An Advance Sale of Stolen Goods

August 16, 2013

“Every election is a sort of advance auction sale of stolen goods,” wrote the famed American journalist and satirist H.L. Mencken. If the mark of genius is the ability to say something that only becomes truer with time, then it would definitely appear to be present in this instance, as this observation is as true as it has ever been. Need we actually ask which stolen goods Mencken was referring to? Let us think for a moment.

How about funding for higher education? Rather than being given more funding as it needs, the higher education is increasingly subject to cuts and austerity measures – not because the funds are unavailable, but because the will doesn’t exist to put them where they’re needed, much less to say the institutional capability. Now the implementation of the Gonski report into secondary education will be used as a pretext for further cuts. Where are the goods to ensure everyone can get an adequate education at the tertiary level who wants or needs one?

How about the adequate welfare provisions for indigenous people? The poverty gap for indigenous people is a national disgrace; indigenous people continue to rank at the bottom of most social and economic indicators, experience greatly reduced life expectancy and systematic discrimination, and suffer far greater levels of chronic health problems. Where are the goods to grapple with these very serious problems? Indigenous people moreover have never ceded sovereignty over their traditional lands, nor have they ever been granted land rights. What about those goods?…

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