NAKED CITY – COMMODIFYING THE POOR
We’ve all heard the government line that those on welfare, especially the poorest members of our society, along with the homeless, are a serious strain on our economy. But remove them completely from the landscape and there are many amongst the ‘better off’ who would be severely disadvantaged.
It’s all very hypothetical, loaded with irony and down right cynical to suggest, but without a financially destitute lower class many Australians would be looking for a new job. Let’s start with the so called “payday lenders”, shamed in a recent Four Corners program for their exorbitant fees and massive interest rates. The $400,000,000 industry would not be worth a cracker without a regular underclass to exploit.
These days many of the various welfare charities who look after the poor and homeless are run like corporations with well paid C.E.O’s and a bureaucracy that employs a large number of people. Few would argue that the services they provide are sorely needed and without them the government would find it almost impossible to cope. Yet despite their omnipresence throughout the city and suburbs the problems they address don’t seem to be getting any better. That’s certainly not their fault, and unlike the nasty payday lenders, their motives are essentially altruistic. The fact remains however that the non-government welfare sector is a growth industry.
Then of course’s there’s the latest SBS ratings blockbuster Struggle Street, which pulled in a remarkable 1.3 million viewers last Wednesday, after a week of largely adverse publicity. The three part series is rumoured to have cost upwards of a million dollars to produce, most of that no doubt going into healthy production salaries. Great for the local film industry and the SBS bosses, but just another kick in the guts if you live in Mt Druitt.
The Mayor of Blacktown Stephen Bali could not have been more succinct when he labelled it “poverty porn”, despite the predictable squawking from the documentary makers that they set out to make a program that was sympathetic to the plight of local residents.
Heaven help us that the commercial networks don’t jump on the SBS bandwagon and produce their own big budget poverty porn. They’ve already been doing it on a smaller scale for years with shows like A Current Affair and Today Tonight, exposing so called welfare cheats and suburban neighbours at war. Maybe we’ll soon see a version of The Block where the contestants get to renovate trashed public housing or a Masterchef where you get to feed a family of five with a ten dollar note…
You could well argue that across the broad spectrum of finance, welfare and now entertainment, that the poor and the homeless have become a commodity – one that supports a variety of industries and keeps many well reimbursed workers in a job. God help us that we ever get rid of this precious commercial commodity. Shock and horror – If we ever did eradicate homelessness and poverty we could well have thousands of Australians out of work and living on the street!
By Coffin Ed, Jay Katz and Miss Death
