There is bipartisan political support in, at all levels of business and within the “poverty sector” for an approach treating homeless and other marginalised people as commodities-chips on a casino table where a few self elected, or sometimes government selected “leaders”,and government departments themselves use people as income generators for themselves.Nowhere is this more evident than in the Federal Governments “The Road Home” approach to homelessness. Together with over 6 billion dollars allocated from the Stimulus package-which will be paid off,we are told by Treasurer Wayne Swan,by 2019.This is a substantial amount of money – about 10% more than Rio Tinto paid in tax last year. Where is it going,and what is it being spent on?

Like the infamous and invasive Northern Territory Intervention,which ignores international Human Rights conventions to which Australia is a signatory, its easy to find the praise lavished upon the program by poverty industry types and politicians, and the reasons are exceedingly clear- the policies work exceptionally well for them and the organisations or departments which they represent. I have met just one ecstatic ex homeless person, who is over the moon about the housing solution he obtained- and he had a work relationship with the NGO which housed him.

In Sydney,we have the recently appointed Neami, holding themselves forth as the next good thing for homeless people. I had a homeless person contact me in the last few days, with diagnosed mental health issues and a recovery plan. Right up Neamis alley,I thought.I suggested she contact them.Oh.Theres a pre recorded message saying she needs a referral from a Health Service to use their case managers.Oh,she has a private psychiatrist? Shes disqualified,sorry.

While on the subject of Neami, there are rumblings of discontent from guys whom they offered jobs to,made jump through hoops,then told them that they needed to submit to a police check -AFTER COLLECTING THEIR PERSONAL information for their governmental and statistical database partners. Just another deceiving parasite NGO,it seems collecting rather a lot of money, to provide largely unnecessary “services” in place of housing.

On the subject of mental health, we have reported previously on the arrival of many ex mental institution care people on the streets, and their queue jumping-ahead even of families with children. Numbers unseen on the streets before, and appearing after “The Road Home”.

Since John Howard commissioned serial pariah Patrick McClure to compile “The McClure Report”, a feeding frenzy of NGOs have clamoured like pigs at the trough for the rivers of your tax money pouring from the leaking dam that is Australian Government.There was no issue raised of Patrick McClure ‘s self or ulterior motives at the time the report was released. The organisation he was then CEO (Mission Australia ) of made millions providing government with the wageslagery Workchoices which drove marginalisation. Mission Australia’s Mission Employment was and remains a leading provider of marginalised people as wageslaves, to be bent and exploited at the behest of greedy unscrupulous employers. The Salvation Army, ever on the lookout for a quid, saw no contradiction in this model, and rolled out its parrallel network, as did Kevin Rudd’s spouse Therese Rein, whose WorkDirections Australia was among the largest of these exploitative wageslavery NGOs.

The change of government drivers as Howard lost his grip on the steering wheel brought a flurry of name changes, but the “economy first” support the exploiters & fuck the workers agenda continues unabated. The change many so earnestly expected from Rudd, morphed into departmental name changes,tweaking of wording and maintenance of draconian pro business pro bank policies which enable a few, using the wealth stolen from aboriginals, to take control of ever more,while the people get ever less. Kevin Rudd PM’s spouse Therese Rein cashed in her marginalised people chips in Ingeus-Work Directions Australia, who are now Max Employment,to the tune of $12million – a just reward for enabling the exploitation of so many marginalised people by a few greedy boardroom dwellers.And who knows if she still has a controlling, or any interest  in that. But, like Mission Employment,Salvation Army,Max Employment and their ilk, they are still providing exploitative businesses with human fodder for their exploitation mills.

A search of the Job Network site last week revealed that very few of the thousands of “jobs” advertised stated what they would pay.Many used the phrase ‘award’ wages. Therese Rein’s Ingeus and Mission Australia were Howards Heroes when it came to awards. They wrote the book on Employer manufactured awards, written with a few token yes men workers, before the real workforce is hired. Undermining hard won workers rights.Award wages?? What the hell is that??

On July 1st, the marginalised safety net of Centrelink becomes a little less a safety net, and a little more about forcing people to accept unsafe, underpaid, exploitative working conditions, largely for the ‘self esteem’ of being able to say you have a job.Or you can become the direct slave of one of the plethora of multimillion dollar busnesses which masquerade behind the facade of “Not for profits”.

There are no government initiatives to raise Wages- to a level where they are sustainable, enabling a decent standard of living for workers.Instead, former union head honcho and current deputy PM Julia Gillard leads the chorus of ivory tower dwelling bipartisan politicians and economists singing ‘jobs,jobs,jobs’ to the same tune as the American Deep South once sang “slavery, slavery, slavery”.