Government Services: Whom Do They Serve?
25/02/2022
Peter Littlejohn
Have you ever asked yourself, probably while on the phone to a government department, why our bureaucracy seems to take so long? Why, despite being a so called “advanced nation”, nothing stamped with our coat of arms can ever be done on time? There’s a general belief in Australian society, both on the left and the right, that Government services are slow, inefficient, and expensive simply because government is slow, inefficient and expensive. This line of thinking has been used over the last several decades to justify the increasing privatisation of essential services, often at the expense of workers and the public. However, anyone who’s sat in line at a Centrelink, or at main roads, or who’s watched the news about the vaccine rollout would certainly testify that our government services do in fact run behind schedule. I would suggest that this is a deliberate choice made by our government to obfuscate simple services, preventing the working class from accessing its own entitlements and moving public money into private hands. In this article I will consider a few examples of how it’s the liberal in ‘liberal bureaucracy’ that is the cause of our frustrations.
Our first example is Centrelink. Anyone who’s ever had the misfortune of having to call the department of human services will know how terrible their service is. Despite claiming a wait time of approximately 15 minutes, the average wait time at a Centrelink is about 1 hour and five minutes [1]. If this wasn’t bad enough, if you wait for too long, Centrelink deliberately hangs up on you! Poor service from Centrelink’s call centres has seen 33 million calls missed from 2017 – 2018[2]. The cause for this, an audit from the national audit office revealed, is chronic under-staffing in the department [3]. This, you would think, would be an easy problem to fix. Were the Government to employ more workers, compensating them with a fair wage and reasonable conditions, wait times could be dramatically reduced. If the online services actually worked as advertised, there would be limited need to call in, and a smaller staff could handle a smaller number of callers.
However, since Centrelink was caught systematically ripping off “clients” through its botched robo-debt program [4], you could easily make the case that there is an ulterior motive. The issues within Centrelink are a deliberate ploy from successive governments to prevent the public accessing funds which they are legally entitled to. Why else would the Liberal government claim that they “hope” the robodebt program will add $4.5 billion to the “budget bottom line”? What they mean by this is that they hope they can claw back $4.5 billion from the most vulnerable Australians. The problem is not with telephones, or with computers, or the concept of welfare services. The problem is with capitalism, and neo-liberal ideology misusing government services to fill their back pockets and rob you of what you’re owed.
What this means is that your money is leaving the public purse and going directly into the hands of the bourgeoisie, who make this happen by spending their already ill-gotten wealth to prop up a corrupt and incompetent regime
When it comes to liberal bureaucracy, it’s not just slow, it’s expensive. Consider the beast that is the New South Wales Government. In 2016, the NSW government paid $53.5 million for a parcel of land worth only $15.5 million. Not even the worst punter at auction could stuff that one up! The Federal Government is also no stranger to bureaucratic skulduggery, having repeatedly abused its authority to put public money directly into the pockets of the capitalist class. In 2018, the federal government spent $30 million on 12 hectares of land intended to expand Western Sydney’s Airport. Not wanting to outdo their NSW compatriots, the feds spent ten times more on this parcel of land than it was officially valued at. This money went directly into the pockets of Liberal party donors, making this a clear case of quid pro quo corruption [5]. What this means is that your money is leaving the public purse and going directly into the hands of the bourgeoisie, who make this happen by spending their already ill-gotten wealth to prop up a corrupt and incompetent regime. Imagine what that money could have been better spent on: teachers, healthcare workers, hospital beds, and the overall public good.
Regardless of these massive blunders and missteps by successive governments, efficient and purposeful government services are not impossible. In a state run by the working class for the working class, almost anything is possible. In the Soviet Union, where housing was seen as both a public good and human right, tens of thousands of housing blocks were constructed over a single decade, bringing millions of Soviet people into conditions never before seen in the region. Essential goods were kept affordable for citizens and public transport was almost free. Compare this to our liberal “democracy” where it’s inconceivable that our governments would even admit that people deserve houses, food, or transport.
The USSR built homes for millions of people as they had a government that put the needs of the people first.
Capitalism is where people are left homeless, while mansions are left vacant to accumulate value for investors who have never even seen the building. When a state of the working class, under the leadership of a communist party, can put its mind to a task, there is no doubt that the state can be used to meet the people’s needs. The working class of Australia must continue to agitate in its offices, factories and workshops. We must continue talking, discussing and organising our power in our communities. We need to continue putting pressure on those corrupt, capitalist elites who walk over us, and we must fight for a future where the government works for us, not against us.
References:
[1] https://cxcentral.com.au/call-centre-wait-times-exposed/
[3] https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/6067231/centrelink-audit-reveals-chronic-understaffing/