39. Federal Budget

Hi, I am Greg and I want to grumble about the federal budget - of course. But where to begin?

Perhaps with “class warfare”. Yes, I know the language is extreme, but when former Treasurer Wayne Swan proposed taxing mining super-profits and some other fairly minor tax changes, he was accused of class warfare. So what are we to make of a budget with corporate tax breaks and a massive attack on welfare? If taxing the rich is class warfare, what is attacking the poor? The language of class warfare may appear silly, but if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck...

I could also grumble about particular things in the budget:

• the cuts to hospital and schools funding,
• the introduction of fees for visits to the doctor,
• the scrapping of funding for preventative health programs,
• the increasing costs of PBS medicines,
• the changing of pension indexation so that those older Australians or those with a disability will fall behind the rest of the population,
• the increasing of the age to qualify for Newstart, leaving independent adults stranded on the pitiful Youth Allowance
• the introduction of a 6 month starvation period before young people can qualify for income support,
• the cuts to legal aid, the National Rental Affordability Scheme,
• the cutting of funding to a range of advocacy organisations…

And more - so much to grumble about.

But what can I say that has not already been said in countless commentaries and in marches across the country on the weekend – including by SACOSS’ Ross Womersley.

Well, unusually, I want to point to some good news in the budget. The forward estimates show that government revenue is predicted to return to historic average levels in 3 to 4 years. That’s important because declining revenues in recent years have undermined the ability of government to provide vital services.

But if these revenue figures are correct, then where is the emergency that required so much budget pain?

Significantly though, this revenue return is largely a product of forecast economic growth rather than any serious revenue strategy. The only long term revenue building measure in this budget (apart from the token tax on high income earners) is an increase in fuel taxes.

But ABS figures show that those who are unemployed or on study payments spend proportionately more on petrol than other households do.

So again, it is the poor who will bear the biggest burden of this budget – more ducks quacking?

I am Greg and I am grumbling.

This Grumble can be heard online or by podcast.
First Broadcast: 20 May 2014

38. Q&A and student protest

Hi, I am Greg and given that it is budget night, I should grumble about the budget curtain-raiser, the alleged Commission of Audit.

But it is such a transparent political trick with its obvious ideological agenda and laughable methodology, it is really not worth grumbling about.

Instead I want to grumble about the condemnation and outrage that followed a group of students interrupting the ABC’s Q&A program last week.

Now Q&A is the weekly fix for those who need their political prejudices confirmed regularly, and host Tony Jones has achieved cult status as the controller of political egos.

But last week, a group of uni students with a concern for the future and fairness of tertiary education dropped a banner and chanted slogans until they were removed from the august ABC studios.

Now it is the nature of the beast that campaign slogans and chanting do not do justice to any issue, but did we really need Tony Jones’ patronising adjudication that the students were doing themselves no favours.

I’m sorry Tony, you might be comfortable being referee of a weekly political joust, but social change does not come from such staged and sterile discussion.

Q&A is as much about entertainment as politics, and the students were no less entertaining and a good deal more genuine than many Q&A’s panelists. And guess what, they did succeed in highlighting education issues in a way that their allotted subservient Q&A question would not.

And as for the claim that democracy had been restored when the ABC returned from its interlude of musical censorship, I’m sorry, I don’t ever remember an election for positions on a Q&A panel – otherwise we would be spared the weekly IPA rant.

And let’s not forget, many of the people who will be most immediately affected by changes to higher education are those currently at school and ineligible to vote. Democracy without representation? Hmmm.

At a time when political debate is dominated by corporate interests in the guise of budget auditors, and funding cuts threaten advocacy on behalf of vulnerable people, I don’t think we need self-righteous condemnation of those who put political change above political entertainment - no matter how annoying they are.

I am Greg, and I am grumbling – but not about student protest.


This Grumble can be heard online or by podcast.
First Broadcast: 13 May 2014

37. Nature Play

Hi. I am Greg and I want to grumble about the state government spending on a program to get kids to play in nature.

There is a significant body of research that shows that experiencing nature can help with physical and mental health.

There are obvious things like activity helping to address childhood obesity and benefits later in life in relation to cardio-vascular health and depression, but evidence suggests that kids who play in nature tend to be more creative, have better focus, problem solving ability, self-awareness and self-discipline.

Wow, all that just from playing outdoors in nature.

As one study concluded, children will be smarter, healthier, happier and better able to get on with others when they have regular opportunities for free and unstructured play outdoors.

So why am I grumbling? I am grumbling because we appear to have reached a point where such a program is actually needed.

The stats are appalling: about one in four kids have never climbed a tree, or gone bush-walking, 17% have never visited a national park, and 11% have not played in a garden or a park in the last year.

What is going on there? Is the most complex and dynamic interactive system on the planet – i.e. nature – being replaced by the pale two-dimensional interactivity of computer games, or has nature simply been concreted out of our urban landscape?

Or have the lawyers and safety bureaucrats stolen childhood without a thought about the consequences? Someone might get hurt, someone might get sued, stranger danger – bring out the cotton wool. Where was the cost-benefit analysis of the risk of broken arms verse the retardation of learning, or alienation from the place we live?

But that leads to my second grumble. If these stats are correct and the next generation is indeed living dangerously by living indoors, then we certainly need an organisation like the recently established, Nature Play SA with their list of 51 things to do before you are 12 (it was a long time ago, but I reckon I would have done about 35 of them).

But it is one small community organisation. If we are really going to introduce the sensations of the natural world to a cyborg generation, we need more resources for programs like Nature Play, but we also need to re-think how we regulate childhood.

Yes, even a lefty can argue for deregulation.

I am Greg and I am grumbling.

This Grumble can be heard online or by podcast.
First Broadcast: 6 May 2014