Great story - and a great example of the real cost of the federal government's obsession with favouring the creation of potemkin industries instead of just doing direct service delivery. - ThreadSky

akayea.bsky.social • 21 days ago

Great story - and a great example of the real cost of the federal government's obsession with favouring the creation of potemkin industries instead of just doing direct service delivery.

Reposted from Rick Morton

Threats, lies and a clusterfuck. One of the more batshit stories I've done. Plot to take over Meals on Wheels, private firm that was paid millions to do it while trading insolvent and a senior public servant sorry for his behaviour. Everything laid bare. www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/news/2025/02...

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akayea.bsky.social•21 days ago

How fucked up has 40 years of public service delivery reform been where you have to hire a consultant to advice a national umbrella group on the activities of separate jurisdictional subgroups to better compete for government contracts that you're also handing out.

akayea.bsky.social•21 days ago

We could have a world where the government decides that there should be a meals on wheels program, and so hires some people to run it.

akayea.bsky.social•21 days ago

Or even better - just give more government welfare support to the people who need a meals on wheels program so they can better afford their own food, and shrink the program down to a much smaller core for those who absolutely need it.

akayea.bsky.social•21 days ago

But Australia instead decides to operate a cruelty economy populated by potemkin industries that operate on a parody market logic.

the NDIS, job service providers, most social supports, even MBS to some extent

a giant make-work program for the shonks and spivs of australia, monetising the poor

akayea.bsky.social•21 days ago

there is no natural political constituency for these arrangements - no class of people that need to be given no-show and no-work jobs to grease the wheels of government

rather, the potemkin industries themselves create political movers and shakers who now have free cash to make donations

akayea.bsky.social•21 days ago

this gives way to a strange inverse of the natural order - these potemkin industries should be terrified of crossing the government that provides 100% of their revenue via short-term contracts and grants

but instead you have SES pleading not to put things in writing and stop lodging FOIs

shadowmaster13.bsky.social•21 days ago

I can see a need for a program like this even with greater money. Cooking requires not just ingredients but ability that people lose as they age (or earlier with disabilities) so a service that does it for them is good to exist

phonakins.com•21 days ago

Certainly!

Now Foodbank on the other hand....

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