State Governments Dodging Responsibility or Just Not Alert to Reality?

If there’s one thing that the #CaronaVirus has shown us loud and clear it is that we are reliant on the people AT THE CONTACT FACE to carry us through. For Individuals, it is those in Healthcare we rely on. For Populations, it is those in food creation and delivery and sanitation we rely on. For societies we rely on those who have the closest contact with us in daily life service provision. And that is NOT ‘State Government’. Rather we rely on Local Councils and their high support, close contact community support structures. Why then are Local Councils being ignored?

Maternal Health care nurses, in-home aged care, homelessness support services, emergency housing, parks maintenance. At the granular, close contact point it is Local Councils who do the work and provide the service delivery.

Right now many Councils are faced with laying off staff, as have their local employers. Right now State Governments around Australia are doing a massive job of coordinating responses and actions. And right now, State Governments are demanding that Local Councils increase their provision of services in areas related to vulnerable people, both those who have been vulnerable for a long time, and those who are new to what vulnerability feel and looks like.

But for reasons I cannot understand, it appears that State Governments are demanding Councils increase their service provision by, 20, 30 or 70% in some areas WITHOUT providing Local Councils with the financial resources to do so. I’ve spoken to people in Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria in this space and all are saying the same thing: ‘We’re expected to do X+Y+Z when we now have an x – y capacity available to us’. So either that is a choice by State Governments to dodge responsibility for appropriately funding and resourcing Local Councils, or State Governments are blinkered to the on the ground reality of what the increased service provision requires.

I hope it’s just a case of blinkers needing to be removed