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Re-wrapped spending shows govt's green side |
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By Winged Rodent
At a time when the world focuses on the dangers of climate change, the government appears to be going green - by recycling its spending this Christmas.
We could see the $200 million 'budget' allocated to fighting truancy and crime among teens as a form of "up-cycling” – a term coined to describe "the creation of a product with higher intrinsic value from a material at the end of its service life."
In other words, it is taking an empty ice-cream container, covering it with glitter and calling it a present.
While we appreciate the government embracing green principles, issues like truancy and crime are far too serious to warrant such a limited response.
The $200 million budget for the addressing the drivers of crime group, is in fact the sum total of money already being spent across many different budget lines. Money that includes a reshuffling of $45 million from the special education budget.
There is no new money and it is misleading for Anne Tolley to use figures like this to imply that there is.
The $200 million figure also illustrates dubious numeracy skills. Since when did zero plus zero equal $200 million?
Tolley's suggestion that individual schools be given scope to 'find their own solutions' to serious behaviour problems was a simplistic answer to a complex problem, and It’s about time that the government stopped throwing these problems back at schools.
We know that teachers and schools continue to do a good job with limited (and shrinking) resources, but these issues are complex and require new funding that enables coherent, well-coordinated responses from a range of agencies.
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