Kevin Rudd's government has announced a budget of $ 6.1 billion to house the homeless people of this country.
Somehow that brings back memories of a previous prime minister who set a date by which " No child in Australia will live in poverty. "
It is estimated that on any given night 105,000 Australians are homeless, and that of these 16,000 sleep rough in the streets. The Federal government is pledging that within twelve years all those sleeping rough will be found a home.
Apparently the government does not understand the meaning of the phrase " Supply and demand ! "
If the supply is sufficient - demand quickly follows !
The churches hold out their hands for money and one of the reasons they claim our benevolence is to minister to the poor. The strange phenomenon is that we have hordes of obscenely rich churches - and despite this the legions of the poor never seem to decrease.
The reasons people are homeless are varied - and that ranges from the personal tragedy of alcoholism, sexual abuse and mental illness - to plain old fashioned selfishness and a refusal to obey the basic rules of self discipline in our relationship with others.
Homelessness is not something we can ignore, but most people would think the prime minister is being naively optimistic if he thinks that just throwing money at the problem will make it vanish.
What odds that twelve years from now - like that promise of the end of child poverty - very little will have changed ?
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