There are ominous signs that Australia is breaking up into different social tribes. Our claimed egalitarianism and social mobility are under serious challenge. A mixed society is the best guarantee of social cohesion and social improvement. That social cohesion arising from “inclusive growth” is also good for the economy. But social cohesion rather than economic growth is the key national building block. 

The breakup of social solidarity is evident in many areas.

Health

The pernicious consequence of $11 billion per annum, Australian government underpinning of private health insurance is underwriting a two-tier health system, with the wealthy increasingly gravitating to private hospitals and private care, and the public system being reserved for the less wealthy. The wealthy jump the public hospital queue by going to private hospitals and the Australian government is underwriting that process. We are heading in the disastrous direction of the US health system, which is based on private health insurance.

The data tells the story of how government-subsidized private health insurance is dividing us up into different health tribes. Only 35% of the most disadvantaged people in Australia in the first and lowest quintile have private health insurance. In the most advantaged and highest quintile, 79% have private health insurance. To those that have much, more will be given!

The social solidarity envisaged in Medicare is becoming seriously eroded. The Coalition is deliberately doing this and the ALP does not seem to care — $11 billion of taxpayer money is being used each year to break up our universal health services provided through Medicare.

Education

The funding of education on a “needs basis” has been seriously eroded with large amounts of public funds going to wealthy private schools, both independent and Catholic. As Dean Ashenden in Inside Story has pointed out:

“Australia now has an unusually high concentration of students at both ends of the spectrum and a relatively small proportion of schools with socially mixed enrolments … The Catholic sector established to help the poor has offloaded much of that task to government schools. … A quarter of students in Catholic schools are not Catholics and a half of all Catholic students, and almost certainly a relatively poorer half, are now enrolled in government schools.”

In largely wealthy areas of Sydney, for example, well over 80% of students go to private schools. By contrast, in Western Sydney there are numerous suburbs in which over 85% go to public schools. Billions of public money is being spent annually to fund division in our educational sector. Yet schools should be a key area where young people of different social backgrounds mix and learn together.

The principle of needs-based education and schools as the focus for all students of different social backgrounds is being seriously challenged. Without a much higher social mix of students, independent and Catholic schools should not be funded.

Housing and the generation gap

ABS statistics show that 65- to 74-year-olds were, on average, A$480,000 wealthier in 2015-16 compared with 12 years before. But 35- to 44-year-olds were only A$120,000 better off. Even worse, 25- to 34-year-olds were only A$40,000 better off over the 12 years.

The biggest factor in this growing division between generations is property. Yet the Property Council does all it can to keep property prices up and exclude young home-seekers. Not surprisingly, home ownership rates among households headed by 25- to 34-year-olds fell between 1981 and 2016 from more than 60% to 45% …

*Read the rest at John Menadue’s Pearls and Irritations