Elderly, disabled, jobless or homeless? It’s your fault, according to the Coalition

Are we becoming accustomed to the Coalition Government's cruelty and dysfunction, propagated by "fake news"? Deputy editor Michelle Pini reports.

IT WAS a passing comment:

“Homeless people don’t want to be housed.”

Sorry, what?

It is important to note that the person who made this comment is otherwise intelligent, educated and compassionate by nature. The "evidence" for his statement came from watching a current affairs programme in which a couple of homeless people were “interviewed” and said they didn’t wish to be housed.

But there was much more at play behind this comment: the daily discourse, via the government and mainstream media, that provides ongoing "evidence" for his statement.

Have we lost our ability to think analytically? Have we become so complacent that we turn a blind eye to homeless people and blame them for “choosing” homelessness?

#auspol @TurnbullMalcolm #Pension #cuts: The #abuse of our #elderly #citizens #LNP #FAIL https://t.co/TSXmVUn6bR @IndependentAus
— DameFreeradicalone2u (@freeradicalone) January 5, 2017

Here is only a small sample of the running narrative, currently used to demonise the vulnerable in our society, with which we are bombarded on a daily basis:

So it is easy, perhaps even natural, to accept such “truths”. "Fake news" is now just news. No, this is not an Orwell script.

Podcast: Keeping calm in the face of the Alt-Right. https://t.co/QJpShA32jK
— IndependentAustralia (@independentaus) April 10, 2017

Have we become so greedy that we care only about the increasing value of our own homes and investment properties and have no interest in the ability of our children and grandchildren to put roofs over their heads?

Is the state of our rapidly warming climate and the dystopia that will naturally follow no longer important since it will probably only impact future generations?

And are we now so hard-hearted that people fleeing war-torn countries and certain death are left to rot indefinitely, as we wash our blood stained hands off their fate?

The truthful answer to all the above is, “yes”. How else can we explain allowing such inequality to thrive on our watch?

In a little over three years – during this Coalition Government's reign – we have been complicit in allowing an assault on vulnerable Australians like no other.

Don Dale abuse: The NT Royal Commission and maintaining outrage https://t.co/oLCskHTssS @IndependentAus
— Ex Lord Mark of E (@edwardatport) August 3, 2016

We have witnessed the cruelty of children tortured at Don Dale Youth Detention Centre. We have sat by as our government has created gulags on Manus Island and Nauru.

We have seen continued discrimination against LGBTQI people, women, the aged and the disabled.

There has been a blatant disregard for our youth, who have been hit with penalty rate cuts, proposed further higher education cuts, as well as increased university fees, fewer job opportunities and virtually no chance of buying their own homes, barring the possibility of foregoing any superannuation savings they may be able to accumulate.

And if we are to believe my friend's ludicrous claim above, then we currently have 105,000 people who don't wish to be housed.

At the same time, the Coalition has cut taxes for high-income earners, allowed corporate giants to pay no tax and given our politicians a pay rise, as they continue to ignore corruption within their ranks and rort an already generous parliamentary benefits system.

Our government is targeting the elderly, the sick, the needy — and that’s just its own people. It reserves a special language for people fleeing persecution and misery: they are the ultimate scapegoats, blamed not only for their misfortunes but for ours — and then locked up, possibly forever.

How can we expect the #Liberal_Coalition to care about Asylum Seekers when they openly ignore Australia's own children & homeless.#auspol pic.twitter.com/a3S95pvPUL
— Left of Labor (@Left_of_Labor) May 2, 2017

And much of this has been done with such spectacular ineptitude. Who can forget the failure of the NBN, the census debacle, blaming renewables for failed energy policies and the "robo-debt" fiasco?

Apparently, we can.

Indeed, we forgot why we no longer wanted Abbott and voted in the same government with a different leader, effectively giving it a "mandate" for more of the same.

Where is the sustained outrage? Why is there so little political backlash for this government?

As a nation we are currently so laid back, so willing to accept nonsense as truth and so easily distracted, we are almost comatose. In this era of fake news – no longer dependent on printing presses – the events and outrages of yesterday are so easily and efficiently erased. This short attention span is a damning indictment on our lack of compassion.

But unless we start to take a look at our own complicity in creating a rapidly growing underclass of disenfranchised and disconnected people, we will look back on this era of history and our failing moral compass with only shame.

We need to hold this government to account today.

You can follow deputy editor Michelle Pini on Twitter @vmp9.