New Australian Fascism

© Melina Magdalena
(14/6/2006)

I’ve been listening to Minister Joe Hockey speaking on Radio National’s “Religion Report” (14/6/2006). To see the transcript of this program, go to this link: "Churches say no to federal plans for the unemployed" (and ignore the typos) http://www.abc.net.au/rn/religionreport/stories/2006/1665033.htm

Minister Hockey's words confirm my suspicion that the Federal Government is moving closer and closer to fascism. Prime Minister Howard's cosy mania for the wholesome christian nuclear family is the obvious driving force behind the many moves by the Federal Government to impose someone else's world view upon our reality. Sitting here, with the twentieth century behind me, this is scary stuff.

Minister Hockey says that now that the Federal Government’s Welfare to Work legislation is becoming a reality for all Australians, non-government organisations including church agencies are obliged to comply with government directives and cooperate in administering the breaching system. Minister Hockey refuses to acknowledge the distinction between government and non-government agencies. He resorts to petty emotional blackmail, when he asserts that church agencies and non-government organisations which do not take up the government’s offer to take on the work of administering the government’s system, are letting down the most vulnerable people in Australian society – those very people the Government is aiming to breach, punish and abuse through its Welfare to Work legislation.

The only people I know who refuse to work are those non-custodial fathers who do not want to pay child support. Welfare to Work is designed to make the custodial mothers forsake their parental responsibilities and try and find paid work in addition to their parenting responsibilities. This policy sets up their children to be neglected. It leaves the next generations vulnerable to higher levels of parental abuse, because those who do not receive the good parenting that is only possible by parents who are present and actively engaged in positive parenting, do not learn how to parent their own children well.

The people targeted by the Federal Government’s Welfare to Work legislation are not people who refuse to work. People who do not have a paid job are people who have other concerns in their lives. They are people with disabilities, mental heath issues and family-life circumstances that make it difficult for them to take on regular work. Economic rationalism makes it difficult for businesses to adjust their practices in a way that would enable such vulnerable people to be employed.

NGOs and church agencies will continue to assist the most vulnerable people in Australian society, without cooperating with the Federal Government’s fascist schemes. Those most vulnerable people will be obliged in ever greater numbers to seek the assistance of these groups, because the Federal Government’s fascist legislation, with its eight-week breaching system is designed to starve them into submission.