Come and join us

IT’s been well-known for some time now that the Tasmanian Government prefers to co-opt those who watch and criticise, rather than trying to convince them of its own worth.

Journalistic refugees from various Tasmanian newspapers and broadcasters now make up the bulk of the numbers in the Government’s spin office and can also be found dotted around various Government Departments and Ministerial offices.

And it’s not just the journalists who feel the hot breath of the Tasmanian Government come-on across the backs of their necks — during the last few weeks various members of the welfare sector have received invitations to join the ALP and stand at the next election.

These invitations seem to have been made regardless of the criticisms levelled at the Government by each recipient. In fact, it appears that the invites have only been sent to the most critical members of the sector, raising the probability that the
Government is again trying to silence criticism by inviting the critics into the fold.

It’s a tried and true strategy practised regularly by this Government — identify a critic or gatekeeper and then do its best to co-opt said critic/gatekeeper by offering Government contract positions.

In my opinion the elevation of the only journalist with balls during the first Bacon term, to chief spin doctor for the Bacon and now Lennon Governments, is the best example of this strategy at work. Unfortunately, there are so, so many more.

Which brings us to the Community Public Housing Trust, a new Tasmanian Government initiative that hopes to rely on the welfare sector to divvy up and distribute $3 million per year in housing exenditure. For me, this raises a number of issues, the biggest being the obvious potential for the Government to silence welfare industry critics of its massive public housing waiting list and its failure to re-invest in public housing after selling off a large proportion of the stock to prop up budgets.

Think about it — any welfare sector criticism of these issues will be met with the obvious retort “You are involved in housing via the Trust, why aren’t YOU fixing the problem”. And it won’t matter if the issue at hand is related to the Trust’s functions or not, this Government knows people are easily confused and will play on that mercilessly whenever ANY housing issue arises.

I must say that I am glad to see that TasCOSS in particular has already started making noise about the housing situation. Unfortunately, they have also welcomed the Trust idea which seems to indicate they will be joining the “partnership” a soon as its offered.

I just hope their leader is still there when the “Trust” offer is made formal — you see, word on the grapevine is that he’s the number one target on the list of welfare co-opts being sought as ALP candidates to soften the image of this ridiculous
administration.

Yours,
Jason Lovell