Joe Hockey and THAT budget

This morning's SMH reports that Joe Hockey has resorted to his three key themes in a speech selling his Budget at the Sydney Institute (which is of course the wrong audience, they would mostly already be convinced.)

The first is to call opposition to the budget "class warfare." The second is to say criticism of the budget is all political, or it is politics not economics.  The third is to say it is not the job of government to pursue equality if outcomes but equality of opportunities.  

In reverse order, how does one measure equality if opportunity except by measuring the equity of outcomes? Surely if there were genuine equality of opportunity there would be equality of outcome. The only deviation could be from differential effort or dumb luck in terms of natural endowment, inherited endowment or simply being in the right place at the right time. 

If equality of opportunity were genuinely achieved then there would be no differential effort as each person would equally be aware of the opportunity before them. The opposite is the equivalent of blaming the unemployed because they haven't found a job, rather than blaming society for there being no job to find.

The variability of endowment is not something within the individual's control. Gina Rhienhart was doubly lucky, first to be born of Lang Hancock and secondly that Hancock was the one who discovered the Pilbara ore.  Many prospectors gather on a goldfield, only some find big nuggets.

The distinction between politics and economics is a false one. To the extent that economics is positive - a description of what is - it is no guide to action. To the extent that economics is normative - it describes what ought to be done - it is better known by its original name, political economy.

And to stand up for ordinary Australians, the Australians who make their living by what they do rather than by what they own, is not class warfare. The Labor Party makes no apologies for this, we do not represent the interests of capital. That does not mean we are the enemies of capital. Just that the design of markets and the distribution of surplus value must treat those who work for a living fairly.

Surely it is not too much to ask that the Treasurer resort to selling the budget on its merits rather than on slogans.

Why we shouldn't worry about the set-top box program

The Government's budget announcement of over $300M to fund in home assistance for pensioners to install digital set-top boxes has drawn plenty of criticism, mostly of this kind that repeats the assertions that this will be like the home insulation and BER programs.

The problem with this is that there really are a lot of myths about these two programs.

The Australian National Audit Office found that the BER program worked and worked well.
The issue of course was that to work as a stimulus it had to be a rushed program, and that as a consequence not all the controls as good as they might have otherwise been. The program also didn't fix smelly toilet blocks because it was designed to be new expenditure and not to simply displace State expenditure with Federal expenditure.

This week analysis of the CSIRO data on the home insulation program revealed that the instance of house fire due to insulation installation was LOWER during the program than it had been before!

So we really should be quite relaxed about the set-top box program - the Federal Government's record is actually good, not bad!

Two other facts are that fully 11% of the project expenditure ($42M) goes to Human Services to ascertain whether a household is eligible for the program. The second is that DBCDE programs are traditionally under-spent. This is likely to be the same. No longer is it just a matter of getting digital signal. TV - especially sport and news - is being shot and given sur- and sub- titles on the assumption of a 16:9 aspect ratio. Most consumers will move to new TVs for these reasons, and not access the set-top box route.


Novae Meridianae Demetae Dexter delenda est

Chaplains

The Federal Government has announced in the budget the extension of the school chaplain program first introduced by John Howard.

Predictably a leading education journalist bemoans the expenditure going to chaplains rather than other school resources. It was conveniently lined up against cuts to the BER program.

More reasoned commentary asks why chaplains need to be religious and whether they are the right skills for "counsellors" instead of trained psychologists. (Though it still ends with the cute tag line "If “Chaplains in Schools” is a success, the ALP may revisit the “Teachers in Schools” and “Students in Schools” programs.")

The back story though is how to respond to a major societal change. The decline of active participation in organised religion has taken away three of the good things that can come from an active involvement in religion and a spiritual life.

These three are simply (1) engaging in an active conversation about morality, what is right and wrong (2) taking time out to be contemplative and (3) the ability to talk to someone not directly involved about the "big stuff" in life.

Religion gets a bum rap because so much of its public image has been moralist preachers going on about gays or drugs, while inside some churches there have been massive cover-ups of wildly immoral behaviour. But in the bulk of cases that isn't how religions discuss morality. They take the time to use some time honoured expressions of moral standards (do unto others, though shalt not kill) and then try to use these to assess modern moral issues. It might have taken a long time, but it was Christians who - despite religious texts that accepts slaves as a fact of life - led the campaigns against slavery within European empires and the USA.

It is remarkable how taking a couple of minutes in reflection - called prayer or meditation - can help get a greater understanding of ones relationships with others. In the process of praying for either divine intervention or in thanksgiving, the way an individual approaches the world and their fellow humans is changed.

The final one is the kicker. Without a "chaplain" program, where exactly do we expect kids to go with a problem - especially if that problem directly relates to a parent or a teacher, or where the resort to parent or teacher has been ineffective. Chaplains can be great at using a version of the "serenity prayer" - which is a simple invocation to have the serenity to accept the things one cannot change, the courage to change the things you can, and the wisdom to know the difference. Your average psychologist tends to fail here because they try to change everything.

The radical atheists and other variants of those who aren't actively engaged in a religion could productively turn their minds to the issues the chaplaincy program tries to address, rather than merely criticise the program.

(Note: Personally I don't like the program, nor do i believe that religious instruction in schools as currently conducted makes sense. But I haven't worked out something better yet - and the NSW ethics classes don't look like it to me).


Novae Meridianae Demetae Dexter delenda est