Why my rage is becoming uncontrollable

Demonising refugees, punishing welfare recipients, abusing old people and gouging health insurance customers — if this is the new Australian way I despair for my country, writes Margaret Wenham.

A few people seem a bit cranky about the Opposition and the crossbenchers passing the Medevac Bill.

Perhaps some have been swayed by the conga line of Coalition MPs shrieking about the boats coming and that we’ll be swamped by aspiring reffos some of whom, along with their babies, will perish between the teeth of great whites as the vessels they’re on are also swamped, while Defence and Border Force personnel watch idly on and then develop PTSD.

I’m not cranky about the Bill’s passage for a couple of reasons.

Firstly, I agreed with the need for it on the grounds of basic humanity.

Secondly, the Bill’s passage demonstrates there is still some life left in our democracy which for too long, thanks to the hegemonic party system that’s become entrenched in the past 100 years or so, has seen governments telling parliaments what to do instead of the other way around.

The third reason I’m not cranky about it is that my rage-o-meter is already stuck in heading-for-a-stroke territory thanks to what I regard as far too much unchecked bastardry and just plain inefficiency, stupidity and bad decision-making across far too many corporate and public sectors, all flourishing on the government’s (successive governments’) watch — if it’s not actual, deliberate government-legislated bastardry, that is.

Take the letter I received on Friday from my mortgagee, MEBank.

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Scott Morrison kicked off the refugee scare campaign by vowing to reopen Christmas Island. Picture: Kym Smith

Dated February 13, it advised they’ve hiked my home loan interest rate by .18 per cent.

With the ink barely dry on the Hayne banking royal commission report which gave the finance sector a savaging for standout bastardry, here’s a bank which still thinks it’s fine to tell customers not just after the fact that they’ve jacked up their interest rate (because the letter says it went up on February 7), but by not telling its customer by how much the rate has been increased, leaving them to work it out.

Then, a few of you might be wondering what the wash up was from last week’s column where I exposed my internet telco, iPrimus, for lying to its customers, in my case advising in writing my service would be disconnected on February 8 and I needed to contact them to immediately transition to the NBN.

MORE FROM MARGARET WENHAM: My telco has been lying to me about the NBN

It wasn’t disconnected and I knew I have until September to transition to the NBN, itself a hideously expensive basket case of a project

But nothing came of exposing the lie leading me to think that lying in the course of doing business these days is done with impunity and without a backward glance, let alone an apology.

And then there was my column a couple of weeks ago pointing out the appalling inefficiency of the Government’s jobactive program whereby billions of dollars are given to so-called job service providers which are supposed to help unemployed people find work. Except they don’t do that very well at all. What they do with great vigour (presumably for the bonus payments), is administer the Government’s draconian mutual obligation demands, including blithely cutting people off from their (pathetically low) Newstart payments.

I wrote about one of my friends who has struggled to find full-time work since being made redundant but who continues to try hard to meet these mutual obligation requirements including applying for 10 jobs a fortnight.

Private companies are now making merciless decisions to kick people off benefits despite the hoops they’re expected to go through being all but impossible to jump through. Picture: Mick Tsikas

Last Thursday she rang me in tears, sounding so much as though she really was at the end of her tether that I was worried. She said her job services provider (which hasn’t provided her with a single job for which she could apply) had accused her (again) of not meeting one of her obligations and had cut her Newstart off (again).

My friend and the thousands of other ordinary, honest Australians forced to ride the nightmarish horses of this relentlessly demanding and punishing and insufficiently regulated carousel, while being endlessly demonised by the Government in the media, do not deserve the stress this appalling system creates.

It seems the Government’s default position is to treat all its citizens as potential welfare rorting criminals, all the while, in this case, presiding over a privatised unemployment services sector that lacks proper regulation and government oversight.

Many people dealing with Centrelink about their aged pensions are treated similarly poorly — which I’ve also written about.

But speaking of unaccountable and poorly regulated private sectors, private health insurers are starting to send out emails about their premium increases.

My young offsider at work got one yesterday advising her of a 4.1 per cent rise (remembering Health Minister Greg Hunt spruiked an average rise of only 3.25 per cent).

“It doesn’t matter, we won’t be paying it because it’s just unaffordable now,” my colleague said flatly.

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Letter to Margaret Wenham from iPrimus falsely claiming she would be disconnected.

Then there’s the aged care sector swallowing billions and billions of public money along with the billions it commands from individuals in care in the form of accommodation bonds and daily charges.

Like the banks, it now too is the subject of a royal commission, this one examining a different kind of bastardry, the abuse and neglect of the frail aged.

The disability sector, also plagued by claims of the abuse and neglect of vulnerable people, is to be the next royal commission cab off the rank.

Was it always the case that there were so many among us prepared to cheat, gouge and steal to gain material advantage for themselves and the organisations for whom they work?

Was it always the case there were many among us who wantonly took out their anger and frustrations on the vulnerable people for whom they were supposed to be providing care.

Was it always the case governments were prepared to demonise and treat rudely their own citizens presumably because it was thought there were votes to be had?

And was it always the case governments spurned the need for strong regulation and oversight of important sectors aimed at keeping unconscionable behaviour and rampant inefficiency with public money in check, so that now we’re facing a raft of inquiries after the fact?

Is all of this just the Australian way?

Surely not, surely we’re better than this.

But one thing’s for sure — something’s going very wrong and right now my rage-o-meter is off the charts.

Margaret Wenham is the Courier-Mail’s opinion editor.