The need for social compassion

Listening to Peter Costello the other night – between bedtime stories, putting toys away and whatever else needed doing – I couldn't help but feel that on an almost daily basis – or at least as often as I get to read/hear some sort of news/media – there seem to be more and more examples that illustrate: Australia – the uncaring society. How have we come to a point where it is considered to be more important to accumulate wealth than to educate our children and young people, and to provide people with disabilities with a decent standard of living and access to the support services they need? I find it highly concerning where the order of the day – the need for budget surpluses, low taxes, the massive accumulation of wealth by a very small proposition of individuals – is seen as being more important than issues of social justice. We must do more to create a more caring compassionate society. Caring is good for health.  

Some quotes from Peter Costello on 7:30 Report 30/4/13: http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2013/s3748704.htm

“I mean, here we are, Julia Gillard says we've got a structural deficit which we now have, that we've come off record terms of trade, which we now are, and so what's her response? New spending. We're still going into new spending. We're going into the NDIS, we're going into the Gonski spending. Wouldn't you sit back and say we've had five budget deficits in a row, we're heading for another one, we shouldn't be introducing new spending.

"Well, well I would start with the Gonski funding for starters. So here we can't pay for our spending so what are we going to do, we're going to go out and spend more on schools. So let's go to the NDIS. We can't pay for our spending so we'll spend more on disability. We can't pay for our spending to we'll pay for parental leave.

I'd only say this. I wouldn't be introducing it (NDIS) in this form at this time. The budget's in deficit. To fund it you'll have to borrow more money. Wouldn't you say, seeing as we're in deep deficit, seeing as we can't afford to pay for all the spending we've currently got on the books, why should we actually spend more? I'd actually be looking at ways in fact to reduce the spending now, maybe to put it - put some money aside in the future. I wouldn't be sitting down and saying we'll go into a new spend which could be when it fully flowers something like $8 billion a year.”