Gambling in NSW: Good news (Russell Crowe) and Bad news (Keno) today

Gambling is a huge problem in Australia. Today I was pleased to hear some Good News and Bad News about gambling.  First the Bad News:

Bad News

The NSW State Government has approved the introduction of Keno, a lottery game, into hotels (pubs).  This, despite the previous Premier saying just two years ago "no more  gambling".  Of course the Government gets more money in taxes, as well as money donated to the Labor Party.  (SMH, ABC, ABC)

It is additionally disappointing that Kevin Rudd (Federal Labor Leader) has said that it is necessary for the States to do this in the short-term for the taxes gathered. (SMH)

Good News

Three cheers for Russell Crowe and co-owner of the South Sydney Leagues Club, Peter Holmes a Court, for proposing to do away with pokies in the Club!  They intend to pursue the revenu epreviously raised from gambling (about $7 million per year) from other sources.  That proposal has yet to be approved by the Club Board and Members, but Russell Crowe and Peter Holmes a Court are to be congratulated for attempting to revise the perceptions of how to raise revenue, to do away with gambling. (SMH)

 

Lifestyle choices

I saw this on a web site* a while ago, and it has really made me think. I already sponsor one child, a little 7-year old girl in Mongolia. Today I was out shopping, and saw the new iPods. They’re very cool. And then I saw a World Vision** stand there in the shopping centre. I had been thinking of sponsoring another child, and so when I saw them I had to go ahead and do that! I now sponsor a 3-year old boy, also in Mongolia.

The message of the image above had been bouncing around in my head, reminding me of perspectives and balance. I probably will buy a new iPod sometime soon, but what has really thrilled me is sponsoring this additional child. Won’t you consider doing that, too? Or make a one-off donation? Every little bit helps. Here’s where you find out more:

• Sponsor a child
• Donate to improve the life of a child
• Find out more about the work of World Vision in Mongolia

* I didn’t make a note of where I found this graphic. If you know where it came from, please let me know and I will gladly give the correct acknowledgment here.

** Charity Navigator has given World Vision a 4-star rating after evaluating its organizational efficiency and capacity.

 

Food for thought: welfare deepens poverty and encourages fatherlessness?

Today I heard someone quoting Pope John Paul II, saying that public welfare deepens and entrenches material poverty. He said that it is a “disincentive to intact families”, encouraging fathers to leave their families.

Here are a few paragraphs from a report from the Acton Institute for the Study of Religion & Liberty, entitled “Transforming the Culture of Fatherlessness“:

John Paul II warned in Centesimus Annus about problems associated with the welfare state, also termed the social assistance state: “the Social Assistance State leads to a loss of human energies and an inordinate increase of public agencies, which are dominated more by bureaucratic ways of thinking than by concern for serving their clients, and which are accompanied by an enormous increase in spending” (48). In the U.S. alone, spending on means-tested welfare programs in the past thirty years has exceeded 5.4 trillion dollars. In a large and vibrant economy, such expenditures might be warranted if they succeeded in eliminating poverty. The problem is, as the pope so keenly appreciates, public welfare programs are typified by ways of thinking that instead deepen and entrench material poverty. Moreover, these “bureaucratic ways of thinking” cannot address profounder needs of human persons, often adding moral and spiritual deprivations to the poverty suffered. In the U.S., welfare programs have fostered the development of an “underclass” characterized by multi-generational poverty and social dysfunction. This phenomenon in the U.S. is multiracial and both urban and rural.

Among communities dominated by the welfare system, fatherlessness is rampant. Today, fully 90 percent of U.S. families receiving cash welfare from government are without a father in the home.

The very sociology of public welfare entails disincentives to intact families. Welfare programs address primarily or exclusively the material needs of people, most often of women and their children. When women and children are provided for by the state, a traditional and natural role for a father is usurped, undermining a man’s sense of place in the family. Women, too, may judge the state to be a more reliable supporter than a husband, and opt out of marriage altogether. Both of these possibilities are indeed actualized under a regime of public welfare. In addition, welfare policies undermine two-parent families and encourage out-of-wedlock births in a host of other ways. To take but two examples: per-child benefit adjustments alter the mix of variables affecting an unmarried woman’s decision to conceive additional children, and low-income men are given incentives to leave their families when benefits packages favor single-parent households.

How would you respond to that? What would be your arguments for and against this? Would there be a difference between welfare provided by the State vs welfare provided by an organization (e.g. the Salvation Army / Sydney City Mission / some other non-government organization)?

 

Australia can learn from Ireland on poverty reduction

A few days ago I commented on the results of the Australia Fair report, showing that the number of Australians below the poverty line has increased. In today’s SMH there is an article by Adele Horin about how Ireland can teach us a thing or two about how to deal with poverty. The article has a telling comment:

Unlike Australia, the Irish Government has acknowledged that entrenched poverty can exist in the midst of affluence. No matter how glowing the economic indicators, the Irish understood that a rising tide of prosperity, for one reason or another, failed to lift all boats, and it resolved to tackle the conundrum head-on.

Ireland introduced a plan to reduce poverty, and in the 10 years since it was introduced, the poverty rate has dropped from 15% down to 5%, and aims to keep on bringing that number down, to at least 2%.

A strong economy and low unemployment are not enough to tackle the poverty level issue: there needs to be a specific plan to reduce poverty. That includes working towards making housing more affordable, increasing the amount of public housing available for low-income earners, and increasing training options. That plan must include measures to help reduce poverty amongst the elderly.

 

When I give food to the poor…

Saw this quote from Dom Hélder Câmara on the Sandals at the Gate blog:

 

More Aussies below the poverty line

The Australian Council of Social Service (ACOSS) has released its Australia Fair report, comparing Australia to other countries in key areas. Here are some of their findings:

• Using the poverty line used in OECD countries of 50% of the medain income, the number of Australians below the poverty line has increased from 7.6% in 1994, to 9.9% in 2004 (2 million people)
• Using the poverty line used in the UK and Ireland of 60% of the median income, the number has increased from 17.1% in 1994 to 19.8% in 2004 (3.8 million people)
• The number of people below the poverty line is particularly marked for single people over 65: 39% at the OECD poverty line method and 60.1% at the UK

And yet, today Prime Minister Howard said that because we have a low unemployment rate that there is also now less poverty (news.com.au). Right. He just doesn’t get that while some sectors of the community are doing very well, for many the going is very tough.

 

Nobel Prize awarded to bank providing microcredit to poor

Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank have been awarded the Nobel Prize “for their efforts to create economic and social development from below”. The Grameen Bank has provided microcredit loans to more than seven million people, without demanding collateral.

In awarding the Prize, the Nobel committee said:

“Across cultures and civilisations, Yunus and Grameen Bank have shown that even the poorest of the poor can work to bring about their own development,” the secretive five-member committee said in announcing the award.

“Lasting peace cannot be achieved unless large population groups find ways in which to break out of poverty,” it said, adding Yunus’s goal was to end poverty in the world.

 

Act now to fight climate change, report warns

A coalition of aid, development and environmental non-government organisations has researched, and commissioned the CSIRO to research, the effects of climate change on development, particularly in the Asia-Pacific region. The results of the research showed that the likely effect of rising sea levels due to global warming will be to cause a mass exodus to Australia. The Australian Government is being urged to review its immigration program in light of this.

Australia has made a disproportionate contribution to global warming.

The report found, for example:

• Millions in the Asia-Pacific region will be forced to relocate, from sea level rises up to 50cm by 2070, having an economic impact of thousands of billions. Most affected will be islands in the Pacific, India, Bangladesh, Vietnam and China.
• The climate changes will trigger the increase of heat-related illnesses, while flooding and cyclones will also increase injuries and deaths.
• Water resources will be challenged with both drought, and intrusion of salt-water into freshwater sources.

World Vision Australia chief executive, Tom Costello, has said that it is the poorest of the poor who will be hardest hit. Climate change “fundamentally change the way we aid the world’s poor. It will undermine the value and impact of current aid spending and will lead to far greater calls for assistance from those hurt most. The impacts of climate change will require Australia to respond far more frequently.”

The World Vision Australia Media Release reported:

Victorian and Tasmanian moderator of the Uniting Church Rev Jason Kioa, himself a Pacific Islander, said global warming was as much a moral, social, economic and theological issue as an environmental one: “We’re deeply concerned about the impact climate change will have on the lives of vulnerable people in our region.”

The report recommends that Australian aid needs help the nations most likely to be affected by climate change to prepare for those changes, and to assist in working towards more use of renewable energy and energy efficiency. And, Australia needs to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions, while assisting those displaced by climate change.

For more details, see:

• The Climate Change & Development Roundtable reports, particularly the Executive Summary and “Australia responds: Helping our neighbours fight climate change”
• The World Vision Australia Media Release about the report.
• News.com.au’s summary