AUSTRALIAN POLITICS (Updated 15/5/2014)

WHO ARE WE NOW?

Australian politics - reading between the lines.

By Frances Harris

The Abbot government has just made a powerful statement in the budget 2014, about how they regard their Australian citizens, and importantly how they expect us to feel about each other.

Now for all you mothers and fathers who decided to live a low income lifestyle due to your own poor career choices in life, don’t blame the government when you can’t take all of your flu ridden family to the doctor at once because of the seven dollar co-payment, and if you can’t return for the results of the diagnostic tests and medication, it’s simple. Just pick out the one who looks the sickest, maybe that looks like has pneumonia, excluding the parents of course, and deal with them one at a time. All it takes is some forward planning.

That, we are told is fiscally responsible, and if it happens the disease is undiagnosed ‘bird flu,’ or some rare biology contracted from a rich person who’s returned from overseas, just suck it up. You are doing this for the Liberal Party, your country and the economic bottom line. I wonder how Europe coped with the black plague or even the bubonic plague, in the eighteen hundreds. Maybe we can take some guidance from what they did. There are lots of old graves in the local cemetery that show how Australia managed the crisis. I hope there is planning in this budget for the endless possibilities. Maybe the new super research centre can find cures, in six or seven years’ time. We can learn a lot from history.

Now with the expectation that the cost of getting a degree at Australian Universities is likely to triple:  - the age of entitlement for the rich has arrived, again. Finally our government has gotten rid of all those poor people who are taking away opportunities from the rich, because they won’t be able to pay back their HEX debt in one lifetime. The way is free for anyone with money to become a professional student; perhaps a parking spot for the errant young adult, if you will. That is not to make less of the smart wealthy students who deserve their place on the high stage. They should be applauded for their abilities.

What about the war torn and abandoned people oversees, some without food, medicine or shoes on their feet; who are in their plight through no fault of their own? The government indicates; they can wait. We need to withdraw some of their allocated budget for the paid parental scheme. Both are worthy causes, and one can realise it is a statement about Australia’s place in the world and what we think about the weak and vulnerable everywhere. We have an image to keep. The apparent message from the government is: We aren’t prepared to take care of our own weak and vulnerable shown in the new budget cuts, so why should we pay for those in other countries? Life is about standing on your own two feet, sometimes without shoes and a matching handbag.

Now that there are plans to slash staff at the Tax department, I guess the retrenched staff won’t be transferred a bolstered Investigation unit that tracks oversees money transferred to Monaco or the Swiss occasional bank account. Six months will be good for the character, make them stronger.

And if it is you who happen to have a child who is struggling to keep up at school and you don’t own a king’s ransom for tutors and the like – just get used to it. This is good for all of us and good for the country – right? We don’t want to be breeding a race of future dole bludging welfare recipients.

So for the poor and needy in Australia, if we see you out on the street with the begging bowl, because they are unable to keep a roof over their heads, or put food on the table, we who have more have been encouraged shut one eye as we pass you by and remember, it’s because this is good for Australia. - We all have to share the pain equally.