Things I know this Week, aka When the World Hands You Lemons, sometimes You just have to Suck Them...

Its been a long week and I am really tired. But my friend Kelli has written about events in the Northern suburbs in the last few days and I wanted to contribute to her thoughts. If I'm lucky, she might even link to this as God knows, I have no idea how to link to her blog...

Some brief statistics that I am aware of:

• 38% of the Tasmanian population receives some kind of welfare benefit;
• Tasmania has the lowest post year 10 retention in the country;
• Tasmania has a higher rate of teenage pregnancy than alot of third world (so called "under developed") countries;
• Tasmania has the highest rate of teenage smoking in the country;
• Tasmania incarcerates the highest proportion of its Aboriginal population than any other jurisdiction in the country.

Each of these factors in and of itself are worrying. Put them together and you have a very concerning social profile that is emerging in our beautiful state, with no apparent sign of any of these factors being publicly or politically recognised and/or addressed.

Kelli has written of her own personal experience in the suburb of Ravenswood. I have limited personal experience; however my son attended day care there on occasion and I know people who live there who are positive and active members of the local and broader community. However, through my work I am also aware that:

• Ravenswood is a created suburb, initally for low income families but now predominantly characterised by families and individuals who are unemployed and in receipt of welfare benefits;
• Attempts by local and state government to promote a sense of community in this suburb have backfired, to the extent that locals of Ravenswood have an almost fanatical loyalty to the "status quo" of the area, and resent newcomers as well as those who seek to influence the existing social fabric of the area;
• The social profile of suburbs like Ravenswood represents a microcosm of the broader social deprivation and underachievement that Tasmania is experiencing;
• The social composition of suburbs such as Ravenswood disproportionally represents the unemployed, the socially excluded, educationally deprived and anti social problems in this State. We are talking about the third generation in many cases of people who have not completed a basic level of schooling, who have never held a job and whose deprived childhood experiences mean that they are less than competent parents.

What happened this week in Ravenswood was shocking and tragic. Two people have lost their lives under violent circumstances and we still do not know the full story.

However, its not altogether surprising when you consider the environment that has been created and allowed to thrive in suburbs such as Ravenswood. We are talking about a community populated largely by those for whom anti social behaviours are the norm, for whom conflict resolution is a physical rather than verbal exercise, and, bearing in mind the pervading history and current experiences of substance abuse, neglect, derivation, trauma and dysfuction, the absence of any sort of empathy or compassion for others. An almost sociopathic disregard for anyone other than self.

I am not wholly in agreement with Kelli when she says that Housing and Tasmania Police have blood on their hands this week. I do however agree that the Tasmania Government (past and present, of both major political pursuasions) is responsible for what has occurred. The lack of effective social services infrastructure in this  State is not only embarrassing, it is socially negligent. Whilst it may be costly for the government to provide social services, it is a social and moral obligation to the people of this state. And whilst this need continues to be ignored as a major political and social imperative, the people of this state will pay with their futures and their lives.