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The Enabler

Interview with Peter Lewis

On the eve of the release of his latest book, Beazley's brain on the back-bench, Mark Latham, talks about putting the social back into socialism.

	Mark Latham

You have called your book The Enabling State, what is the basic concept?

It is really a new form of collectivism. The old "stand and deliver" approach by government relied on the expansion of government resources, but now there are very clear limits on how much government can spend. A lot of the new politics is about boundary crossing - about forming partnerships in collaboration across institutions that traditionally wouldn't work together.

The Enabling State is about enabling individuals and communities to be more self-reliant; for government to mobilise additional collective resources across all parts of society - households; communities; corporations - as well as the traditional public sector role. Government is the bridge builder if you like, a partnership-former. And whether we are talking about health mutuals or community schools, or new innovative models for delivering disability services, or this concept of social entrepreneurship, The Enabling State is trying to enable people to do more things collectively.

So does the role of a public servant in that sort State changes, because rather than building another structure, they are actually forming a relationship?

Instead of prescribing and controlling, the role for the public servant is to give other people, other organisations, the freedom to achieve for themselves. Instead of schools being run by the Department of Education model, the community school idea is to mobilise additional parental and community commitments to the school on the basis that it is run locally by a Board of Management instead the central department.

Peter Botsman in the book talks about social cooperatives and health mutuals. In a similar way the book uses examples from Britain, and also Noel Pearson's material from Cape York. We talk about social entrepreneurship - people who work in the social sector but are looking to form partnerships with businesses.

Traditionally, there has been a wide separation between social work and the corporate sector. Social entrepreneurs try to bring the two sectors together, to re-connect poor communities with the real economy, as well as continuing to build self-esteem and this thing called 'social capital' through good social work. It is a good example of boundary crossing. This is the challenge for public servants now - to cross the boundary between public and private; to cross the boundary between government and community; to cross the boundary between corporations and the social sector.

What's a practical example of how this could work in the real world?.

The book uses some case studies and I am keen to write up some more. But take the example of a suburb like Claymore - a public housing estate in my electorate in south-west Sydney. Six years ago Claymore was known as the worst suburb in New South Wales. This was an area where one of the streets, Proctor Way, had sixty police incidents a month - two a day. I'm talking about really bad social breakdown.

The Department of Housing basically tried everything. Other government departments had thrown a lot of money at Claymore with no success. And what happened was that the Department of Housing left the area. It evacuated after two bad townhouse fires and five people died. The Department turned the management of the area over to a guy called Brian Murnane from Argyle Community Housing.

One of the interesting things about poor communities is that there is always an inclination to fight back. There is always a spark of energy; a spark of leadership; a new idea - and very often government departments miss the little things that are happening at a community level. But Brian Murnane acted as a community broker and relationship-former and he was able to identify these sparks of energy and effort and give people the confidence to try new things - to build up their self-esteem and to get people, often for the first time in their lives, achieving things and feeling good about it. So whether it was a community barbecue; a clean up day; a magnificent community garden; a neighbourhood watch scheme; a low interest loan scheme like micro-credit; a business enterprise to do the maintenance and cleaning in Claymore or new training programs - a pattern of projects emerged which widened the circle of achievement and self-esteem.

Murnane started small, a small-scale community, building up a bigger set of achievements, to the point where now Claymore is a normal functioning community. People trust each other and work with their neighbours on common projects, instead of thinking that, "it's my neighbour who is breaking into my house". They feel safe walking down to the shops at night.

One of the disconnections of the political system from poor communities is the way in which we debate welfare reform. Some people say that we need more government intervention in these areas. The free marketeers say that we need more deregulation and market forces. Talk to the people in the communities - they want to normalise the neighbourhood. They want a normal, trusting, cooperative environment - a good social environment. The first priority is social.

Murnane in his social brokerage work has normalised the neighbourhood. It is something a government department couldn't have achieved and something that the free market couldn't have achieved. And now we have the right base - the right social base - the right relationships between people, by which government training and employment effort can achieve better results.

A lot of studies, and I think common sense, says that if people feel bad about themselves, they are not trusting each other, they are living in isolation, then they are not going to make very good use of the government programs. They will be reluctant to even participate. The first challenge is to get people through the front door of a new government service.

In Claymore the social environment is now right, thereby allowing government to do its best work. This is an example of The Enabling State. A social entrepreneur like Brian Murnane has done his best work - social brokerage and normalising the neighbourhood. Now government can come in acting as a junior partner to the community. Once the social environment is right, the relationships are sound; the government then comes in with its resources as a junior partner.

I know from my own experience, the inclination in politics is to take a 'Big Bang' approach. Governments build new community centres; create new services; doing visible things that help in the political process. Well, the Big Bang approach doesn't work. It is built on unsound social foundations. It normally results in the frustration of wasted services and wasted money.

It is almost an opposite of the Whitlam agenda isn't it?

To some extent, yes.

How can you reconcile those two?

It is not a decrease in government funding effort. It is not a running down of government services. It is a recognition that those services need to be built on strong social foundations. It is a reversal of process if you like. A different way of thinking about the role of government. Forget about the big plans, the big departmental programs to re-make a place like Claymore. The answers lie in the people themselves. Changing the way the housing looks; or building new community buildings; changing the material or physical things - has got to be the secondary consideration. The first task is to normalise the neighbourhood by getting people working cooperatively together.

On our side of politics it puts the "social" back into socialism. It puts the "social" back into social justice. It is an important lesson.

My own experience in politics is that machine politicians don't visit public housing estates - they are not in marginal seats. The media certainly don't live or work there. Academics - they are not to be seen in poor neighbourhoods. There is a disconnection between the political elite and the way in which poor areas function. It is very important to learn from social practitioners - to learn from these projects - and what they tell us about public policy. At the end of the day, what matters is what works.

My conclusion is that we have got a lot more to learn from the poor than they have to learn from us. One of the constant themes in this book, The Enabling State, is the need to learn from social practitioners; to learn by doing. Forget about the big theories of sociology; the old ideological battles. Throw away the political script. Learn about the things that work in practice and create the big public policy conclusions.

Gough's agenda is still relevant. I mean, if he hadn't put the services into western Sydney we would be much weaker. But services tend to function best for people in jobs - people who already have a bit of security and self-esteem.

The problems of poverty are a lot more concentrated than they were in the seventies. They are geographically concentrated and they are concentrated around social problems: distrust, alienation, isolation. Unless you fix the social dimension, the Whitlam agenda cannot achieve its best results. It will lapse into what some people call "middle class welfare".

So you there are looking at the blurring of the lines between a working class and an under class, and politics have tended to group those two classes as the one group?

They are very separate now. This is a big challenge for the trade union movement. Most unionists are in jobs. The dispossessed in our society are living in places like Mount Druitt, Minto and Macquarie Fields - public housing estates with unemployment rates of 50 percent and welfare dependency rates of 80 percent. You can look at the social atlas of Sydney and see twelve bright red dots on the map. These are the places where long term unemployment and social problems are geographically concentrated.

Trade union organisers, political organisations, media personalities and machine politicians - they don't have much contact with these areas. If you like, the poor have become institution-free. They are not connected to organisations and lobby groups. It is a huge challenge on our side of politics to recognise this concentration of poverty and build new institutional links to these communities.

The idea of community building is premised on a participation by the community, yet a lot of the polling these days shows your typical person is aspirational, fairly self-focussed. What is the role of politics in turning that around?

This is the problem of "downwards envy", where the middle group in society is looking down the social ladder at those who are supposedly receiving privileged treatment. They don't look up to the top of the ladder, they are looking down at Aboriginal communities and unemployed people, newly arrived migrants - looking down the ladder and thinking, "well, I am envious of the entitlements and rights issued by government."

This is very much the Hanson agenda. How do we counter it? The key is to make welfare work. Nothing beats getting results in poor areas. Because not only does it solve poverty, it lets the middle class group see and understand the sound use of taxpayers' dollars. It is getting results. It is important to throw away the old ideological textbooks and back the things that work in practice.

Claymore, having got results - results that I thought were impossible as the local member of parliament five years ago - results that the Department of Housing had pretty well given up on - there is a big lesson there about how we can make welfare work. And once it works, people will be more inclined to contribute their tax dollars.

What about their time and their activity?

In building partnerships. I mean, part of the work of social entrepreneurs is to form links. Form links with the local businesses; form links with charities like St Vincent de Paul; form links with Campbelltown Council and local community groups.

Brian Murnane is now looking to partnerships with the business community to redevelop the local shopping centre. Partnership building is the only way to bring other people into these areas. In the past, the community workers never really came from the community. They were bussed in from outside areas. Murnane, by contrast, set up his office where the townhouses had burnt down. He wasn't remote and distant like the Department of Housing. He was on the spot. He was a local.

Community building is essential, but the bigger part of it is to form partnerships with outside organisations and bring them into the circle of success and achievement. Social entrepreneurs have a habit of doing that. They are able to build bridges across class and geographic boundaries. Most of all, they have a good way of making welfare work - and that is the best way of building public confidence.

Do you see a role for the new technologies and the Internet in what we are talking about?

I think the first task is to normalise the neighbourhood. To get the social environment right. We have got to identify the community effort, the inclination to fight back, the leaders who can inspire self-esteem and success. The next step is to reconnect these communities with the real economy. The skills agenda is all-important. Internet cafes and IT skills are going to be an essential part.

There is an innovative project in Melbourne, where they are wiring up one of those multi-storey public housing developments and giving everyone an Internet connection, and then some training on how to use the Net. Now, you might get a handful of entrepreneurial people starting up enterprises - out of the blue, in unexpected places. This is a feature of the new technology. So, yes, IT links and training are essential.

And what about the timing of this book in the context of the electoral cycle? Are you purposefully trying to get a message out before the Federal election?

A lot of the book is about learning from social practitioners - from the Noel Pearsons and the Andrew Mawsons to the Brian Munanes and Vicky Meadows in my electorate. The Labor Party can never stop learning from social practitioners. So, it is not really connected to the election cycle, it is part of the ongoing learning process. If the Labor Party wasn't talking about new solutions to poverty, then we wouldn't be fulfilling our historic role.

A book like this can point us in new policy directions - that is important. For us, this is a job in perpetuity. It never stops for elections or anything else. It is the most important thing we do. The timing of the book is simply a product of learning the lessons; getting the authors and contributors together; committing the material to paper; doing the editing; and now the release and the launch by Noel Pearson tonight.

How far down the track towards the sort of orientation you are talking about, do you think Labor is at the moment, federally?

We have a tendency to stand by "government first" solutions. If you tap the average Labor member of parliament on the knee to check their reflexes, their reflex would be government first. Is there a social or economic problem? Government is seen as the most immediate answer.

We have got to change that way of thinking. We have got to change the sequence by which we tackle social problems. Government needs to act in a junior capacity to community effort. The core lesson of this book is to look to community-led solutions first and foremost. Then build government programs on top of these social foundations, otherwise it is virtually impossible to solve our most entrenched social and economic problems.

I am looking to change the reflex action of the Party with this book. Hopefully in the future, when our Ministers are tapped on the knee, they will be more inclined to look to community-led solutions.

What would be a single policy initiative that could be announced in the lead up to the Federal election, that would indicate that they are starting to get it?

Well, we need to fit in with the ethos of people like Brian Munane. Brian recently came down to talk to the Social Policy Committee of the Caucus. It was quite a fascinating experience because he outlined the great success in Claymore, and that was very impressive. And then he said to the gathering, "We want to take over the half-derelict local shopping centre. We want to run enterprises and cooperatives and training programs. We want to reconnect with the real economy." And he said: "I don't want a government grant to do that, I want low interest loans. I want venture capital."

I thought to myself, this guy is talking revolution. He's the first person I've ever heard from the social sector who said that he didn't want a grant, he didn't want a handout, he wants venture capital, he wants to pay the money back once he has achieved results. Results in a commercial sense. Murnane is prepared to cross-over between the social and business sectors.

I would like to see the establishment of a social venture capital program, whereby government is supporting these projects, but not through grant monies. Grants operate under what economists call 'decreasing returns' - you expect to never see the money again. Labor should back people like Brian Murnane. We should back social entrepreneurs. Supporting them with venture capital would not only mobilise stronger support from the business sector, it would also give the taxpayer hope for a better return on scarce public resources. It would build middle class support for welfare by backing the people who are getting results in practice.

There is a lot to be gained from this sort of policy. And again, it is about boundary crossing. The new politics is about crossing boundaries. Social venture capital. Venture capital - we know what that is - for sound social purposes - solving problems in our most disadvantaged neighbourhoods. This is way of crossing boundaries and getting more powerful solutions than if government and the business sectors acted in isolation.

� It's about two and a half years now since you left the Front Bench and got into a position where you could talk out on policy. You have been writing in the Telegraph, you have been writing in the Financial Review. Do you think the political debate has shifted in the last couple of years?

Our agenda has shifted onto education, which is the theme I advanced in our first term in Opposition. I am a 100% rusted-on supporter in the Knowledge Nation agenda. I've always thought it is the best way for Labor to proceed, rather than doling out subsidies to companies under the banner of so called industry policy.

So, yes, I think our direction is sound. But we also need to re-focus on poverty; we need to learn lessons from social entrepreneurs; and start to get solutions to our most entrenched social problems. There is always more policy work for our side of politics. The social issues are changing rapidly in this era of non-stop change, and our social policies have got to be adapting as well. I think our agenda is heading in the right direction, and this book will hopefully add to that.

So would a Beazley Government be the sort of Government you would like to be a Minister in?

Well, let's win the election first and see what happens. I have used the last two and a half years productively to put out a lot of policy. Someone was saying to me the other day, more policies that the rest of the parliament combined. So that has been good for me. I've put out an education manifesto, ideas to be used in government. This book now is a collection of ideas about social policy. I've got some more work to do on welfare reform. You know, these are all things that will be valuable when we get back into government; hopefully, at the next election.

'The Enabling State' is published by Pluto Press. An extract from the book will be printed next week

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