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SEPTEMBER UPDATE
JULY NATIONAL UPDATE
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We bring people
together in each federal electorate (150 electorates around
Australia) to work locally in engaging our communities and our
representatives in a non-party, neither-left-nor-right
agenda of empowerment of ordinary people.
CLICK HERE to join us. |
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SELF-DIRECTED
SERVICES AND PERSONAL BUDGETS
You can take charge of your social support, education and health
care through a personal budget.
CLICK HERE
for further information. |
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AGM SEASON
Making a difference in our not-for-profits.
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for further information. |
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STREET BY STREET
Linking
up people who live in the same
street or nearby to build community through practical helping
tasks - on a national scale.
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for further information. |
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COMMUNITY BUILDING
NATIONAL NETWORK
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to participate in the
Network. |
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LEFT AND RIGHT?
"The Left and Right have been as bad as each other. The Left has
allowed its distrust of markets and endless faith in government
to obscure the importance of civil society. The Right has been
so focused on replacing the state with markets that it has
forgotten how to cultivate a trusting society.
This is the politics of the absurd. The Left identifies with the
good society but rarely talks about the mutualism and trust
between people. The Right recognises the importance of moral
obligation but gives the impression of trusting market
transactions more than civil society.
Few things seem to happen anymore
without a government law or market transaction to guide
them. This is how record levels of GDP in Australia now sit
alongside record levels of crime, social stress and family
breakdown. The political balance needs to swing back towards
civil society.
This task, in fact, requires a new type of politics."
Mark Latham, Mutualism: A Third Way for Australia," 1999.
CLICK HERE
to read more. |
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SURVEYS |
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If you are the proprietor of
a small business, please send us your thoughts on how we can support
small businesses through our |
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SMALL BUSINESS SURVEY |
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If you
are caring for an ill or disabled family member at home, please click
here to participate in our |
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Family CarERS SURVEY |
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Family Carers: The Sleeping Giant of Australian Politics
What is the biggest common interest constituency in Australia? Trade unions? The green movement? Small business?
The answer may surprise many of our political elite. Home-based carers of people with a disability, chronic or mental illness, and the frail aged, number some 2.7 million people. Together with the
people they care for (almost the same number again) they are the largest common interest community in the country.
This vast number of people are the most hidden, ignored and unrepresented community in Australia. Indigenous people are high in need, but their plight looms large in the national political
consciousness. Carers don’t rate a blimp on the national stage.
Family carers are not sexy. No politician has ever lay awake at night wondering how to deal with the electoral consequences of disappointing carers of people with a disability.
No university students have ever taken to the streets in protest over the plight of the many full-time carers who receive an income that is one quarter of the aged pension.
Unlike the green movement, carers’ issues do not appeal to the fashionable, the glitterati, or pop stars wanting a cause. The carer’s world is a very private world. It unfolds within the home, not
on the TV news.
And few people from outside can appreciate just how fragmented and dysfunctional the service system is from the client’s and carer’s standpoint or how disempowering it is to be at once dependent
on it, but also paralysed by its gross inadequacy.
Yet carers, and the people we care for, are the sleeping giant of Australian politics.
Can you imagine the shape of Australian politics if family carers were to occupy as prominent a place in political affairs as the green movement?
We would see politicians jostling to win electoral preferences from families of people with disabilities (as we now see them jostling to win green preferences).
We would see treasurers trying to buy the votes of carers by introducing billion dollar programs (just as they now throw around billions of dollars to buy votes from a raft of other constituencies).
We would see political parties trying to recruit leaders from family/carer support groups (in the same way they now seek to recruit high profile environmentalists).
The key issues are:
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Adequate income support for family carers. "Fair day's pay for a fair day's work"
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Adequate and realistic funding for their daughters/sons support that offer choice and flexibility.
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Family carers needs to be considered and included in support packages.
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Alternative ways to use those support $'s.
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Tangible support for the additional and often extraordinary costs of disability
The sleeping giant is waking.
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©
Centre for Civil Society 2007 |
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TRANSFORMING OUR
SCHOOLS
CLICK HERE for
details of our campaign for a Real Education Revolution.
CLICK HERE
for
info on the National
Federation of Parents, Families and Carers. |
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STREET BY STREET SUBURB BY SUBURB
Community Building and Social Inclusion
National Development Conference
21/22 April 2010
CLICK HERE for details. |
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CORPORATE
WELFARE WATCH
Latest Handout Tally
$6.4b Car manufacturers subsidies
$2b Commercial property construction industry
$3.9b Free emission permits to coal-fired electricity generators
$2b Car dealer finance guarantee
$149m GMH 4 cylinder car
CLICK HERE
for further information. |
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THIRD WAY FORUM
Communitarianism,
Mutualism, Third Way Thinking
CLICK HERE
to find out more. |
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MAKING IT PERSONAL
Charlie Leadbeater, Jamie
Bartlett and Niamh Gallagher have authored this highly
influential Demos Report on Self-Directed Services
and Personal Budgets.
CLICK HERE
to read
Making It Personal. |
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RESPECT
EMPOWER
INCLUDE |
Participate in our five-point
non-party-political campaign to empower ordinary people.
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to join us and to express an interest in Convening in your
electorate. |
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SUBSCRIBE |
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Family Carers
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There are 2.7million
family carers of people with a disability, a chronic or mental
illness, or aged frailty in Australia. They are invisible to
politicians and policy makers.
Read more... |
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Standing Up to Telstra and
the Big Four Banks |
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Help us create a
voice for consumers. Read more... |
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How to Use this Website
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