Yarra Institute

34 Bedford St, Box Hill PO Box 505, Box Hill VIC 3128 Phones: SPC: (03) 9890 1077 Yarra Institute (03) 9899 4777 Mobile: 0432 991 085 [email protected] www.socialpolicyconnections.com.au

NEWSLETTER May 2009 Launch of the

YARRA INSTITUTE Section of the audience at the launch of the Yarra Institute F O R R E L I G I O N & future’. ‘This Institute will concern S O C I A L P O L I C Y itself about broader visions of public policy, and Former Deputy Prime Minister, Professor Brian Howe alternative directions’. AM, on 23 April launched the ecumenical Yarra Professor Howe is currently Director of the Centre for Institute to focus on the role Public Policy at the University of Melbourne. As a of religious beliefs and member of Federal Cabinet from 1984 to 1996, he values in the shaping of held a range of portfolios in the fields of Defence, public policy in Australia. Social Security, Health, Housing and Community The work of the Institute will Service. He is perhaps best known for his initiatives in centre on research and the areas of Social Security, reform of family postgraduate teaching. payments and the introduction of Child Support. Speaking to more than 80 An independent ecumenical body, the Yarra Institute people in the new study provides a forum for closer interaction among the centre at Yarra Theological Professor Brian Howe various Christian social traditions. The Yarra Institute Union in Box Hill in listening to a question does not claim to speak for the churches, but to speak Melbourne, Professor Howe and publish in the public forum on the basis of its said it was ‘very timely for this Institute to be research and scholarship. established’, since it was ‘a means for serious work to be undertaken along the lines of theology and public The Chair of the Board of Directors, Dr Stephen policy’. This initiative was especially significant Ames, said that the Yarra Institute already had one because of the ‘very serious issues’ Australia faced, project under way, and was in discussions with other including from climate change and the global organisations about research partnerships and new economic crisis. He urged the Institute to forge links projects. Areas of concern include the churches’ with overseas networks as well. involvement in the development of social policy, indigenous issues, overseas aid and development, employment and social equity in Australia, taxation, environmental problems and ethical aspects of the current economic crisis. The Institute will take care not to duplicate what From left: Dr Bruce Duncan, Professor Brian Howe and others are doing, but will offer analysis and comment Dr Stephen Ames on policy questions from moral perspectives informed by Christian social traditions and thinking. For more information on the Yarra Institute, see the Yarra Institute button on the website at www.socialpolicyconnections.com.au. See also the two In his view the Institute was based on ‘a big idea, a leaflets about the Yarra Institute on the home page. good idea’, but its task would not be easy, since relating theology and public life was a ‘very tricky Editorial by Bruce Duncan and difficult problem’. He urged the Institute not to be confined to modifying ‘bits and pieces at the edge of Rediscovering the moral dimension policy’, but to think ‘about what are the central issues, and how we can really make a difference for the

Fr Christopher Monaghan, President of Yarra Theological Union Many commentators on the current economic crisis Once again the excesses in the capitalist world have are bemoaning the collapse of ethical standards that so forced home the painful lesson that the economy undermined global prosperity. Former leader of the exists to meet human needs, and must be structured Liberal Party, John Hewson wrote that ‘I quite frankly within a framework of social and ethical values. despair at times at how these “value issues” are so Special interest groups have invoked the mantra of easily ignored, or ‘free markets’, with dire consequences. The difficulty dispensed with, in the now, as always, is to find the right balance of public debate.’ regulation to ensure both social equity and prosperity (Australian Financial for coming generations. Review 24 April). The tragedy is that so many innocent people will He wished to see more suffer as a result of hubris in financial markets, along of the ‘moral with the failure of the banks and regulators, and dimensions of some collusion in much of the media. Is this not a key policy issues… sophisticated form of corruption, that undermined not Courtesy anjan58's, flickr like climate change, boat just the integrity of economic theory and practice, but people/refugees, and even this global economic and leached its way through popular culture as well? financial crisis’. He insisted that not just government, the economy or business would be better off, but A massive task awaits the world, with a major society as a whole. overhaul of the way we produce and distribute goods and services. It may also be a providential opportunity He lamented that proposed solutions ‘are riddled with to shape a more equitable and sustainable world. moral hazards and conflicts of interest. Like bailing out those who caused or at least contributed to the Pope’s encyclical on poverty and crisis, with no requisite change in practice or globalisation imminent behaviour, almost with the expectation that once the problems are fixed, they will be free to do it all As we send out this again.’ Hewson concluded that the fundamental newsletter, Pope question was one of leadership in government and Benedict XVI's new business. social encyclical is reportedly about to Others think the major be released, possibly problem is one of on 15 May, the ideology or social anniversary date of philosophy, that assumed Pope Leo XIII’s the market would work social encyclical of best if left to its own 1891, Rerum devices, with minimal Novarum. SPC and consideration being given the Yarra Institute to social and ethical will hold ecumenical values. Church documents forums on the new often refer to this as encyclical. ‘economic liberalism’, or ‘neoliberalism’. Meanwhile to keep you thinking, see Dr Courtesy exposedplanet, flickr As has happened before, the economic results of this self-serving ideology have been catastrophic. Courtesy thinkpanama, flickr New additions to our website include Millions of people have Cal Ledsham, ‘Tax havens – a moral problem’ Brian Lewis, ‘Resolution of conflict situations’; and become unemployed, ‘The principle of the double effect’ hundreds of thousands, Paul, Rule, on History of Quaker service in the United States Radio: Jon Cleary’s ‘Sunday Nights’, with Bruce Duncan, Stephen Ames and Caz Coleman, 26 April. particularly, have lost We invite readers to submit articles their homes, the financial for consideration by our editors. system teeters on the Rowan Williams, “Ethics and Global Justice’ at brink, and the entire global economy is in crisis. As www.archbishopofcanterbury.org/2323; and Paul Volker, former chair of the US Federal Reserve ‘Renewing the Face of the Earth: Human said recently, it was ‘only the grace of government Responsibility and the Environment’, at intervention’ that was keeping the global economy www.archbishopofcanterbury.org/2351. operating.