Miss Eagle at a Plug the Pipe rally last year
on the steps of Victoria's Parliament
wearing her Akubra
Hats - particularly the Akubra -
are in the news these days because of the current prominence of Bob Katter.
Geoff Strong has given some insights into the hat
and the unique condition of being a lapsed Queenslander
- particularly one who has grown up in the Bjelke-Petersen era.
I sometimes wonder if growing up in Queensland under Bjelke
might have been something like growing up in
Louisiana under Huey Long.
In Queensland, I always felt that the National Party
interfered with the information flow -
prevented new ideas coming in
(Women's Shelters were part of a Marxist plot
and Fred Hollows got kicked out for allegedly spreading Marxism)
and stopped new ideas getting out.
So many of us were and are open to fresh thinking.
Queensland has changed - but not all that much.
Aboriginal-Settler relations are not wonderful.
merely fall out with its powerful people might have ceased
but the stridency of bush politics hasn't.
Political corruption is still alive and well
and is not confined to the National Party.
I am glad to be away from Queensland politics -
particularly the racist overtones and ignorance one finds
across party lines.
It is good to know that a Labor Party can be elected -
even if I dislike some of its actions and antics.
I don't see myself ever living in Queensland again -
but if I do it will be only for family and/or the climate.
Melbourne is great. I suppose the climate has to be
dreadful to stop everyone from wanting to live here.
The Nationals are always voted in here too. There are racist things said a lot, and I find it hard for my children to live in this environment. I think corruption is bad here too, but because of that I don't like to talk about it in case it comes back to bite me in some way. Only this week something happened in town that involves the Victorian State public service and them wanting to clean us up, sometimes I feel they have forgotten us, but eventually our locals have to fit in with the things put in place to protect people in our State. Thank goodness. I hope one day they come and inspect our lines on our roads so I can work out how to drive, and stop double parkers etc.
ReplyDeleteLinda, I was at a conference on community engagement here in Melbourne back in April. One of the speakers was a fellow from the Dept of Planning.
ReplyDeleteI don't think he should ever be asked to speak at such a conference again - except as an example of what not to do. That dept. probably thinks it engages with the community but nuh.
There needs to be a whole of government approach that is genuine and professional and there are lots of modern tools to do the job with. So there's no excuse - except they don't care and they don't want too much involvement. That would complicate things, wouldn't it?(says she smiling cynically!)
Blessings and bliss
Brigid
The Education Dept has surveys that are put in see through envelopes with the parents detachable name on the back. It has questions clearly for one child though there may be more than one in the school, with no directions on how to handle that.
ReplyDeleteSurveys on the hospital involve a group of people helping out with collecting and giving back to the university. The questions have identifiable answers that the people collecting would have no trouble figuring out who said it as our town is small. I talked to the lady who ran the survey and she couldn't understand what I was saying.
That is only two there was another just as bad that I can't recall atm. How will they ever work out what really goes on?
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI have lately come to the conclusion that we have to beware how bureaucrats and bureaucratic methods handle community engagement. We are used to some of these processes and take them for granted without giving much thought.
ReplyDeleteSurveys - even apart from the carelessness you report - have to be regarded warily. One has to query who has drawn up the survey and what are their qualifications in relation to this methodology? Some people think you can just put some intelligent-sounding questions on paper and that is all there is to it. But not so. People can take a different slant on what is being asked - quite different from the the slant the questioner thought they were taking. So questions need to be tested first for clarity and lack of ambiguity.
The other point - depending on the topic - is that some methods keep people separate in little boxes. It may be better to find a process where people can come together and discuss their views. Out of this might come a greater depth in relation to the matter and more creative solutions.
I haven't seen any evidence of govt depts doing this - although when I was at Kerang in April for the bureaucratic road show on the Murray Darling Basin Plan one farmer told me of a process that he was part of with the Dept of Sustainability & Environment a few years ago. It took a long time - about twelve months or two years of consultations and trying out things - but he felt it worked well and the results were satisfactory.
Some of this sort of stuff takes time - but if it means that communities are not divided, that ideas are generated, that there is a co-operative outcomes-oriented process with a government/bureaucracy that leads, informs, and co-operates with and engages communities it could be that we catch hold of something valuable. Old ways are not giving us the best results.