Should Be All Smiles, Shame About The Rotten Teeth

Sydney Morning Herald

Saturday June 9, 2007

Adele Horin

Australia is rolling in it. We live in an economic nirvana, according to the latest statistics on growth and employment. Yet on the same day the data on our bouncing economy was released, the federal Minister for Education, Julie Bishop, told us governments could no longer afford to fund schools adequately, and corporate Australia should step into the breach.

"It's almost beyond the capability of any one government to resource schools so that they have access to the latest and best technology," she said. "And yet we have companies in this country who would be well positioned to support provisions of these resources in schools."

What is the point of these best of times if we cannot provide the resources all public schools, for a start, require? And surely this is the right time to embark on programs to fix glaring deficiencies in other areas, such as provision of preschool education for three- and four-year-olds, a dental care system that is a source of pride not shame, and public transport that delivers. It is always the right time, it seems, to invest in military hardware. Surely in the best of times governments can invest in social infrastructure.

Far be it from me to extol the 1950s and '60s, but I do recall that in that fecund era when the suburbs were spilling over with children, the government built the schools and provided the science blocks, libraries and home-science blocks. I do not know the ratio of school children to gross domestic product back then, or the relative cost of science blocks versus today's computers. But I know the country was poorer and there were a lot of children. Most of them attended government schools, and we could afford to provide what was needed then, but apparently, not now.

Business should not be expected or asked to fund social infrastructure that is rightly the business of government. Why would companies agree without expecting a return? Even the most philanthropic corporations could never provide a school system with needed technology. No, it is the business of government to resource the schools and there has never been a better time.

It is not old-fashioned, old lefty or old hat to expect higher investment in public services and amenities now that the county can afford it. The gap between left and right has virtually closed on a host of economic issues, from the benefits of free trade and competition to the undesirability of centralised wage fixing and welfare dependency. Since Hawke and Keating's days there has been a broad consensus on how to generate a healthy, wealthy economy. As Fred Argy, a former Treasury adviser, said in an address last year: "Economic liberalism can be a force for social good, provided it is driven by efficiency concerns rather than small government ideology - and is matched by appropriate social policies."

The question now, in the 16th year of growth, is how best to spend the dividends of prosperity.

The Howard Government has conditioned people to expect the dividend to be paid as an annual tax cut. But in Britain, which has experienced boom times under its Prime Minister, Tony Blair, there has been a vigorous debate over how to spend the dividend. Ilan Katz, who left the Policy Research Bureau in Britain more than two years ago to join the Social Policy Research Centre at the University of NSW, was "amazed" at the contrasting responses to good times. In Britain "the debate was not about who got the most tax cuts but which public services got the most investment".

A rich country such as Australia should not have the lowest expenditure on pre-school education of 20 OECD countries. The federal and state governments have failed miserably to grasp the moment to overcome their wrangling and invest in early years programs to level the playing field for children. Politicians bang on about the need for Australia to be "internationally competitive" but are unconcerned about our low ranking in areas such as early intervention programs or mental health.

In this economic nirvana, people should not face such huge battles to get their teeth fixed. Infected gums and missing teeth are the visible markers of disadvantage today; people should not have to suffer pain and ostracism because they cannot afford private health insurance, or to see a dentist.

And why, in this best of times, is housing affordability at its lowest since records began 23 years ago? Tony Nicholson, the executive director of the Brotherhood of St Laurence, wrote recently that after all these years of prosperity: "We face a nationwide rental housing crisis the likes of which we haven't experienced since World War II." More government investment in public housing to reverse the decades-long decline is wishful thinking. But the Government could target tax breaks away from negative gearers in general to those who invested in low-cost housing.

Like the Nordic countries, Austria and the Netherlands, Australia can be both rich and fair. And if not now, when?

© 2007 Sydney Morning Herald

Back to News Index | Back to Home