On Smith Street, an archetypal inner suburban street, rain fell on the corrugated supermarket veranda.
It was about a month after the sub-prime market collapsed. Underneath the verandah the regulars, and others in need of a meal, sipped hot soup or munched on sausages. From behind the BBQ I asked one of the regulars if he had collected any aluminium cans in the past week.
'No, not this week.' He glanced up.
'The rain?' I suggested.
'Nup,' interjected another bloke, 'no point anymore.'
'Yeah,' continued the first, 'scrap dealer says China doesn't want aluminium now.'
We were at a St Vinnies' soup van on a street that brings together an eclectic mix of bohemians, disadvantaged and homeless. It is a hub for drug users, residents of surrounding housing commission flats, as well as a large Aboriginal community.
A number of the van's regular clients collect aluminium cans. They then sell them on to a scrap dealer who has them melted for recycling.
This is by no means the easiest way to make a buck. Although they can collect cans from many places, they have to lug them home (often on the back of a push bike), sort them, and transport them again to the dealer.
Usually this work supplements the welfare income they live on. The extra income allows for a few luxuries, but, more importantly, they get a sense of fulfillment from their work. Collecting and selling the cans requires knowledge, expertise, connections.
No longer, though. The financial crisis meant that the demand for raw materials dried up. So the dealer halved the price he offered for the cans.
This is a small illustration of the interconnected world in which we live. In so much of the debate surrounding the recent market collapses and economic stagnation, 'Wall Street' and 'Main Street' have been cast at polarities. This belies the more complex reality of the connection between the financial centres of the world and my mates on Smith Street.
Open, global markets offer the best opportunity for prosperity for all people around the globe. Any and all solutions in what the Prime Minister has described as a new epoch, must strive for transparent, well regulated markets with a social policy that integrates into them as many members of society as possible. This is the best hope, indeed the only sustainable model, for those living in poverty in the developing and the developed world.
To attempt to insulate the men at the soup