Social round-up

If there is a problem in Australia of any sort, from an excess of dog shit on the footpaths to a lack of corporate innovation, you can be damn sure that an organization will pop up to address it.

These advocacy groups have names like Getup Australia or Innovate Australia, or even Cleanup Australia.

The first action of the day is for the ‘executives’ of these organisations to promote themselves on morning TV, and then they have to round up a bunch of geriatrics with impressive resumes for their boards and advisory councils.

Apart from the stated goal of the organization (to get your local dog shit cleaned up, for example) the key objective is for the executive and the board/advisory council members to get payment for their services (because generally they can’t get employment otherwise). For this, the most likely source of income is a government handout – hence the publicity requirements.

The very successful advocacy groups turn into political lobby groups and also get money off interested parties, such as companies in their particular sector. The less successful groups just keep plugging away with government handouts.

There are literally thousands of these groups and I don’t think it is possible to kill them. There is no Round-Up equivalent for advocacy groups, more’s the pity.