Page 90 - Week 01 - Wednesday, 8 April 1992
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in particular, essential for even the most mundane jobs. Where employment opportunities do remain open to illiterate people, they are within an increasingly narrow range of tasks, poorly paid, with low status and within which the illiterate employee has minimum negotiating strength.
Another issue that is important for people who are illiterate is the right to take part in the government of one's own country directly or through freely chosen representatives. Illiterate people rarely vote. There is evidence that those who do vote usually cast votes of questionable worth. Many of us could look at the statistics for the last ACT election and try to make sense of the way some people voted. Those who had scrutineers at the count of the voting could also attempt to make sense of how some people voted across and through party lines.
Mr Kaine: Some of them even voted for you, Michael.
MR MOORE: One of the most interesting things is that there were people intelligent enough and literate enough to understand what was represented by people like me, rather than just voting on direct party lines. "Democracy" really is a mendacious term when used by those who are prepared to countenance the forced exclusion of one-third of our electorate.
Another important factor is the right to economic, social and cultural conditions necessary to the dignity of a person. There are poignant examples of how dignity is undermined on an everyday basis through illiteracy. Some of these include those unable to read a menu in a restaurant, and people unable to catch public transport due to the inability to decipher timetables, directions or signs. Access to every service in a print-dominated society is severely limited.
Another important factor is the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of oneself and one's family. Whereas it has been shown that a year 9 level of reading and comprehension is required to understand the instructions on many household products labelled poison, or pharmaceutical products, a year 10 level is required to understand the instructions on a tax return - you have to be pretty good if you can do it from year 10 level too - and year 12 competence is required for an insurance form. No doubt the year 10 level refers to the more recent tax return forms. Many of us can recall only four or five years ago when I am sure there were surveys taken where a postgraduate level was required in order to understand the taxation forms.
The simple demands of justice inherent in these taken-for-granted human rights entail the ability to read and write. Failure to ensure as far as possible that this condition is met by all individuals within modern print-dominated societies is to be complicit in fostering social injustice. The very nature of social justice is interwoven with the notion of literacy and access to literacy.
The appropriate stance for governments committed to justice is for those government and other agencies whose views and actions are seen as authoritative to take measures to draw adult literacy into the arena of full status knowledge and to fund adult literacy programs and give them a high profile. Federal, Territory and State governments must, in justice, acknowledge their role in this new age partnership and must be held accountable for their response.
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