A BITING ISSUE

If you read, and believe, major stories in The Age and The Australian newspapers today Australia is no longer the lucky country. It’s more of a Third World country. Especially when it comes down to the welfare and the education of the children.  The Age today, has a full page feature called The Class Divide and paints a woeful picture of schools, governments and welfare groups tackling ‘poverty and homelessness among students’ and calls it ‘ a battle’ to secure  the next generation’s future.

The Australian headline says Children Don’t Come First in the Lucky Country and claims that ‘Australia’s prosperity is masking an unpalatable truth – the health and wellbeing of our children lag unacceptably behind those of many developed countries’.

The thing that stood out to me in all of this was the claim that the demand for breakfast clubs in schools is now so great that 200 schools are on a waiting list to set up a program. The Red Cross which runs the scheme now provides breakfasts at more than 250 schools across Australia and they say there are a lot more schools they could be helping if they had the money. Which means Government money. Your money.

My question? Why aren’t parents feeding their kids? And if they are not why aren’t they being billed for the costs? For God’s sake they get enough money in child benefits and baby bonuses and now $1000 per kid for Christmas. I’ll bet they’ll be lining up for that money.

And why the Red Cross? I thought when you donated money to them it went to help disaster victims. Not to feed somebody else’s kids here in Australia.

It’s getting to the stage where people expect the Government to do everything and pay for everything. And schools get lumbered with the responsibility for every family failing.

Kids are hungry? It’s the schools’ fault. Kids not respecting authority? It’s the schools’ fault.  Teenage girls getting pregnant? The schools didn’t teach them sex education.  Childhood obesity kids is now epidemic? Don’t point the finger at fat, lazy, indulgent parents. Blame the teachers.

Getting back to those school breakfasts. Yep. We got treated at school. On cold winter mornings we all got a cup of hot cocoa. And our parents had to give us cocoa money. OK, it was only a penny a cup. One cent. But we didn’t expect it for nothing.

And that’s the problem these days: too many people expect too much for nothing.

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

© Copyright Derryn Hinch 2008