists.
Instead of working with Aboriginal communities to help them achieve self-determination, we impose draconian rules on them such as in the NT intervention, we lock them up for trivial infringements of the law, we disempower them with welfare management, we try to repeal native title laws so we can mine their traditional lands, we try to force them to become part of the market economy, and we cut off services to remote communities because we can no longer fund their ‘lifestyle choice’ of remaining on the land of their ancestors.
To get them to school, we employ truancy officers and threaten to cut off payments if attendance is not satisfactory. To deal with substance abuse, we employ more police and build more jails.
Instead of working with the Muslim community to address the tragedy of radicalisation, we campaign against halal food and the building of mosques, we have dawn raids rounding up Muslim youth filmed by tv crews, we choose refugees by their religion, and want to stop women from choosing to wear a veil.
Instead of programmes to help people feel part of the community, we pass laws to spy on everyone and to remove judicial oversight and appeal. There is no evidence that storing everyone’s metadata leads to more prosecutions and the sheer volume of material would make the job of identifying suspects even harder.
Instead of foreign aid programmes to help educate and empower poor people, we go in with all guns blazing to free people from tyrannical regimes with no thought as to what will happen once we stop the bombs, dust off our hands and go home.
Instead of a policy to help asylum seekers, we hijack their boats in international waters, send them back where they came from or incarcerate them indefinitely, give them no hope for the future, and abrogate any responsibility for their well-being.
Customs and Immigration have morphed into some kind of armed paramilitary force who may or may not be asking to see your papers should they cross paths with you and the Immigration Minister has become judge and jury who needs present no evidence for his decisions.
Instead of preventative programs that deal with respect, relationships, and anger management, and the provision of crisis accommodation and legal assistance for victims, we seek to impose harsher penalties for domestic violence perpetrators and spend lots of money on advertising.
Instead of facilitating negotiation and dispute settlement for employers and employees through Fair Work Australia, we are set to reintroduce the Australian Building and Construction Commission with its extraordinary powers of interrogation and investigation outside the confines of accepted legal practice. Despite the claims of widespread criminality, Dyson Heydon’s report referred only two former union officials to police for prosecution. One of the duo was Kathy Jackson.
Instead of politicians working to bring our society together, we have people like George Christensen speaking at Reclaim Australia rallies, Andrew Nikolic saying civil liberties have become redundant, Dennis Jensen telling us that climate change is crap, Greg Hunt describing legitimate legal action by environmental groups as ‘vigilante lawfare’, and Michaelia Cash describing union bosses as ‘louts, thugs, bullies, thieves and perjurers.’
People on welfare are leaners and women claiming PPL are double-dipping. Disability pensioners are rorters and age pensioners are a burden.
I have had a great deal of experience in dealing with troubled teenagers and I have never known punishment to produce a positive long term result. Giving them vocational, life, and emotional skills, giving them strategies to deal with their anger and the self-esteem to believe they can achieve goals, helping them through troubled times back onto the path to becoming productive contributors to society, expecting and giving respect, getting them to consider and even help others – all of these things bring far better results than punishment.
This continual blame and punishment routine, this heavy-handed approach by government, will never achieve anything positive. When our politicians are dictated to by global corporations and foreign governments, the best interests of people are often forgotten. When advice only comes from business, everything will be judged by the financial cost, never the social cost. While politicians think their most important goal is re-election, they will make decisions for the wrong reasons – acquiescing to appease a certain demographic, or opposing to highlight division. Politics trumps ethics and doing the right thing has degenerated into whatever it takes to get you into power.
Far more could be achieved if affected parties were part of finding informed, negotiated solutions – but current day politics doesn’t work that way. Choose the right person to write a report that suits the result you want. Commission consultants and restrict terms of reference. Sack public servants who give frank and fearless advice. Withhold any findings that contradict the desired narrative, justifying this secrecy by saying ‘it’s a report to government, not by government’ while ignoring the fact that the people of Australia pay for all those reports and modelling. Establish ‘tough cop on the beat’ bureaucracies and keep the populace scared.
The political divide has become vitriolic and it seems unlikely that we will change any time soon. What a pity – we could be so much better than this.
