Government's mixed report card on taking responsibility

16 February 2015

Young men do not always act responsibly. If they make young women pregnant, some will certainly take responsibility for what they have done and try to be responsible to their partner and child.

But others simply cut and run, denying responsibility and blaming their partner. Others try to control the situation by telling their partner what to do. The more respectable sometimes act hypocritically, appealing to the greater good they will do as lawyers or doctors by simply moving on.

Governments do not always act responsibly, either. The behaviour of Australian Governments to the descendants of the Indigenous Australians whom they have conquered and dispossessed, for example, has run through the all the colours of neglect, blame, driving them out of their homes yet again, trying to scrub them white, and sending in the cavalry to sort them out, all for the greater good of Australia.

Last week two reports exposed the limits of Australian responsibility to people who have suffered as a result of historical or present Government actions. The Closing the Gap Report showed some improvements in education, but a failure to meet the targets set in life expectancy, early childhood access, reading and numeracy and employment.

Mr Abbott’s response to the Report was exemplary in taking responsibility. He described the findings of the Report as deeply disappointing and committing the Government to continue to close the gap. But his own response was overshadowed by the walk-out by eleven members of the Coalition. They protested at Mr Shorten criticising funding cuts to Indigenous programs. Laying blame when talking about the aggrieved turns to money is always a sign of responsibility evaded.

This promises ill for the prospect that future policy concerning Indigenous Australians will begin by engaging with them as persons and not as a problem to be controlled. It is to be feared that people will be sent in to prescribe remedies for them, to blame and fine them for not taking their medicine, and so to ensure resistance that will be reflected in future reports. Not an exercise of responsibility but of control.

The second report was the Human Rights Commission Report into children in detention. It found that 218 children were still in detention. Its also showed that detention damages mental health, leads to many incidents of self-harm, to great strain on family relationships and leaves children vulnerable to sexual and physical abuse.

It is heartbreaking to imagine the

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Government's mixed report card on taking responsibility

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