The Victorian government is proposing to decriminalise begging as an offence, but is this benevolence or perhaps something else more covert?
The change is meant to stop the long arm of the law from snapping a set of cuffs on a beggar and sending them to the slammer for 12 months.
But what if it is something else lies behind this ‘benevolence’ that no beggar has asked for and for which no beggar has been jailed for in modern history?
No, maybe, just maybe the real reason lies elsewhere and that reason lies not in law books, but the state’s budget ledger, I believe.
That’s right, this is nothing but a cash grab to prop up Victoria’s budget!
Until this law change, begging was the last unregulated labour and economic market in the country, something that is abhorrent to Labor governments and their union mates.
It was the last bastion of free and unregulated entrepreneurism where both the buyer and seller benefited from an exchange the price of which was determined solely between the two parties without interference from third.
The ‘buyer’ or donor chooses free to give a sum of money to the ‘seller’, in this case the beggar, who by receiving the donation gives the donor a sense of fleeting wellbeing through their momentary philanthropy.
Begging, as a cash industry, also serves to keep currency in circulation, which is a benefit to the commonweal.
So why would a government want to abolish this market?
Because it means it can be a regulated market and that means taxing it.
The best example are the bookies who once had a thriving and unregulated market as starting price bookies – then the government stepped in to regulate it, police it, and tax it.
At first, the Victorian government used a simple turnover tax and then that was replaced with a Point of Consumption Tax which was introduced in 2019 with a rate of 8 per cent, then in 2021 it jumped to 10 per cent, and 2024 leaped to 15 per cent.
A POCT for beggars would be the government’s first choice is my bet.
And it will not only be the state government that gets in on the act. It will be the ATO demanding their slice from the beggars too.
The Salvation Army, in a 2015 report, estimated that some ‘professional’ beggars can earn up to $300-$400 a day through their labour – money not to be sniffed at.
The first recorded instance I can find in modern history of a professional beggar is in Dr John Watson’s account of a Sherlock Holmes case The Man With The Twisted Lip.
Holmes delves into the murder of Sir Neville St Claire, a city businessman, who disappears into an opium den and is believed murdered by a ‘lascar’ of Indian appearance with a twisted lip.
The case is solved when Holmes uncovers that the ‘lascar’ is in fact Sir Neville in disguise who has found it more profitable to travel into the city each day as a businessman before turning himself into a beggar.
And in 2009 the Sunday Telegraph ran a story about one beggar who earned about $50,000 a year – but to do that he had to work up to 16 hours a day!
The regulation of this industry will create a bureaucratic nightmare for these professional-type beggars as well as sweeping the less successful beggars into a tax net.
Will they have to incorporate as small businesses and put in quarterly BAS statements, pay GST, super, Workcover etc?
Or perhaps they could register as a not for profit charity which also has its own rigorous bureaucracy surrounding it.
And of course, to protect their interests they will need some sort of representation.
Short of forming a Beggers Guild to self-regulate and guard their industry from the clutches of government maybe the union movement will step in to look after them?
Will it be the TWU who looks after Gig workers, or will it be the MEAA who looks after buskers and street entertainers?
No doubt there will be demarcation disputes until the matter is resolved if the unions have their way and try and muscle in on this newly regulated industry.
Once that happens beggars will be caught by the full panoply of workplace law.
The unions to make themselves relevant would want to generate a Beggars Award to set wages, hours of work, OHS regulations and so on to guarantee a safe workplace.
The beggars would find themselves having to set minimum rates for citizens to donate and exercise their well-meaning philanthropy: maybe $5 for a thank you smile of gratitude or perhaps $10 for a stand-up handshake. Who knows?
This would be demeaning for all participants in the exchange. No more freely giving and receiving but a business deal which doesn’t have any empathy involved but exchange of cash and receipts.
So, beggars beware.
As free market entrepreneurs, you are about to be swept into the maw of the state who will take a share of your earnings and give nothing in return, not even an empathetic nod.
The decriminalisation of begging in Victoria is real. This article is satire.
