Watching the Federal Budget unfold I developed a visual image of the economy as a big poker machine, Peter Costello and John Howard sitting on high stools feeding it babies instead of coins!
I am so dreadfully tired of the rhetoric about “Australian families”. I feel like yelling in frustration - “Yeah, like you care? Well, how about a bit of policy? Isn’t that your job?”
What did Costello offer parents of young kids? A re-jig of the way existing rebates for child care expenses are paid. Although undoubtedly a better way to pay as far as parents are concerned, it doesn’t actually change the amount they receive, just the timing - so people feel richer before the next election!
Am I alone in finding this kind of cynicism insulting? The media commentators seem to think it’s “par for the course”, “it is an election year” - I believe the headline in The Age was, “Clever Carrots!” Yes, media pundits I am angry at you too, it’s not a game! Strategy isn’t the purpose of government, we as a nation deserve better than this! Covering politics like its a game of football doesn’t do us any favors.
What’s the government’s purpose behind it all? To get “married woman” back into the workforce! Have they thought about asking men and woman what they want? Many woman I know are desperate for ways to opt out of the workforce or at least scale back the work of one person in the partnership so, as a family, they can care for their young kids.
Let’s be honest, some people love their work but many don’t, or not so much that they prefer to leave the care of their babies and really young kids to strangers. There are many people who would prefer to look after their babies themselves, rather than go to work answering phones or pushing pieces of paper around the offices of a corporation!
Shouldn’t our “10 years of unprecedented prosperity” provide us with this freedom? Shouldn’t it buy us time to invest in our relationships with our partners, children and friends? Clearly it doesn’t, rather than liberate us it demands more and more of our lives, pushing up housing prices and ensuring that people need 2 incomes to “survive”.
What’s Costello’s grand vision? The new ideal family arrive home (to a place that should more properly be called a dormitory), feeling exhausted and disconnected they eat some takeaway. They spend the rest of the night in front of the plasma tv that 10 years of unprecedented economic prosperity has provided them!
The faster we run, the faster the treadmill turns! Our government’s response is to socially engineer things so that people run faster and faster!
Let’s look at who is caring for our kids - surprise surprise, increasingly its big corporations through corporatised childcare centers. The government payments (up 10% in the budget) go directly into their coffers as they squeeze out every dollar through low staff wages and sticking to the letter of their minimum legal requirements! Meanwhile their marketing departments come up with glossy brochures to make us all think its a fab idea!
Why can’t we have a bigger focus on community based childcare? Why can’t there be tax breaks or subsidies for parents at home - this would allow many to opt out of the childcare system and people that really want to work and need the places can then access them? Why can’t there be some financial assistance provided for members of extended families that care for kids while their parents go to work?
Let’s make this whole thing revenue neutral - that way people will have real choice!
Every parent knows there is nothing more special than childhood, and how exactly are we going to explain the current state of affairs to our kids when they grow up? Sorry kid - we had no choice - we had to feed you to the economy! You enjoyed the plasma tv didn’t you?
childcare, families, federal budget, politics, public policy
