Betty Green, Community Development/Health Promotion Activist & Advocate out at the Bankstown Women's Health Centre, drops us a line on the attacks on NGOs, which NHJ! contributor Paddy Manning exposed in Chapter 14, 'Keeping Democracy in its Place':

Margo, as a feminist working in an NGO for the last 18 years I must congratulation you on an excellent presentation of the degrading of the role of NGO's both in the Federal and State spheres of politics.

I found myself shaking my head on a number of occasions as I read your excellent book and expose on the machinations of a government that works to discredit and silence its detractors. I have faithfully promised my friends to pass on this book which I believe is a MUST read before the impending election.

I am concerned that the voices of NGO's have been successively silenced and Big Business has effectively hijacked the democratic process. As an activist for women's rights I am passionate in seeing a truly democratic process restored to the people of Australia.

Congratulations on your book Margo!

Betty Green's NGO is a fine example of the crucial role such organisations play in our democracy, btw. If you go to the South Western Sydney Area Health Service website (NSW Government), then work your way via 'Area Services', 'Women's Health' and 'Programs and Staff' to arrive at 'NGO Women's Health Services', you can see the fundamental importance of the 'embedded' yet 'independent' nature of Betty's type of NGO. The services, facilities, expertise, counselling, studies and policy advice that those Women's Health experts and volunteers working in the NGO 'interface' area - in this case, snuggled in somewhere between the NSW Health Department and the less well-off women of SW Sydney - can supplement the strictly government-controlled assets in an irreplaceable way. Have a look, for example, at what the Campbelltown NGO, the 'Centre for Women's Health', offers local women:

Centre for Women's Health (includes Domestic Violence Team; Mid to Older Women's Health team; Resource & Training Unit; Young Women who are Parents program)

Just the sorts of Women's Health functions that will demand, as an inherent part of their raison d'etre, the giving of expert policy advice to government and often firm advocacy for change. Case in point: Federal Health Minister Tony Abbott's push to ditch the right of minors to patient/doctor confidentiality, and/or ban chemists from dispensing the morning-after pill. The NGO experts and volunteers running that 'Young Women Who Are Parents' program at Campbelltown, where sex among youngsters is doubtless not unheard of, would probably be inclined, as result of their experience of working with young mums who were too intimidated or ill-informed to avoid unplanned pregnancy, to advocate against such changes.

Yet if the John Howard/Peter Costello anti-NGO formula - Phase One: Stop funding NGOs that speak out - keeps gaining 'traction', they just may be less inclined to do so next time Mr Abbott - or an equally socially-conservative member of Bob Carr's government, say - starts pushing similar 'family values' electoral buttons.

Thanks heaps for the email, Betty. And don't stop 'advocating' for Women's Health - no matter what His Treasurerness (Federal or State) threatens re: funding. (Get yourselves a pocket-picking pet python, maybe.)