Unskilled Labor
After several weeks of brainstorming, the spin doctors in Canberra have produced a phrase for the policy and PR disaster that was the Federal Government’s home insulation scheme – ‘Fuck-up’. It’s one of those typical weasel words that tries to make a positive out of a hopelessly negative scenario. But when the media advisors scurried back to the PM’s office with the result of their considered deliberations and formally advised that, going forward, the home insulation program shouldn’t be referred to as a ‘troubled scheme’ but rather a ‘fuck-up’, the government knew there was going to be no flavour enhancer for this barium meal. (‘Going forward’ is, of course, spin-speak for the apparently-too-dull ‘In the future’. It gives an active voice to something that usually has a passive (and clear) voice, thereby conferring a misleading sense of dynamism on the speaker. Hence, ‘In the future, my career could go backwards,’ becomes ‘Going forward, my career could go backwards.’)
The minister who took the bullet for the fuck-up is Peter Garrett. It amuses me, though possibly not him, that the online ‘dictionary.com’ defines ‘garret’ as an ‘attic, usually a small, wretched one.’ Did the minister really think that adding an extra ‘t’ to his name was going to divert attention from this incriminating link? That is the action of a man in panic.
I don’t know how a Federal Government ministry works, and neither do several Federal Government ministers by the look of it, but I would have thought that if the idea was to come up with a scheme to employ, very quickly, a whole lot of unskilled labour, perhaps a scheme that didn’t put these people in a known dangerous environment might have been in order. An environment where your safety and that of a house and its occupants perhaps isn’t reliant on a set of skills that you, by definition (i.e. ‘unskilled’), do not have.
Even taking into account the Global Financial Crisis and the drought, I think one of the larger problems facing the Labor Government is that they’re not all that good at governing. Credit where it’s due, Labor are superb in Opposition. Experience counts, and they’ve had eleven years of it. It looked like such a natural fit. Labor simply exuded a ‘Born Not To Rule’ quality. Unlike the Coalition, who have really been thrashing around like a fish on a pier. In government the Coalition had one leader in eleven years. In Opposition they’ve had three in three years. In fact if they’d changed their leader as often in government as they have in Opposition, they may still be in government.
It’s easy to kick the government when they’re down, but this shouldn’t stop us doing it. Why should we only do things that are difficult? Sit back, relax and take aim. But having said that, let me say this. There’s an aspect to the insulation fuck-up that I haven’t seen discussed much so far, namely the people who actually did the upwards fucking. How many times have I heard the lazy-brained talkback caller proclaim that politicians only care about themselves; that all they do is sit around voting themselves pay rises. So, against the backdrop of this searing political analysis, I find it noteworthy that when the government actually puts a huge wad of money out there, targeting small business and unskilled labourers, a disappointing percentage of them abuse, scam and rort the scheme, thereby ensuring nothing like it will ever happen again in their lifetime. Almost as if to ensure that our simplistic vision of politics and politicians would never be challenged again.
Whether it was Minister Garret(t)’s fault or not, obviously this scheme could have been bet(t)er managed, but it could also have been accessed honestly, fairly and diligently by small business (the backbone of the country, apparently). We’re pretty quick to pat ourselves on the back when we rally together to help victims of a natural disaster, but not so quick to kick ourselves in the anus when we act like a bunch of savages.
Gary McCaffrie is a Melbourne-based writer. ‘Very Small Business’, the TV series he wrote with Wayne Hope and Robyn Butler, is available on DVD with a generous selection of extras.
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