I include the below story for a couple of reasons
a) Alan Jones did a spiel on this this morning on telly. I thought 'Jones having a go at the government, what gives?' My research shows that the story is nearly a month old, and that Flugge resigned several days ago. So I thought about it some more - given Jones cries for the ALP to stop harping on about AWB recently I think it's not unreasonable that he is now looking for a scapegoat, forever the apologist for a government that puts him on the boards of government agencies.
b) Jones did not (shock!) go a level deeper and ask questions about a government that no longer provides services, instead it contracts them out to private organisations, under the guise of efficiency (the old 'private enterprise is much more efficient flexible than a bureaucracy' line).
Those of us who pay attention knows what it really means is that if something goes wrong the private provider can be hung out to dry, and blamed for the fiasco. It also means the people who are meant to be serviced invariably get short shrift - even when things don't go wrong.
When governments turn into contract managers and contracts are monitored by simple mathematical outcomes reality is often hidden. A provider can say 'we had this many Sudanese refugees go to english classes' and get paid. But they don't say how good the teacher was, how much the Sudanese learnt or how appropriate the training was, how they will help those got less out of it than others, or how it actually helped them live in our society. The nature of a contract rarely allows for action on needs identified after the contract has commenced - the contract itself makes the provider less flexible, but when contracts are made more flexible the risk of fraudulent claims is massively increased.
There is no thought for the next step, the contract becomes god for the govt and the provider - when it should be the recipients of the service.
There are other casualties as well eg The Salvation owes the govt $9 million dollars (http://finance.news.com.au/story/0,10166,18125719-462,00.html).
The government's model of contracting out services removes it's duty of care and legislative responsibilities while allowing it to implement activities, by selecting an appropriate provider, that a government would face massive fallout for implementing with it's own bureaucracy. Like say, dumping indigenous Cape York youths in Victorian farming communities in a 'sink or swim' work socialisation scheme.
Source
From wooing Saddam to unsettling refugees
Email Print Normal font Large font By Craig Skehan
February 14, 2006
Top gun
Trevor Flugge in Iraq.
TREVOR FLUGGE, at the centre of the storm of over wheat kickbacks to Iraq, has been named at a Senate committee hearing over his connection to a company embroiled in controversy over the resettlement of refugees.
Mr Flugge, the former chairman of AWB, is non-executive chairman of IBT Education, which last October bought ACL Pty Ltd within days of beginning a five-year resettlement contract with the Federal Government.
There have since been angry allegations against the company by non-profit community groups previously paid by the Commonwealth to resettle refugees.
At a Senate estimates committee hearing in Canberra yesterday there was Opposition questioning over specific ACL cases, including one reported by the Herald of a man with no legs housed in a first floor Granville flat with no lift. Ahmed Ahmed lost his legs in a train accident in Egypt shortly before he was to come to Australia. He postponed his arrival to last month.
At yesterday's hearing, the Immigration Minister, Amanda Vanstone, said she was not satisfied with explanations about Mr Ahmed's treatment.
She noted his mother had been living in a first floor apartment. A first-floor flat without a lift for someone needing a wheelchair was "inexplicably unsatisfactory".
Senator Annette Hurley (Labor) raised the matter of Mr Flugge's IBT paying $55million for ACL. Officials said they were unaware of any ministerial contact with Mr Flugge.
A spokesman for the National Party MP John Cobb, at the time the minister responsible for refugee services, said last night Mr Cobb never had any discussions with Mr Flugge about the acquisition of ACL or the resettlement services contract.
The Government yesterday undertook to take up with ACL a number of issues related to service delivery.
Jenny Whitmarsh, managing director of ACL's government programs, last night defended the handling of Mr Ahmed's case. She said he had initially refused an offer of ground floor accommodation because he wanted to stay with his mother.
