ABC out of touch with at least 20% of Aussies

Two nations between whom there is no intercourse and no sympathy; who are as ignorant of each other's habits, thoughts and feelings, as if they were dwellers in different zones, or inhabitants of different planets; who are formed by a different breeding, are fed by a different food, are ordered by different manners, and are governed by the same laws. I speak of the rich and the poor.
Benjamin Disraeli, British Prime Minister; Sybil, 1845

How many unemployed people work at the ABC? My question is, of course, rhetorical. Because they are all employed at the ABC, where is the voice for the unemployed? Who among the employed will understand the issues of the poor? My question can be applied to employees of all media outlets, to politicians, public servants and even welfare agencies and their employees. In fact, all workers and other owners of capital.

What man or woman in this country who has never been on social security knows what it is to search under the fridge for coins to buy bread? What employed ABC person knows what it is to save up for meat, petrol, shoes, a movie, a visit to family?

Such people, whether they work for the Public Service, private enterprise or Auntie ABC, would do a great service to the so-called debate on poverty in Australia by "engaging" or "unpacking" a tightly rolled department store catalogue about 30 centimetres down their cabernet sauvignon-lubricated "multivocalities".

While they're at it, they might shove a big intertextuality up their collective aporia.

What's for breakfast? Weet-Bix, same as lunch and dinner

Take, for example, Geraldine Doogue (Saturday Breakfast, ABCRN, today), who interviewed Wayne Swan, MP, Shadow Federal Treasurer, who seems to have considerably more concern than the typical Labor member for the Australian poor.

Mr Swan presented his case, and Ms Doogue challenged him according to the bleatings of some employed people at a right-wing no-think tank in Canberra that reckons the poor are getting richer. Ms Doogue, of course, has never stood 25 deep in a queue at the dole office. or if she has, she hasn't in the decades that she has been employed with the ABC. Not to put too fine a point on it: what the hell would employed people, especially media celebrities, really know about poverty?

The following are just some of the parts of ABC programming that are necessarily out of touch with at the very least 20 per cent of Australians because welfare recipients and their kids are excluded from the team:

News, current affairs, music, visual arts, books and literature, apparel, theatre, movies, social issues, architecture and design, history, Aboriginal affairs (even most Aboriginal interviewees appear to be employed by some quango or other), politics, recreation and sport, food and beverages, travel and tourism, children and family, technology and IT, the Internet, war, local issues, transport and motoring, real estate, work, industrial relations, commerce, legal matters, consumerism, psychology, media, gardening, academia, environment, health, pets, science ... I'm running out of breath, not examples, so I'll take a spell.

If you walk down the street, on average every fouth or fifth house has occupants who are the battling poor: the welfare voiceless. At least four million Australians have no ABC that speaks to them. I know because I'm one of them. Perhaps The Comfort Zone could do a show on Weet-Bix. I don't know about Alan Saunders, but I find the no-frills bix as good as the brand name, and possibly a cheaper source of nutrition than bread, especially when eaten with undiluted milk.

Letter to Wayne Swan, MP

Immediately following Ms Doogue's interview, I wrote Mr Swan this letter:

Dear Mr Swan,

As a former Labor voter, I wish to thank you for what I heard on Geraldine Doogue's program this morning. Frankly, I had come to believe that Labor had forgotten the battlers.

I am a 52-year-old man, long-term unemployed, willing to work. I live in rural NSW.

Did you know that for the past couple of years a new development has rendered it impossible for poor people like me to borrow money? I base my contention on what I was told by my credit union manager, and also from my failed attempts to borrow $1,000 to get my gearbox fixed last year. You can imagine how hard it might be to get a job without a car in the bush.

Every possible lending institution refused me for a loan of any amount large or small, solely on the grounds of my income. The Salvation Army, St Vincent De Paul and two Neighbourhood Centres could not advise me on where to borrow $1,000, except a loan shark that takes 25% interest.

The manager of the credit union at Woolgoolga advised me that until about 2 years before, he used to write about ten loans a day to poor people, and never had a default, as he arranged to have repayments taken from their social security payments. He said it had been quite satisfactory. He said (this was last November) that now he writes no loans to the poor. The reason, he said, is a new rule that came in about two years prior, that required loan applicants to have a certain number of dollars (I think it was $180) remaining after rent. He said that all lending institutions follow this regime now. I would like to know if this is collusion of the banks, or government regulation

What this panned out to for me was that I and literally millions of Australians (welfare recipients and their dependants) will never be able to get a loan unless we pay less than, say, $35 a week rent. No loans for car repair, dental repair, surgery or such fripperies as car rego, buying a car or travelling interstate. Now, I live in a cabin in a hick town with a tiny general store and my rent is almost three times $35. Who in this country pays less than me -- and who pays $35 a week rent?

This is scandalous in a fabulously wealthy country and I wish that people knew about it. I even know pensioners who do not know about the new regime because it is more than two or three years since they got a loan. Today, as far as my experience and information goes, they will not get one. I doubt that one person in 1,000 knows this has happened and I wish you would look into it. I might be wrong, but I had this experience myself and it concurred with what my credit union manager told me.

Yesterday my car rego ran out. Were it not for mates bailing me out I would be stuck in this burgh 365 days a year as the bus to Coffs Harbour (only 25km away) is $9 return ... $18 for non-concession. Nine dollars, sir, is about 7 per cent of the money I have each week after rent.

Keep it up, sir.

Pip Wilson