The Portal December 2015 | Page 23

THE P RTAL December 2015 Page 19 Churches need a sea change on welfare Fr James Grant OOLSC gives a personal view Over the last 30 years, Australian Churches have regularly raised with the Government and with their parishioners the need to be generous with money.  After all, the argument goes, we are a wealthy country with a responsibility to be a good neighbour both to countries in our region, and locally, especially to those less fortunate than ourselves.  Sometimes, this is such a strongly applied principle that the very nature of the faith itself can be rarely moved beyond “Be generous to others as God has been generous to you of the world, yet its basic principles hold true: where people are given economic freedom, poor countries are more than capable of producing wealth.  Without this freedom North Korea waits. Recently, there has been an increasing number of Australians who have come to question the entire premise.  Primarily, there is little evidence to suggest that giving local people welfare raises living standards in any significant measure, or that foreign aid does anything to develop poorer nations over the longer period.  It is at this point that Australia’s churches have a vital role to play.  Currently, most discussions about poverty focus on the need for government intervention, the desirability of minimum wages and the necessity of increased welfare provisions.  Yet key components are missing from Church statements on poverty and welfare questions.  How can Australia encourage the entrepreneur? How do we support the essential role of business in providing employment? How can we develop and support those who wish to start their own business initiatives?.  In short, Australia’s churches have underplayed the pivotal and indispensible component Australia has recently concluded a Free-Trade in moving people out of poverty - business support, Agreement (KAFTA April 2014) with South Korea, which leads to the provision of employment. a significant player on the world economic scene but Part of the reason for such neglect appears to be a one that only sixty years ago was largely devastated by general mistrust of wealth creation in the capitalist the Korean War (1950-53).  system and a feeling that inequality and greed may It is not aid that has resulted in the South Korean result. transformation, it is a philosophy of economic freedom, A focus on the exceptional wealth of a few a striving for excellence and an entrepreneurial class that has pursued wealth-generating enterprise.  individuals often attributes to them selfish motives Australians have also benefitted hugely from South or corrupt practices.  A more truthful analysis Korean growth; our trade is worth around 30 suggests that Australia’s churches are also perceived billion Australian Dollars, and our citizens benefit as excessively wealthy and with secretive and selfsignificantly from competitively priced cars, TVs, protecting practices.  It is not just millionaires within the capitalist system who may be tempted by greed; electronic and other electrical goods. communists, politicians, trade unionists, footballers, Yet South Korea, is only half the Korean story, sheiks and bishops can also show themselves to be North Korea is stringently opposed to economic fragile human beings!  freedom and ruthless in suppressing religious and Capitalist nations will always need the rule of law political freedoms.  North Korean restrictions breed massive starvation and poverty, yet in 6