And this is what we find …

With respect to the demise of Good Game mentioned below, I thought I’d place an exchange on the Good Game forums here for posterity.

Author Team Good Game ((Us Lot))
Date/Time 29 Oct 2009 4:29:19pm
Subject Statement from the team....
Dear GG’ers

You can't help but have noticed we’ve been quiet regarding Junglist's departure from the show which has really sucked because we're used to having such an honest and open relationship with you.

For all sorts of reasons we are unable to tell you things that have happened over many months inside Team Good Game which have impacted on the production. That's just real life folks. We know it leaves many questions unanswered but we have reached that point where we really can’t say any more than that.

But we can tell you this much…

The decision to take Junglist off air was not forced upon us by ABC Management and it's one that is fully supported by all the GG team. We are gutted that it has come to this but in our opinion it absolutely had to happen.

It's strange for us to read that so many of you think this is because we have suffered a raging case of political correctness gone mad or a wish to dumb the show down. That’s absolutely not right. We, as ever, will continue our quest to bring you the show for gamers by gamers but this has to be our last word on this – we have shows to make!

Finally, we genuinely wish Junglist all the best, and we hope he finds a medium for his awesome analysis and presenting skills that works for him.

Team Good Game Out
(Syd, Bajo, Moe, Tuk, Gog, Mafia, Jeremy Pencil, Palindrome)

And a gutsy rejoinder from our erstwhile host:

Author Junglist (Reviewer)
Date/Time 29 Oct 2009 4:48:18pm
Subject Re: Statement from the team....

I can tell you that this is a lie. There was no vote taken, no consensus reached. In fact, the GG team was completely unaware of the change until the same day I found out. The same confidentiality clause that prevented me from saying anything publicly, prevented management from telling them anything.

I have spoken to members of the GG team who clearly DON'T support this, but can't say anything publicly. Of course they'll tow the party line. They have to.

Up until now the situation has just been poorly handled. But to now LIE to your own audience, in an effort to save face for replacing an experienced reviewer/presenter with an inexperienced one, is quite simply the lowest thing I've ever seen ABC management do.

I feel now as if I'm being professionally attacked, so here's a truth bomb. In the meeting where I was told I would be replaced, the reason given was they wanted a girl on the show. "Mass appeal" was a direct quote from that meeting. After a half-hour of explaining how they'll lose their hardcore following, they responded that yes, they knew this, but expected to make up the numbers with a new following. "A show can grow beyond its hardcore base", is another direct quote.

The decision was forced by ABC management, for a mass appeal direction, and will naturally be dumbed down for the loss of experience. Case in point: Monday night's show. Both Forza 3 and Kingdom Hearts clearly written by people with no idea about those franchises. Hell, no one on the team even thought to correct the presenters on how to pronounce "Forza" correctly? Expect a lot more of that...

And further to this:

Author Junglist (Reviewer)
Date/Time 29 Oct 2009 5:16:31pm
Subject Re: Statement from the team....
"We have felt personally attacked by some of the posts by Jung, and others, with the inability to reply due to confidentiality. "

Actually, I've been very supportive of Hex, and pointed out that all she ever did was accept a cool job. What possible truth bomb could YOU drop? I'm not trying to be a White Knight, I've made mistakes too. I've disagreed with the ABC on reviewing policies, which sometimes resulted in footage being handed in late. And it's a shame that the Christmas special was decided on around the same time I booked an overseas trip, and neither party were flexible enough to change plans.

But at the very, very least, I want to be honest with the community. Realise it or not, Good Game has a responsibility to show younger Australian viewers what the ABC is about. I think the appropriate term here is, "epic fail".

Later there was this, from the show’s producer:

Author Syd (Series Producer)
Date/Time 29 Oct 2009 5:35:21pm
Subject Re: Statement from the team....
This could easily degenerate into a he said she said we said….. none of us were in that meeting after all… BUT the GG team is here with me in the office right now..

Jung mate, I'm sorry to say it but you are wrong… no one on the team feels we have to tow the party line here - no one has been coerced into doing or saying anything they don't want to. Sure we didn't all find out till you did - but that does not mean we don't feel it's the right thing to do for the show. That's the truth we need to swallow here… as bitter a taste as it might leave in our mouths.

Regardless of what Jung might say GG will NOT be dumbed down and I state again, the decision was nothing to do with bringing in a girl… FFS - I'm a girl and I started this show - I don’t care about the gender of the presenters - I just care about having the best ppl working on it.

Guys.. I totally acknowledge Jungs contribution to GG - and yeah I can see how it feels like we've stabbed a mate - and what's the Aussie thing to do? Stand up for a mate in a fight right? But this show is more than just one person - is and always has been. GG has been my life for the last nearly four years… why on earth would I want anything to hurt it?

Syd

And a further rejoinder:

Author Junglist (Reviewer)
Date/Time 29 Oct 2009 5:43:42pm
Subject Re: Statement from the team....
"GG has been my life for the last nearly four years… why on earth would I want anything to hurt it?"

I completely believe that you have the best of intentions, Syd. It's you that holds this show together. And I likewise believe you when you say it has nothing to do with bringing in a girl.

But it's not up to you, is it? This change comes from higher up.

As I said, I've spoken to team members who contradict what you say about "supporting the ABC's decision", so this is damage control, pure & simple.

The Good Game production crew, including other long term presenter Stephen “Bajo” O’Donnell, were clearly admonished from above in time honoured corporate fashion: “I don’t care how, just FIX! FIX!”

Here is Bajo:

Hi guys, I can't stress enough to scrub 'mass appeal' from your minds. The words are ridiculous to me, and the team and no one has ever felt that it’s even remotely where we are heading. If you find you can't scrub it than at least take a look at the show over the next few weeks and you’ll see that we're not changing focus/direction at all. Yes there is some change obviously, but not to the content and definitely not to our attitude to how we present gaming information. No one is understating the loss we’ll feel without Junglists excellent reviews and input to the show, but we will find our groove again, with your help and the help of our very hardworking team who have come from so many different places from magazines to other shows to freelance game journos to just plain gamers that we thought were awesome and needed to work on the show. No one has any interest in dumbing anything down, the thought of it makes me vomit on Gog’s keyboard. Amongst other people keyboards and chairs.

From outside looking in it’s easy to jump to conclusions and assume lots of things, so try to trust that we really do care about you, we troll every day, and we feel your words. We are going to deal with this change in the best possible way we can with the tools we have, with the best possible team we can find. We are still filling our team up behind and in front of the scenes, and it’s only growing as the year turns into the next. Like Syd said, we have two shows next year, and GGSP is focused on tween, which allows us to put MORE adult content in the regular GG, something we have always wanted to do and have always fought to do.

Despite all this hate and flame, just take a deep breath. Now, exhale, and think about games for a moment, which is why we are all here. I’m not trying to make light of an obviously hard and awful conversation we’re having, but games are awesome.

Their awesome juice will seep into our souls, and we’ll be awesome again, and show you this juice as it transforms into words. The juice will then flow out of our pores, into our actual drink of juice (possibly pineapple) and then that juice will be drunk again, only doubling the effect of awesome juice which is all from games in the first place.

I very much wish I could be next to you all to talk about this in person. It's hard to express my frustration about the misconceptions I keep seeing here. I would like to give you all a real hug ....please accept this internet hug ‘O’ for now.

Those of you whom are doubtful, I do hope you choose to stay, and at least give us a chance. The show is really important to me, and us, and we just want it to be epic as it once was, with all the tools we have.

And from Junglist, co-worker of Four years:

"I can't stress enough to scrub 'mass appeal' from your minds."

That's because "mass appeal" is the truth. You're asking for a lot of trust in that statement when trust is clearly an issue right now. I actually believe that you believe what you're saying, but you weren't the one who talked to upper management for 30 minutes about their new mass appeal plan.

"Yes there is some change obviously, but not to the content"

Explain then why I'm only contributing 1 token review a week? And quite possibly those reviews won't even make it into the show? A proven reviewer over 3 years has been replaced with a less experienced one. The content HAS changed, already.

As ever Baj it seems like you couldn't wait to just get on with things...fair enough if you don't care about this whole thing, but asking everyone to just forget about it by promising fruit hats and horse heads is insulting peoples' intelligence.

For my part, I've been honest about my own weaknesses in my role. There is no more "we can't say anything". I've said it. So have at me bro, if that's what you feel like.

I find this a remarkable, tragic record of corporate thuggery; I’m so pleased that it has become public. I respect Jeremy Ray immensely for not going quietly, though in truth he only responded to what was clearly a bald faced lie. It is wonderful to see that the ABC has clearly got a tiger by the tail, though the chief emotions are still pity and sorrow for the demise of Great Times 9:30 Monday.

Good Game: Love Hurts

Many moons ago I wrote about Good Game, an ABC programme hidden for years at odd hours on ABC2. It’s still there, but now missing its one remaining original host Jeremy “Junglist” Ray. I’d watched it from the beginning on and off, though not because it was ever a hit and miss affair. By the time I lived regular hours I was watching it every week, seeing it become a minor, obscured jewel in the crown of ABC programming alongside a precious few other programmes. I love the ABC … the idea of public broadcasting at any rate … but to be frank the rest of the ABC’s lineup is British or bullshit (which, let’s face it, is often the same thing, right kids?).

I loved the show. I’m Thirty; don’t play computer games much. I’m not their demographic (fuck, I’m sure I’m not your demographic either). Yet the intimacy between the presenters and the audience, the knowledge that audience would “get it”, the trust, reminded me of other programmes I’d rush home to see when I was younger: Press Gang; (unbelievably) The Miraculous Mellops; The Late Show; D.A.A.S. Kapital; The Money or the Gun. So in a way it recaptured my youth, and reminded me there was Something Good out there. I remember watching the final episodes of the shows listed above, and as you may know it is rather like the bitter-sweet end of a relationship: all good things must come to an end.

Good Game is different in one major respect: it did not end. Rather it was eviscerated by an ABC marketing strategy to encourage a crossover of viewers to ABC3 and raise the profile of a coterie of nondescript presenters. To do so, the decision makers at the ABC sacked one host and replaced him with a new presenter from ABC3. It had become obvious that Good Game, with steadily rising viewing figures and the most active forum on the ABC’s website, was just the ticket for this purpose.

The reaction from the viewers has been, of course, outrage; it has been a very vocal outrage too, as this change arrived on television screens without any discussion with viewers or, it would seem, presenters. What billed itself as “by gamers, for gamers” was, when it came to whims of ABC management, just another ABC timeslot filler. Here is one of the more articulate forum postings:

Right this flipping fanboy stuff has got to stop. Please while you violate us, try not to patronize your audience. You both look like stooges when you make out like we gotta watch you. Unlike the actual game market in Australia, the interweb lets us view magazine-style game review shows of better calibre and originality in an instant. You ain’t new, and now you're starting to look like an after-school-special.

So why should we put up with your playschool-styled marketing tactics ABC? Why are we subsidizing this sort of behaviour? We pay them to buy a bunch of used BBC rubbish, which takes no time at all, so they muck around with an original formula that works.

I want the decision makers exposed for the measly muck merchants they are, dammit. Now we got these professional actors, people who did song and dance lessons instead of training to be the yogis of gaming that we, as Australians deserve. Actors who will spew whatsoever is on a script, and know they will have to cook and eat their own shoes if they loose the gig. There is that much bad acting in games now without this pair.

Also, she turned me into a newt.

I myself was disappointed enough to formally complain:

I have watched Good Game from its inception; never commented on the forums. I think that alongside Landline and Four Corners, Good Game is one of the few programmes that the ABC can be proud of. Well, was …

The ABC seems to have the idea that it can ape the BBC. Well, you can’t. Accept it. Why have three channels when you don’t have enough quality programming for one? All the marketing in the world will not alter the fact that people want to be entertained by good programming. Probably people will keep watching Good Game, but their experience will be poorer. And for what? A marketing opportunity.

For people who have chosen television as their vocation, the decision makers have precious little idea about what television is for. (Nor do they draw lessons from television as seen today. Jeremy Clarkson is a right tool, but take him away from Top Gear and you get Top Gear Australia … and no one’s much interested.) People form an emotional connexion with television programmes much like they would another person. It may be a mild connexion, where you suddenly wonder where the old news presenter has gone; or it can run deep, where you weep over the end of a series. Like real relationships, they can’t be faked … and it genuinely hurts to see them torn asunder.

It’s clear to me that the new presenter can be slotted into place in a variety of garbage ABC programmes, whereas Junglist (Jeremy Ray) has limited “utility”. Viewers have a right to be disgusted; it’s another classic example of the ABC making programmes for an audience that doesn’t watch the ABC but would want to watch if it did. Worse still, the way in which it transpired showed contempt for everyone involved.

As for myself, I’m not watching anymore. Not as some pointless protest, but because the programme I watched and loved for many years now serves as a reminder that marketing is the only true artform left for us in this century. It’s too painful to bear.

Please communicate my contempt for the peabrains responsible for killing-off something special.

Of course I wrote it just to get the sense of pitiful disgust out of my system. However I think it’s a valid criticism that anyone in the industry with half a brain should have found a way to promote ABC3 and its dead-eyed, ADHD presenters without killing a golden-egg-laying goose. The idea that the sacking of one presenter was a cost saving measure is laughable.

Some may say “It’s just business”. But what then is this “business”? There’s the ABC Charter, but being broadly defined it actually doesn’t say much. Publicly funded television looks like it’s selling something (I don’t think management itself knows exactly what), and that is due to the management style which tries desperately to prove, using market indicators, that improvements are being made. No one in management is game to say that you can’t get any more out of the same funding. Television, certainly publicly funded television, has immense potential power, and commensurate responsibility. That the ABC has chosen to be nothing more than a brand image (and one borrowed from Britain, what’s more) is more than tragic. It’s another slice of Australian culture melting away into consumerism.

So like all those All Saints viewers who are left with a nest of tangled, unresolved and unresolvable plot lines, I am less likely to commit to a relationship with a new television programme. You only get hurt.

Not going.

I had a think about “doing” Europe like I failed to about a decade ago … thought better of it. I watched Withnail & I again … remembered that Crow Crag – the holiday home in the Country, Penrith – was sold recently, and no doubt now looks like one of those ghastly homes on Grand Designs. It’s all gone …

I then compounded my melancholy by watching My Beautiful Laundrette; all gone. Thatcher’s victory is complete, and London is dead.

“London is a town coming down from its trip. We are ninety one days from the end of this decade, and there’s going to be a lot of refugees. They’ll be going round this town shouting “Bring out your dead”. […] Politics, man. If you’re hanging on to a rising balloon, you’re presented with a difficult decision — let go before it's too late or hang on and keep getting higher, posing the question: how long can you keep a grip on the rope? They're selling hippie wigs in Woolworth’s, man. The greatest decade in the history of mankind is over. And as Presuming Ed here has so consistently pointed out, we have failed to paint it black.”

One has always been lead to believe that people, life, is essentially changeless, and only the superficial ever reveals time’s march. Not so now. The world changes so swiftly, partly because of technological wonders but more so due to the compounding nature of a cultureless, homogenised society. So much so that, in this state of amnesia, we are moulded by brutal forces unmediated by cultural sensitivities, hopelessly beyond our control.

The places I really want to go to now only exist inside my skull. There’s a story by this French bloke about an eccentric toff who decides to go to London, reads up on the subject, but comes to the conclusion that the idealised vision he as concocted for himself is far preferable to the reality, and decides to stay at home. Oh it’s bad news … . I wonder if one ever gets entirely used to the pain of “can’t have”.

Not with a bang, not with a whimper.

I was reading about climate change recently, and my attention was drawn to Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. I’ve not read it, but a sample is enough to tell me that page after page of purple prose is not my idea of fun. Suffice it to say that it is bleak; that was the reason it was mentioned in relation to climate change.

“Nothingness … Non-existence … Black emptiness”

“What did you say?”

“Oh I was just planning my future.”

Ever since the fall of Communism people, especially Americans, have been getting antsy about finding another way to worry about the future. It’s a special kind of worry that lends a kind of meaning to life. There’s a well known poem by Cavafy, which I won’t trouble you with by repeating, that sums up this behaviour. Now, you and I know that climate change is quite real, and the bad news is in the mail. That’s a given. But the really bad news is that the future won’t look like some millennialists wet dream, and Wormwood will not fall from heaven … there won’t even be Mad Max. The real tragedy is that humanity will not be extinguished, and that we will have to look at the nightmare we’ve created, and keep looking at it.

Mankind will find a way through almost anything, and to do so will do almost anything. I pray I will not be one to hand out the towels to the nonexistent showers.

P.S. I saw the line “There is no God, and we are his prophets.” was mentioned as a line from the book. Now you and I know that this line was actually wittily spoken about Paul Dirac (by Pauli?), but if you’ve read The Road, or know anything about McCarthy, do you suppose he just stole it or what?

And on that issue …

Obama and the Peace Prize.

After hearing Downer’s comments I thought I might jot down my thoughts on the matter, although you can probably guess what they’d be. There is an obvious irony to Downer’s spat, given that he was Australia’s longest serving foreign minister and did nothing memorable at all during his tenure (Timor? Oh don’t be so naïve). The bare truth of the matter is that Obama singlehandedly turned the U.S. from the most despised nation on the face of the Earth to one which seems to offer hope for a better way forward for international relations. No one else could’ve done it. Period.

And it wasn’t mere happenstance that got him there. To paraphrase Chris Rock: the black man must fly to where the white man can simply walk. This is unequivocal fact. Period. To say he’s had no achievement is to ignore these two facts.

So of course people (and what people, right? You wouldn’t want to spend time in their company would you? You see, that’s what interests me about the debate: Why are people grudgeful?) say the Prize is devalued, or politicised, or whatever. The grapes were sour … . If they really thought that then the argument would not be that Obama did not deserve it but that the Prize represents nothing anyway. It would be stretching credulity to say every laureate thus far equally deserved their honour. I was dumbstruck, for example, that Lech Walesa called it “too soon”, when he was awarded it in 1983, just three years after Solidarity was founded and several years before it became anything of consequence (and he got help from the Pope!). One might call his a political choice too … .

Downer. Never was a man more aptly named. Here’s a man so ensconced in his own fantasy that probably hasn’t altered significantly since Geelong Grammar that he can’t begin to grasp the thinking process of other people (which was the cause of his most infamous remark; his one memorable remark … come on, I know you remember it). A worse choice for a diplomat I can’t imagine. But you know he probably feels he has to say what he said to confirm prejudices, his own and others. And yet, all he had to say was “Yeah, actually I think it was a good idea to give it to Obama.” and he could’ve been one to raise the torch higher. Wouldn’t; couldn’t.

Channel Nine Fucks Up Again.

Yes it was racist; what does that mean? You look at the audience (and I didn’t watch it of course; I saw it on Mediawatch), and they’re bopping along; the only real joke being made was that no one seems to have drawn attention to the fact that Michael Jackson changed his skin colour. That this flagrantly obvious fact was barely mentioned, let alone discussed, in the wider media gave the joke its power (what power there was, anyway). It was not lampooning gollywogs. If anything the audience seemed to see it in a very positive light; they were clapping to the beat … if they felt any guilt it was because they were clearly enjoying a rather naff song from the Eighties.

We are, as a nation, clearly too dumb to appreciate the relevance of some forms racism. But if that’s true, then nearly everyone else is too racist to appreciate subtlety. It is typical for the classless and funky - Americans in particular - not to confront racism, and understand it as a social phenomenon. The “Don’t mention the War” attitude in respect to racism is itself a very obvious marker for racism.

As far as we ourselves go, it’s a perfect example of our curious racism that the fact that the performers were multicultural was used as a defence. Australian’s generally don’t have a clue (and if you don’t, well it behoves me to remind you that it wouldn’t matter if the performers were any colour you like) about racism because, I think, ours doesn’t conform to racism elsewhere. Which is not to say we’re not racist; it is still common to hear Aboriginals denigrated in most obscene ways.

If China, Lebanon and Vietnam played cricket there would be much less racism in Australia. Laughable? Well, being colonial masters imbued the Poms with racist ill will (just as we’re de facto colonial masters over the Aboriginal population, a condition which persists); yet we look upon Commonwealth West Indians with no trace of racism as far as I can detect. The Indian Students attacks? These attacks seem, though I may be wrong, to be almost a natural consequence of the factors involved: they occurred in poorer parts of Melbourne; there was a sudden increase in the visibility of Indian students; the attackers were often from other marginalised ethnic groups; the basic racism all people have (and it’s true whatever you say) that seems to colour all social relations.

Channel Nine didn’t pick up on the problem because their bread and butter lies in appealing to racism … of the kind designed to produce contempt. They are acutely aware of what will hurt people, because that’s what their viewers watch for. The skit wasn’t designed to stir contempt, and thus completely fell under the radar.

Fuckin’ Economics 101

I heard some joker on ABC local radio this morning (no work today, cough cough), a liberal MP (a Mr Some Fuckstick if I remember correctly) saying how fiscal policy was at odds with the RBA’s rate adjustment. Turns out this has been the line for all those right-wing losers who’re waiting around for the second coming. Can I just say this:

Just because you’ve got a vague idea of how a reserve bank works doesn’t mean you know beans about economics generally. Stop trying to fool the public.

I mean come on, who’s falling for this bullshit?

In Defence of Blogging ... zzzzzzzzzz ...

I did wonder why every other blog (and this one, for awhile) had died recently; I assumed that most blogs were things done while you waited for something else to happen … having happened, many have ceased to be useful. My own included, obviously, though nowadays it serves as a dustbin for idle thoughts. But it was never in the strict sense a diary (or at least I hope not … I’d hate to think I’d “grown” visibly here; the internet is not the place for doing that).

Then I read the Wired article declaring Blogging to be dead. It was devoured by its children, the tweets and mugshots. But essentially it became too popular. There is no effective means to sort through all the pages to come up with something genuine and the sense of community (was there one? After a fashion …) evaporated, i.e. went private. Possibly it was a generational thing …I ain’t down wiv da kids etc.

But Twitter is obviously useless for any kind of reflective thought. Where do you go for the idle speculation on the interior life of ordinary people? You know, the stuff that used to be in the novel before it died. And FingerprintFile is the sort of thing the Stasi would’ve loved. Yes I’m sure it’s interesting, but even though I had a wonderful time in High School, I don’t want particularly to know my old classmates anymore.

We must now turn, then, to the question of the audience. Id est: You. What’s your problem eh? You don’t come ‘round here no more … . I’ve always written to the ether and haven’t a clue about whether there is anyone out there reading, though I’m vaguely aware that there are programs for finding out, but it would be nice to be noticed I suppose. Mind you, I don’t make comments anywhere either so I suppose it’s even.

Twitter and Mugshot are closed environments. Although it may be in a public place, it is essentially a network of known people and not the public. That makes for less interesting prose usually, e.g.: “Guess what? I just washed my car!”. Moreover you’re preaching (should you wish to preach, though I also mean inform or entertain) to the converted. And why bother? In a public space, it’s like talking in class.

Yeah but what do you get out of it?

Mumble mumble … .

Let It Rain Forever

Qualified Privilege … or … The Plebs Are Back in Town

The internet, and blogging, has its uses. For example, I think it would be good to know that somewhere in medialand (which admittedly this blog is on the extreme fringes of) there is written a little counterbalancing statement to the seemingly complete absence of any kind of reference to the fact that:

Madonna King is a bullying, ignorant arsehole.

Nobbing the editor is certainly one way of getting your dross in the paper. Well, that’s just the way it goes, isn’t it? But where does she get off thinking she’s all that? I’ve occasionally listened to her morning show on the A.B.C. and have always been struck by her bullying behaviour. It mostly falls into two categories: the “Look, I know that already …” dismissive “you can’t fool me” rhetoric, and the “Let me ask you again …” complete failure to listen to her interlocutor. I really get the impression she’s actually not very bright and has got into this position by sheer force of self-belief. It could be a feint, but the line between image and bona fide idiot seems to me to be very blurry.

The line she takes in all the many media outlets she works for is of a kind destined to garner for herself a following of fuckwits with which to increase her celebrity. And it is celebrity, as opposed to a reputation for journalistic rigour, which is the basis for the success of a person like Alan Jones. Personally, I don’t think she belongs on the A.B.C..

I never thought of journalism as a career, although I like to write and uncover facts hitherto undisclosed. But I know I’m not that good. People would do well to measure themselves against the best, and think twice before filling up the limited pages of print media with shit. (The internet is different though, isn’t it? It doesn’t matter at all …) What really gets on my tits is that as a “media personality” King thinks she doesn’t work in a factory for a fat man like everybody else. Righteousness is hardly seemly for someone working in journalism. I remember Andrew Denton (who himself warned of becoming a “TV arsehole”) interviewing Mark “Chopper” Read, and assuming he’d get the better of a “If someone hands me a slab of beer of course I’ll drink it.” mentality. I was relieved to see Denton brought back down to Earth from the “You are very clever aren’t you?” of earlier interviews.

The Casuals

I happened to notice an A.B.C. online news item a few days ago – I can no longer remember the content of the item – and I noticed there were a large number of comments beneath the article. The comments provoked me into writing, being as they were inconceivably, aggressively blase. It was an old favourite: the dole bludger. I don’t believe they exist, not least nowadays; benefits probably aren’t what they used to be in the Seventies. And yet in the minds of many they do exist. Watching Four Corners last night I heard the same claims about the homeless living the life of Riley, an idea that would not last a nanosecond of reflective thought. Okay …

The Federal budget for social services for 09/10: 111 billion, roughly a third of expenditure.
Of that: 41 billion in aged pensions, i.e. your dear old Gran. Who demands they should get less?
Then: Family Tax Benefits and payments at 30 billion; almost all families receive something … if you disagree with this type of payment then basically you are a motherfucker (er, actually probably not … but certainly an odious person nonetheless, and certainly part of a tiny minority who doesn’t/didn’t benefit from this type of payment).
The rest, 40 billion, includes veterans’ payments (the guys and dolls who kept you from eating sauerkraut and other terrible fates), disability payments (hard to say they have it easy, wouldn’t you agree?), youth payments (which go to the children of paupers and millionaires alike – this I know for fact), other programs and unemployment payments, and finally administration (4 billion).

The amount set aside for unemployment (and sickness and youth payments), i.e. the dole, is 9 billion. If we are really generous and say that half are dole bludgers in the biblical sense, that’s 4.5 billion for those who “just don’t feel like working, God bless ‘em”.

For comparison:

The private health rebate is budgeted as 4.1 billion.
Federal payments to private schools is 6.3 billion.

Or looking at it another way 0.56 cents out of your income tax dollar (give or take). (Or in a really different way what Disney paid for Marvel comics recently.) Speaking as someone who spends his time with other people’s tax affairs, I can tell you that it is tax avoidance, which costs the country well in excess of 4.5 billion dollars a year, which should make people mad as hell, and not some poor, dumb bastard who is obviously so destroyed by life that he prefers not to work. This is ignoring the fact that the dole is never saved or used for (serious) asset purchases but is spent, and doing good in the economy.

There are of course plenty of other areas where people are getting a free ride where they are well-off as it is, but it strikes me as perplexingly odd that tax cheat is not as anger-making as the dole bludger. The only plausible reason is that people who do complain must simply not believe in the welfare state.

This gets back to my original point: it is intellectual laziness, a casualness, that allows people to ignore the fact that dole bludgers are if not a myth then inconsequential, and to deny the fact that if again we spend a nanosecond in reflection we realise that without the welfare state our society would collapse spectacularly. It’s not 1880 now, and odds-on it won’t be 1880 in the future.

Smart casual is an oxymoron.