Democracy is a wonderful thing. It allows people to live their lives as they want to live them. It provides opportunities for those that want to partake of them. It gives people the ability to be who and what they want to be. It provides the foundations for freedom and generally paints a picture full of hope and prospect.
As with everything in life, there is always two sides to the one coin and democracy is no different. It comes with responsibilities, at the individual and group level. Responsibilities such as the need to consider others, the need to treat people fairly, the need to ensure individual freedom and the need to improve the society that we live in.
Enter Alan Jones with his latest rant that truly goes beyond belief. Mr. Jones is obviously a lonely chap for unless he is at the center of the news, unless he is the focus of attention, be it negative or positive, he is not happy. And so it comes to pass that as a 'shock jock' the only thing to do is to constantly come up with raves and rants with the only intention of drawing attention to the one most important person in Sydney - HIMSELF.
His latest murmurings re-appeared on page 10 of this morning's Sydney Morning Herald where he is now attempting to connect the unfortunate bombings in Boston - where Mr. Jones, people actually died and were maimed for life - with student activism and accordingly we in Australia need to be ever vigilant as to the students that we bring into this country. What a complete load of diatribe. I suggest that we start drawing conclusions now as to the Boston culprits and in that manner we can get ahead of the truth - remember what the truth is Mr. Jones?
Alan Jones is, and never has been interested in the truth. He has always, and forever will be, interested in the headlines and him being on them, or part of them.
I seem to recall when living in Melbourne back in the 80's that the Alan Jones road show came to town and he succeeded in getting a television version of his talk-show on one of the commercial channels. Thankfully it failed, quite quickly after first launching. He left town and was never heard from again. And that's the beauty of democracy. In Melbourne, people voted with their feet and realised what Mr. Jones actually stood for and what his central focus was.
So democracy does work and works quite well. For some reason, New South Welshman and their Qld counterparts still actively listen and encourage Mr. Jones - and so it is we continue to put up with the 'shock jocks" of his ilk. It is well known that Mr. Jones is a protected species in this State, but why?
So back to democracy. It is a great system and our country and many like us has prospered as a result. But as I said, their are individual responsibilities regarding those things that Mr. Jones loves to ignore - because it gets him headlines. Maybe we should do what the Victorians did so successfully many years ago - ignore him and he may eventually go away.
In the interim, how about we continue to support the US in their hour of despair, wait for the outcome of their investigations and not point fingers where they should not be pointed just for a story. The letters to the editor on page 18 of the SMH sum it up quite well regarding Alan Jones' comments. So lets all enjoy the fruits of democracy and put Alan's selfish, egocentric and totally illogical views where they belong - in the waste.
Showing posts with label Sydney Morning Herald. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sydney Morning Herald. Show all posts
Wednesday, 17 April 2013
Monday, 1 April 2013
Public Awareness of Nonprofit Sector - Overcoming the "Blue-Light Syndrome"?
The information is out there, it has been public since January 2010 when the Productivity Commission released its report entitled "Contribution of the Not-for-Profit Sector - Productivity Commission Research Report", and the statistics were quire surprising, especially to those outside the nonprofit sector, perhaps not so surprising for those within it or those that interact with it.
At that time there were 600,000 organisations in the sector. 59,000 of these were economically significant. The sector contributed $43 billion annually to Australia's GDP and represented 8% of total employment in 2006-2007. In addition the sector was growing at the rate of 7.7% from 1999-2000 to 2006-2007.
But there were other interesting bits of information that came out of that report which are not as widely repeated in the mainstream press. Amongst these was the fact that the level of understanding of the sector amongst the wider community was considered poor.
So the article appearing in this morning's Sydney Morning Herald (Tuesday 2nd April) by Kathryn Wicks did little to surprise me regarding the lighting of the Sydney Opera House to mark United Nations World Autism Awareness Day. Or should I say, the lack of support shown by politicians to fund the event (I'm sure there will be no lack of photo opportunities or commentary however on the evening - politicians appear to respond well to this as photo opportunities reinforce the message of what CAN BE DONE without supporting what IS done!) This is not the point of my comment here.
The point is that public awareness of the importance of the nonprofit sector, what it does, who it helps, how it goes about its activities, and the economic, political, and social environment and constraints within which it does so, should become more mainstream, especially if more and more public services are effectively 'outsourced' to the nonprofit sector. We should, as a society, better understand the attributes of one of the largest sectors of our economy. I think that the mining sector would attract far more attention and yet touches far fewer lives that the nonprofit sector. The former will eventually dwindle as the resources are extracted and dealt with. The latter will only grow, especially driven by demand. Putting this in perspective, in 2010 the mining sector contributed 8.4% to GDP and the nonprofit sector contributed 3.8% to GDP. Whilst slightly less than half, it is a contribution that ranks up there with the ones that everyone knows about. At another level the mining sector employs less than 3% of the Australian workforce compared to 8% in the nonprofit sector. These comparisons only reinforce that more Australians should understand the nonprofit sector better than they currently do - many rely on it on both sides of the supply/demand equation.
Where to from here?
One suggestion would be for the mainstream press to expand its focus on this sector in a slightly more coordinated and strategic fashion An example here would be the way the Sydney Morning Herald deals with Local Government. Every Tuesday, the SMH produces a dedicated section entitled "Local government" that captures key stories of that sector jobs and tenders. I note that this morning's paper contained stories about bottle plans for the environment, amalgamation issues facing the sector and smaller articles regarding roads, online approvals and something on community groups signing a petition.
Consider what a section on nonprofits could look like - examples of well run outfits across the country, stories of success at the organisational and individual level, challenges of staffing, career opportunities strategic partnerships and potential regular features of some of the less well-known nonprofit organisations that go about their business, Langley oblivious to outsiders other than those directly impacted by that organisation.
So there we go mainstream press. Who is up for the challenge?
At that time there were 600,000 organisations in the sector. 59,000 of these were economically significant. The sector contributed $43 billion annually to Australia's GDP and represented 8% of total employment in 2006-2007. In addition the sector was growing at the rate of 7.7% from 1999-2000 to 2006-2007.
But there were other interesting bits of information that came out of that report which are not as widely repeated in the mainstream press. Amongst these was the fact that the level of understanding of the sector amongst the wider community was considered poor.
So the article appearing in this morning's Sydney Morning Herald (Tuesday 2nd April) by Kathryn Wicks did little to surprise me regarding the lighting of the Sydney Opera House to mark United Nations World Autism Awareness Day. Or should I say, the lack of support shown by politicians to fund the event (I'm sure there will be no lack of photo opportunities or commentary however on the evening - politicians appear to respond well to this as photo opportunities reinforce the message of what CAN BE DONE without supporting what IS done!) This is not the point of my comment here.
The point is that public awareness of the importance of the nonprofit sector, what it does, who it helps, how it goes about its activities, and the economic, political, and social environment and constraints within which it does so, should become more mainstream, especially if more and more public services are effectively 'outsourced' to the nonprofit sector. We should, as a society, better understand the attributes of one of the largest sectors of our economy. I think that the mining sector would attract far more attention and yet touches far fewer lives that the nonprofit sector. The former will eventually dwindle as the resources are extracted and dealt with. The latter will only grow, especially driven by demand. Putting this in perspective, in 2010 the mining sector contributed 8.4% to GDP and the nonprofit sector contributed 3.8% to GDP. Whilst slightly less than half, it is a contribution that ranks up there with the ones that everyone knows about. At another level the mining sector employs less than 3% of the Australian workforce compared to 8% in the nonprofit sector. These comparisons only reinforce that more Australians should understand the nonprofit sector better than they currently do - many rely on it on both sides of the supply/demand equation.
Where to from here?
One suggestion would be for the mainstream press to expand its focus on this sector in a slightly more coordinated and strategic fashion An example here would be the way the Sydney Morning Herald deals with Local Government. Every Tuesday, the SMH produces a dedicated section entitled "Local government" that captures key stories of that sector jobs and tenders. I note that this morning's paper contained stories about bottle plans for the environment, amalgamation issues facing the sector and smaller articles regarding roads, online approvals and something on community groups signing a petition.
Consider what a section on nonprofits could look like - examples of well run outfits across the country, stories of success at the organisational and individual level, challenges of staffing, career opportunities strategic partnerships and potential regular features of some of the less well-known nonprofit organisations that go about their business, Langley oblivious to outsiders other than those directly impacted by that organisation.
So there we go mainstream press. Who is up for the challenge?
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