Whose Responsibility Anyhow?

07 Dec Whose Responsibility Anyhow?

Dear Here to Help,

A couple of years ago, in summer, there was a massive seaweed event on my local beach. The weather was really hot and the seaweed started rotting, attracting flies and smelling after a couple of days. The Council did nothing! We complained and still they did nothing. We could smell it at home and it was just gross. Surely, it was some kind of public health risk and council should have cleaned it up immediately! After all, it’s council’s job. That’s why I pay my taxes.

Great question! Your story illustrates the difficult line between what is a public responsibility (for government), what is a private responsibility (for individuals) and what is a collective responsibility (for communities).

Let’s break that down. Most people take charge of their own personal circumstances. Generally, we feed, house and cloth ourselves and our families – that is a personal responsibility. For some people, they are unable to do that for themselves, so it becomes a collective responsibility (eg charity) or a public responsibility (eg government housing).

Ideally, government steps in when people can’t do things for themselves, either alone or by forming a group (like a charity) to do things together. This is just practical – if government did everything for us, government would be even larger and more expensive than it is now.

Let’s come back to your beach issue – as a beachside community, you and your neighbours and other beachgoers are more agile than any government department. That means that together, you can organise yourself to help solve the problem quickly.

On the other hand, to deal with the seaweed problem, government would need to reprioritise its works program, reallocate staff and heavy machinery and go back on its promises to do other things for other parts of your community.

My suggestion would be to talk to a charity or community group, such as Clean Up Australia, for tips on how best to approach the issue. You may be able to partner with a charity, local business or council – if they can’t clean up the mess immediately, can they deliver a skip bin (or similar) and PPE while you and your neighbours get out and get messy and make the beach (and your lives) more enjoyable? Who knows – the sense of accomplishment and connections you make working together to clean your beach might just help making your local community an even better place to live.

This article comes from my column entitled “Here to Help” in Hunter Local, December 2021. If you have an everyday problem just begging for a simple, real world solution, send it to “Here to Help” and let’s see what we can achieve.

Elaine Abery has a closet full of great ideas and empowering solutions. She’s also the Director of Unravelling Red Tape, a company dedicated to helping everyday people, not-for-profits and companies change the world through improved decision-making and legislation.