The Homeless and the heartless

ABC Radio National Breakfast continues its never-ending story of the dystopia that is John Howard's Australia, with the most recent national 'study' of homelessness. Host Fran Kelly headlined her introduction with the shock-horror announcement that the study finds we are less compassionate towards the homeless, and this was repeated when she began her interview with Tony Keenan, the head of the charity which commissioned the report. When asked for his major findings, he begins:

The major findings are that we’re probably far less compassionate as a country than we used to be, there’s certainly a lack of empathy...

Fran, to her credit, then asks the simple question of how this decline in compassion has been measured, and Mr. Keenan's answer is illuminating:

(pause) Clearly there’s not a previous study we compare ourselves to, and I guess I’m just making that assumption…

And that's it: no real evidence at all. Zip, zilch, nada. But a mere detail like lack of evidence is no hindrance on Radio National as long as the guest is 'on message', and Fran gives him a pass on this. I try to imagine what she would do to a Government minister, or a climate-change-sceptic scientist who made a comparable admission.