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Enough of the floppy bits on Big Brother. Having presented this 5th season as some heightened moral panic, the religious right flexes it might by calling it a moral outrage. I like a good mystery movie or TV drama any day. I like the ones that have you guessing all the way to the end. Characters moving in and out of the narrative, plot elements unfolding and intertwining and its not until the end that everything comes together. One thing Big Brother is not, is a mystery. Another thing it isn’t is a moral outrage. But here’s a mystery and a moral outrage that goes largely ignored and undiscussed.
The Federal government has been promoting their schemes to “get people off welfare and back into work” for some time now. They argue that Australia has one of, if not the, highest rates of people receiving disability pensions in the OECD. They claim that many of these people are either not being given an opportunity to “fulfil their potential” or are malingerers. In order to address this situation the government has introduced a new regime whereby workplaces, that were established to support people with disabilities, are now being forced to become “productive”.
So what does this mean for those who are disabled from birth? Those who find every cell of their body affected by defective genes and for whom no cure or recuperation can be found. Lets have a look at one case study that I’m sure is being repeated in hundreds of workplaces around the country to thousands of individuals and their families.
We’ll call him Bob. Bob was born with multiple intellectual disabilities. Some call it autism, others, like his family, just call him Bob. Bob’s disability manifests in a number of behaviours. Mostly Bob gets on well with everyone. However, from time to time he decides that he just doesn’t want to … well do. When he has these moods, which seem less often now he’s reached his mid 20s, he finds himself a seat and just dozes off. Sometimes for hours at a time.
In his work place things had been going along fine. For more that five years his boss, who we’ll call John, was able to work around Bob’s irregular performance. He knew that even though Bob had a number of cognitive deficits he was not stupid. In fact, when Bob was working at his best he was one of the most productive and easy going workmen in the enterprise.
But times had changed. John was responsible to his Board of Directors. The Board, which used to be made up of parents and relatives of those employed by the enterprise, was now populated by professionals and only had one parent and one ‘community’ representative on it. Under the Federal reforms the Board had become focused on workplace ‘performance’, ‘productivity’ and, to quote the Chair, “moving into a competitive environment in which we must demonstrate our commitment to excellence”.
John didn’t really understand what this meant but what did get his attention was the review process that all the people who worked for him had to undergo. Due to the Federal government disability reforms all the ‘employees’ had to be assessed to measure their ‘productivity’. The measurement tool used to gauge the ‘productivity’ of the workers was developed in conjunction with a government officer.
While discussing the process with the government officer, John asked about someone like Bob. He told the officer that Bob worked quite well but when he had one of his ‘moods’ he didn’t work at all. John said that Bob was great to have around but had been sick a few times lately and away from work for up to a month at a time. The officer explained that John should not worry about Bob’s health but focus on whether he could maintain the benchmark productivity level. When John looked at what the officer had prepared he realised that Bob and about four others would not be able to, five days a week, 19 days a month, 11 months of the year, maintain the productivity demanded of them under the new scheme.
John protested and told the government officer that it was unjust to impose these types of artificial productivity demands on disabled workers. The officer told him that the government was focused on reforming the disability pension payment scheme and that as John wasn’t medically trained how did he know these people weren’t just malingerers or putting on a show. “John”, he was told, “we are living in the modern world. All of us have to perform. There are no such things as a free lunch anymore”.
At the enterprise the next two months flew past in a blur. Reviews were held, meetings convened, parents contacted and letters sent. By the end of the process only three of the existing workers were unable to continue because their productivity had been assessed as being below the benchmarks set for their workplace. Bob was among them.
Bob might be in his mid 20’s but he still needs a reminder to brush his teeth, pack his lunch and make sure his light is turned out before he goes to sleep. He can negotiate the busy streets around his suburb and in summer is quite capable of going to the local pool for the day and keep himself slipped, slopped and slapped. But his mum noticed how agitated he got when he was sick. Bob didn’t like doing nothing. Even when he looked like death with pneumonia he couldn’t stay in bed and would want to go back to work. His hospital stays were particularly frustrating for him.
That was all gone now. Bob had no choice. He asked his mum why he couldn’t go to work and one morning when he came out in his overalls with his port in hand and grandad cap on, she fled the kitchen in tears reminded again that her son had now, officially, been declared the most unemployable of the unemployed. She had attended the meetings, she had sat in her Federal member’s office and listened to him prattle on about how difficult is must be for Bob but how Bob would find new opportunities and how he was there to assist in any way he could. All to no avail, Bob had been judged unfit to work.
I find that a great pity. When I was a boy, growing up in North Western Tasmania, I can recall the day the last sheltered workshop closed down. There had been ongoing calls for these places to be closed and how exploitative they had been. I remember the debate that raged within the community and the focus on what the displaced people would do. That was over 30 years ago. The wheel has turned and a new generation of men and women, the most vulnerable in our society, are going to be forced back into the confines of their homes or, worse, into unsupervised accommodation services.
In July 2004 the Government released the findings of the Productivity Commission inquiry into the proposed reforms and their impact on the disabled. According to Professor Brian Howe, the final report had been purged of all references to the responsibility of government and society to ensure that affirmative action policies prevail. At the 2004 national ACROD conference the Acting Discrimination officer, Dr. Sev Ozdowski, called for a public inquiry into the reforms being implemented. Nothing came of his or Professor Howe’s calls, both of which were anything but radical. In his speech Dr. Ozdowski noted that unemployment rates for people with disabilities already was twice the rate for the general community.
To me the greater moral outrage is not the floppy bits of the Big Brother contestants being flashed around “up late” but the fact that we are allowing the most vulnerable to be thrown on the scrap heap of unemployment. Bob certainly wasn’t the most productive worker when scored against an able minded one but doesn’t it seem much more humane to keep him gainfully occupied rather than forcing him to rattle around his family home doing nothing? Bob is not able to create his own future or climb the ladder of opportunity unaided. To sit by and allow our government to discard him and thousands of others like him is the real moral outrage our community should be feeling. The fact that collectively we aren’t perhaps demonstrates our complicity in allowing the floppy bits to obtain the spotlight. The question is, what are we going to do about it?