Do you know the song, There’s a hole in the bucket dear Liza, dear Liza? ‘Song’ might be too strong a descriptor. It is more of a shanty. Sometimes, and mysteriously, our mother would know when my sister and I had sung it too vigorously on the way to primary school. Apparently, her network of mother’s worked well between our place and the local school.
But I believe it is time for the song to make a comeback. The Federal Education Minister needs to sing it on his way to work to avoid the temptation of throwing good money after bad in working to address the education issues outlined recently by the Productivity Commission. The PC outlined (again) how we have increased spending enormously, but for no real impact in the areas that need it most. Of course, people will take the opportunity to jump up and down, waving hands, saying, ‘More money over here – look, over here!’ But giving in to such demands is like dear Liza trying to keep filling the bucket without patching the hole.
Amanda Stoker was closer to the mark – there is a culture problem, and she focused on the correlation between geographical location and results. I suggest her earlier work on the inequities of our taxation system towards supporting families is even closer to the mark. That writing was like the brief conversation I had with Bronwyn Bishop when she was in federal Parliament – she had also awoken to the detrimental impacts of anti-family tax measures.
What does taxation, families, and education have in common? In the words of Jeremy Adams in his chapter on Hollowed Out Schools, plenty: ‘The most effective way to have strong education is to have strong families supported by a strong economy.’ Herein lies the problem for our current socialist masters (and the left-leaning neo-Liberals). To have strong schools, we need strong families. To have strong families, we need strong economies. But how does the Albanese government provide a strong economy when it is driven by an ideological stance (or, more accurately, submitting to an unreasonable faith belief) that puts environmental alarmism over people, which is what the Treasurer has outlined with his ‘new capitalism’?
What this dance reminds me of is how incredibly, almost obscenely rich we are as a nation. The only reason these dreamers can promote such destructive programs is that we have the wealth to keep enough people not just afloat but feeling good. The ongoing irony of our wealth coming from commodities that we are not allowed to use in our own country is bizarre – but who cares when we can still go to beautiful beaches with lots of outstanding food and drink? The self-imposed deconstruction of industries that could make us safer because we would be more independent is easily ignored because the numbers of those going hungry can still be counted as a genuine minority.
We can sleep better at night believing ‘we are doing our bit’ for the world of environmentalism, identity inclusion, and reverse racism because we live in a magnificent land that people from all parts of the globe still envy.
Why then should we worry about tinkering with the taxation system to actually encourage people to work less for money, and more for the people who share their street and local community? Heavens above, that might even lead to more people being cared for by extended family (NDIS cost reduction, anyone?)! It might mean needing fewer public-servant welfare keepers!
One of the most dramatic examples of this I have seen was when I had the privilege of leading a special needs school (for students with diagnosed mental health difficulties). I was sitting on the floor next to a student who had collapsed there, in tears, outside my office. As we just sat together, he eventually slowed his sobs enough to look me in the eye and ask, ‘Do you know what it is like to have every adult in your life paid to be there?’ It was a question I could not answer, so I just kept listening.
This young man, like many I encountered, had been denied the option of being adopted when young. The morally evasive forms of social welfare workers, psychologists, and counsellors had clung to the belief that his parents had ‘natural rights’ to him, even though they demonstrated zero commitment to any of his needs. Keeping him as a son fed their welfare payments; we paid for his professionalised care. By the time the parents let go of him officially, he had no one voluntarily looking out for him.
A parent who wants to care for children personally, at home, should be as valued financially as long-term day-care centre staff. A spouse who keeps working to care for their spouse who is unable to work should be as valued as the professionals who would need to do the same if that spouse dies.
But no – as our newish Treasurer just announced, we are rebuilding our economy around pseud-capitalism at the altar of St Greta, at the feet of centralist-controlled productivity goals, and within the dark cloak of being nicer, more decent, and kind.
Be warned – in the same way this government has been wilfully negligent about the needs of the Alice and surrounding areas, under the guise of moving closer to reconciliation, so too will they be unerringly wasteful in attempts to address needs in education. Why? Because they are not committed to family in any deep sense – that would mean having less control to ‘keep us safe’ for that profound reason of always working ‘with an abundance of caution’.
Watch the leaks as the bucket gushes money out of the holes.
