Culture and Life
by Rob Gowland
Roll out the barrel
I was going to write about the crisis at Sydney's New Theatre this week, but I will do that next week instead. New Theatre's situation is unlikely to change in the interim and needs a little thought and investigation before I commit to print. So instead I will comment on a little thing that came to my attention in the past week. FOCUS NORTH: Issue No 15, is a remarkable piece of self-promotion by the Federal MP Joe Hockey, headed Looking Back on the Year 2000. Hockey is a Liberal Party "dry" and, as his flyer says, "represents over 125,000 people in 32 suburbs on Sydney's lower North Shore". Actually Hockey holds the seat almost by default: the Labor Party has more or less abandoned it and no charismatic independent has arisen (as Ted Mack did) to wrest it back from the Libs. When one does, Hockey will be history. The way the Libs intend to hold on to the seat, however, is clearly indicated in Hockey's newsletter. It is a glowing testimony to the principle of pork-barrelling. Every issue is dealt with solely in terms of how much Federal money was thrown its way. Education? The P&C of a local primary school got $15,000 for an adventure playground, and a private catholic college, St Pius X College, got $2000 in public money (to publish a book of military service histories of former college students) (something we've all been crying out for, I'm sure). Naturally, Joe makes no mention of the decline in funding for public education at all levels. Health care? A group providing support to drug users and their families received $50,000, Lane Cove Home and Community Care received $33,000 to fund nursing services for frail residents in their own homes and another homecare service, Hope Healthcare at Greenwich Hospital, received $168,000 to provide respite for carers. Roughly a quarter of a million dollars, all up. Spread over the 125,000 people in Hockey's electorate that comes to a princely $2 a head. Even Hockey must have thought this would be seen as inadequate, for he rather desperately adds in the Federal budget, claiming that the main hospital in the electorate, Royal North Shore, (gained) from the paltry $650 million provided to public hospitals (nationwide) in the 2000-2001 budget. No wonder that 67 percent of Lower North Shore residents have had to take out private health insurance (a statistic Hockey actually (boasts) about: Lower North Shore residents are (tops in the run for cover)!). What about social services? Well, the Chatswood Salvation Army and the North Sydney St Vincent De Paul Society received $39,000 and $26,000 respectively from the Federal Government's Emergency Relief program, so we don't have to worry about poverty, do we? In addition, the Guthrie Childcare Centre in the North Shore suburb of Wollstonecraft received $100,380 in capital funding while the Child Abuse Prevention Service got $30,000 (Hockey takes personal credit for this last one). Or the environment? A bushcare group in Hunter's Hill got almost $20,000 to repair tracks and monitor habitats, while the Flat Rock Gully Landcare Group received $70,000 for grassroots conservation. Hockey's implied message seems to be: "Vote for us: we'll take money away from the poor, the unemployed, the handicapped, from state schools, public hospitals, the Medicare system and the ABC, but we'll give some of it to YOU!" The concept obviously appeals to Hockey's supporters, but like him I think it needs camouflaging before it's used in elections. Most groups are naturally grateful for whatever funding they receive by way of Federal grants, no matter how grudgingly given or how much effort has to be expended trying to get them. But the whole lot of the grants listed still don't amount to serious money. For that you have to look at Hockey's (other) Federal grants. Proudly he informs his electorate that a Chatswood company, Compass Resources, has scored a cool $4.7 (million) in a Commonwealth Research and Development grant — (for a mining extract project in the Northern Territory). That should create lots of jobs in the Lower North Shore of Sydney, eh? The Americans have a name for grants of this type: (corporate welfare), public money given to companies to help them make profits or just to keep them in business. It's the natural outcome of a political view that sees government as merely an extension of business. Later in the year Hockey was able to crow about two local information technology companies who benefited to the tune of "over $6 million each" in funding to develop hi-tech ways of providing "support, business skill development, marketing and sales advice" to small businesses (top of the list will presumably be "How to apply for a Federal business grant"). Incidentally, while on the subject of small businesses, (the North Sydney- based HMAA Aust received a $30,000 Federal grant as part of the Small Business Enterprise Cultural Program to provide skills development and support for owner/managers in the hotel motel industry). What a strange definition of the word "cultural" must be embedded in that sentence! More corporate welfare was to come, however. In July 2000, Joe Hockey could be photographed presenting another North Sydney company, Bullant Pty Ltd, with $3.7 million. It's a "commercialisation loan", but I wouldn't hold your breath waiting for it to be paid back. The money will be used (to further develop 21st century technology, putting Australia at the cutting edge). The cliches flow like wine and so does public money into corporate coffers. And Joe Hockey is just one Liberal politician out of many, doing his best to buy his way back into parliament.