It was a simple gesture captured in a photograph: Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull leaning over and placing money in the paper cup of a homeless man in Melbourne last week.
The contrasts in that moment of charity were stark. There were the buffed shoes and suit of a man of power, next to the ragged clothes of a man sitting on a sidewalk.
The prime minister’s clean-shaven face was inches from the man’s scraggly hair and furrowed brow. In one of Turnbull’s hands, a wad of banknotes; in the other, the single note he was depositing in the cup, a A$5 (US$3.80) bill.
The political overtones were also hard to miss: Turnbull, who led his conservative coalition to an election victory just last month, was on his way to deliver a major speech at the Committee for Economic Development of Australia.
By the end of the week, those few dollars had bought Turnbull a barrage of attention and had spurred a debate about how best to help homeless people — a problem that has bedeviled major cities around the world, including New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco.
Some critics called Turnbull a cheapskate, while others complained that his actions flew in the face of official efforts to address the problem of people living on the streets of Melbourne, a coastal city of about 4 million people.
“Turnbull — a man with a US$133 million net worth, a man who carries a stash of banknotes in a money clip, a man who donated a cool US$1 million to his own election campaign — could only spare a fiver to shove in another, poorer man’s coffee cup,” Erin Stewart wrote in the Sydney Morning Herald.
“The reality is that Turnbull’s government may cause homelessness,” Stewart wrote.
Melbourne Mayor Robert Doyle has said that giving money to beggars entrenches homelessness and has urged people to donate to charitable organizations that help homeless people instead.
“Please stop coming into the city and dropping off tents and bedding and clothing and blankets,” Doyle said in an interview last week with 3AW, a radio station. “It’s misguided.”
Officials and advocates for the homeless in the US also discourage people from giving money to homeless people on the streets, saying that donations to service providers like the Salvation Army do much more good.
In New York City, Mayor Bill de Blasio makes the same argument.
Some of the reaction to Turnbull’s gesture was supportive, but he also faced questions and criticism from social media users and the news media.
“I noticed you put A$5 in a street beggar’s cup in Melbourne the day before yesterday,” Neil Mitchell, a 3AW Morning host, said to Turnbull on Friday in the middle of an interview that touched on the country’s budget. “We are told not to do that. Do you think it’s a good idea to give money to beggars?”
“I know people have got different views on that. But you know, every time I see someone in that situation, I always think: There but for the grace of God go I,” Turnbull said.
“It was a human reaction, and I am sorry if that has disappointed some people,” he added. “Maybe they think you should not give money to people who are sitting on the street, but I felt sorry for the guy.”
Last month, shortly after the election won by Turnbull and his right-wing Liberal Party, a Salvation Army official, Brendan Nottle, said homelessness in Melbourne was at a crisis point.
The Age newspaper reported that 247 people were living on the city’s streets, according to the latest census report.
“We’ve just been through a federal election and there was no mention of homelessness,” Nottle was quoted as saying. “And yet I think, in a lot of people’s minds, it is a crisis, not just for our city, but for cities around the country.”
Australian Services Union assistant secretary David Leydon was critical of Turnbull on Twitter, prompting replies that insinuated the prime minister had meant his gesture to serve as a photo opportunity.
“Cheap skate Turnbull. He found A$2 million for the Liberal Party but only managed A$5 for a poor homeless fella,” Leydon wrote.
“Have now seen Malcolm Turnbull criticized from every angle for giving A$5 to a homeless man,” Myriam Robin, a journalist with the news Web site Crikey, wrote on Twitter.
Another man suggested the attention had gone too far.
Politicians especially seem to be the targets of criticism, and sometimes ridicule, when they drop change in cups, especially if cameras are around when they do.
In 2014, Britain’s former Labour leader Ed Miliband was criticized for giving a woman a few coins.
In March, he was spotted handing over ￡10 (US$13) to several youths on the street, the Independent reported.
However, that was after the teenagers had directed him to an ATM, reports said.
The homeless recipient of Turnbull’s cash, a man who identified himself only as Peter, told a reporter for the Sydney Morning Herald that he had not wanted his photograph taken, and that the polished stranger who put the money in his cup had told him: “Have a nice day.”
After learning it was Turnbull, the man said: “It’s a little stingy, because he’s a millionaire, but that’s okay. It’s his money and he worked hard for it.”
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