LettersAustralia offers a warning on wanting to copy the US model

2-MIN READ2-MIN

A homeless man gets dressed outside his tent in Sydney’s central business district. The area, known as Tent City, was cleared in 2017, but not before igniting a national debate on homeless people and soaring prices in Australia. Photo: AFP

Published: 6:55am, 4 Jan 2020Updated: 11:23am, 4 Jan 2020

The truth is, our way of life under capitalism in Australia is getting worse every day. Over the last 30 or 40 years, our government has privatised just about everything – the power grids and generators, telecoms, transport, hospitals, banks, insurance companies, this list goes on.

These sectors are now in the hands of private businesses making huge profits for a select few. Our way of life has suffered and the poor and disadvantaged are being left behind. Money is now the decider on how well you do in Australia.

I am writing this letter to warn other countries that aspire to be like the United States. We blindly followed and are ending up just like them. We could have followed the European models or even learned from Singapore. But no, we just did what the Americans said – to our detriment. Even though most Australians do not want what is happening, the reality is, we have no say.

Having our elderly looked after by private companies has been a dismal failure. Report after report says the whole industry is in a mess and the reality is that grandmothers and grandfathers are suffering horribly at the hands of some of these private operators.

The care of our most disadvantaged has been privatised by the national disability insurance scheme and this has also caused a lot of grief for many people.

Beyond all belief, Prime Minister Scott Morrison now wants to privatise the Aged Care Assessment Teams that evaluate what kind of support an elderly person needs.