Heroin for Dole-Bludgers

– A plan for Australia

I heard an very good story on ABC’s PM a while back. Apparently treasury –working on “the principle of least regret” – don’t want unemployment to go any lower for fear of triggering dangerous inflation.

Well, I thought, I guess I can stop faking my fortnightly Job-Seeker-Diary then?

In my head I saw treasury official coming into Centrelink office and standing up on the counter to get our attention. He speaks:

Fellow citizens, our nation owes you a debt, if it were not for your sacrifice, for the poverty and humiliation in which you live, we, the successful ones, could not prosper, or feel superior to some one. You serve two great purposes in this nation, keeping those with shitty low level jobs motivated to show up for fear of joining your warty and unappealing ranks, and providing a non-racial scapegoat, ideal for redirection of scorn from the burgeoning ethnic middle class. We know that in your hearts you crave a place in society where you can contribute, where your talents and good nature can be appreciated by colleagues and those who benefit from your work, but sorry, the current system simply cannot provide that for everyone. It’s a zero-sum game, if we help you we hurt mainstream Australia, and I mean who would you pick? The battlers or a bunch of skummy dole-bludgers?

Have any of you considered heroin? We’ve done the research and found it is the most effectitive way to sap any ambition or long term goals. Users even say it destroys the part of them that feels shame, so they no longer care what the rest of society thinks. We’re introducing a new scheme, where centrelink will increase your fortnightly payments to $750 from the current $500. We’ve calculated this to be exactly enough to support a moderate to heavy heroin addiction along with a subsistence diet of beans and discarded cooking oil. Sure, you wont be the builder, baker, community worker or national parks ranger you might have dreamed of being, but really, how likely was that any way? At least this way you’ll be comfortably numb, and the rest of us can get on with the Australian dream.

...and stay down!

Seriously though, having mainstream economists put it so bluntly, that capitalism does require a certain degree of poverty and suffering in order to function, is interesting.

On a less theoretical note, though, since we’re doing it for the country, then, and shouldn’t be hoping for jobs, can we have a bit more money, please?

Outside Villawood Detention Centre 21 September 2010.

When (on Tuesday Sept 21, 2010) inmates of the prison full of innocent people called the Villawood Immigration Detention Centre took to the roof, threatening suicide (following the suicide of a detainee facing deportation the day before), protesters, the (stupidly aggressive) police, locals, and the press gathered round outside. This is some very rough cut footage of that:

The long interview is with Daniel Burke, an activist from the Refugee Action Coalition

Oh and here is a transcript of my conversation the two bogans early in the piece since the wind on the mic is much louder than them:

Me: You guys aren’t here for the protest then?

B1: Nah we wanna see someone jump!

Me: Okay. What are your names guys?

B1: Bob

B2: Bummo – [I think this is what he said]

Me: And where are you guys from?

B2: Just around the corner

B1: Bankstown!

Me: So your locals

Both Bs in unison: Yeah

Me: You see a lot of protests here?

B1: Nah…[inaudable] we just wanna see some blood.

Me: Okay. You missed the suicide yesterday?

B1: naaahhh, what?  That the guy that landed on his head?

Me: yeah

B1: oh that was pretty sick.

I should add, a little while later they actually started asking me questions about the issue, and I tried explaining – in what was a simplification – that the guys on the roof were threatening to jump because we wouldn’t let them in to Australia. To which B2, who seemed the more thoughtful of the two, said, “that’s coz we pay for them”. I pointed out that it cost more to keep them in detention than let them out, which left them nodding thoughtfully.  I think we should be careful when making that point though, in that we only make it as a way of deflating the rather illogical argument that we have to lock them up to save money. No politicians I know of make this argument, of course, because it is so blatantly stupid. The people who support their anti-asylum stand, however, don’t really think things through that often, and will conflate immigrants with dole bludgers as the ugly “them” that are ruining everything good.

The problem is, that arguing that we should release them into the community while their applications are processed because it is cheaper, is like arguing that the genocide of Tasmania’s aborigines was a bad idea because they could have been used as cheap labor. The point is these people are, in the vast majority of cases innocent of any crime. It is not a crime to flee persecution and seek asylum.

I’ll be writing up a proper article on the issue for the next edition of The Sydney City Hub.

*Update* The article is now published and available online here

Oh and in case u missed it here is a video me and some peeps shot at Villawood a month and a bit ago.

Peace.