CONTENTS

Editorial

Jane Sherwin

From the President

Mike Duggan

Debunking Technocratic Managerialism

We invited Stuart Rees to expose some of the dogma of technocratic managerialism and to spell out some ways of overcoming its effects. Stuart Rees is the Director of the Centre for Peace & Conflict Studies at the University of Sydney.

Resisting the Red Tape

Lisa Cooper of Tableland Community Link in North Queensland describes why it is important for a service to be flexible in its response to the needs of people that it supports. She also believes it is important for a service to provide a buffer between the bureaucracy and the people supported by the service.

Flexible Support - not rigid rules

Wendy McDonnell offers an example of how important it is for families to keep decision-making close to them when they seek support for their their sons and daughter. Wendy lives in a remote North Queensland community where a local service provider showed great flexibility in responding to the family's needs - a flexibility that would never be demonstrated in a technocratic style of service management.

Local Responses to Global Rationalism

Richard de Simone describes alternate strategies to technocratic managerialism that have roots in earlier periods of history. Today, through a range of small mutual-aid processes, small communities create pools of funds that meet common needs. Richard is strongly involved in a Brisbane community that assists those who are marginalised by society.

How To Resist Technocratic Managerialism

Glen Hyland-Reid suggests that there are many ways to resist the forces of technocratic managerialism, and lists thirty-three of them. Glen works with people in the Redcliffe community who have created environmental arts that enhance the cultural life of the area.

Don't just do something...stand there! An invitation to conversation

Alf Lizzio is a lecturer in psychology and a member of the CRU committee. In this article he reminds us how important it is to take time to reflect, and to have conversations with each other. He even suggests some topics of conversation.