When I hear Joe Hockey say, with trembling lip, that he refuses to saddle his children with the nation’s debt, my hypocrisy radar maxes out.
For starters, Joe Hockey’s children will never have to struggle. His wife is a very wealthy woman and they have substantial investments.
Secondly, this talk of our children being saddled with our debt is an obvious advertising strategy that the Coalition has adopted. Whenever children are mentioned we get protective so it is a deliberate attempt to play on the heartstrings of families.
The trouble is that this statement bears no scrutiny.
If we are really concerned about our children we would be taking urgent action on climate change. Putting that off for our kids to have to deal with sometime in the future is criminal neglect.
We would also be striving to make our society an even better one than the one we inherited. We grew up with free education and universal health care. We should not be going backwards in these most crucial areas. Will our contribution to our children’s future be to say sorry, you may not enjoy the benefits that we did?
We fought for workplace entitlements like minimum wages and penalty rates. Are we to say to our kids that your labour is worth less?
We have told our young people that they must “earn or learn”. I am sure that every kid, and every family, would prefer that situation, but all I see is another three word slogan. There is no plan for jobs. Rather than increasing apprenticeships, they are closing trade training centres and increasing 457 visas. They are making university education unaffordable – their justification being that no-one has to pay up front. So apparently it is alright to saddle our children with huge personal debt, just as long as Tony and Joe can say look, no deficit.
With no old school tie network of daddy’s friends to give you a job, it can be very hard for young people with no experience to enter the workforce. The soul destroying exercise of applying for countless jobs and being rejected every time can be heartbreaking. Is it any wonder that some just give up looking or turn to substance abuse as their sense of self worth takes a hammering?
What is to become of these kids as we cut off any support to them for 6 months of the year? Why are we abandoning them when they are just starting out on life’s road and need our help most?
We have evolved into a nation where someone’s worth is measured by their wealth, where there are no excuses tolerated. If you aren’t wealthy you just aren’t trying. What chance do our kids have to enter this merry-go-round?
A national snapshot of rental affordability in Australia has found there are minuscule and in some cases, zero, levels of affordable housing for people on low incomes, with welfare advocates saying some people will be forced to go without food to afford their accommodation.The report, prepared by Anglicare Australia, found single Australians on government payments are “seriously disadvantaged” in the housing market, with less than 1 per cent of properties examined deemed suitable.
Single people with no children living on the minimum wage were slightly better off, with 4 per cent of listed properties found suitable, according to the study.
The study defined a “suitable” rental as one that took up less than 30 per cent of the household’s income.
It also found that couples with two children on the minimum wage had access to 12 per cent of properties surveyed, while just 1.4 per cent of properties were suitable for couples with two children on Newstart.On the snapshot day, just 3.6 per cent of properties were found suitable for age pensioners.
Anglicare Australia executive director Kasy Chambers said the lack of affordable housing damaged the lives of millions of ordinary Australians.
“Limited supply does more than just drive up the price of housing. It forces those on lower incomes to spend more on rent than they can afford; compels them to forgo food and other necessities and drives them further away from social and economic participation.”
A coalition of peak housing bodies – including Homelessness Australia and the Community Housing Federation of Australia called on Kevin Andrews to make affordable housing a priority. His response was that it is a state issue, and the federal government was “encouraging and supporting” states to streamline their planning and development processes, and review taxes and charges levied at home construction and purchases.
In other words, he couldn’t give a damn that his government’s negative gearing policy has made it impossible for many young people to enter the housing market.
A quarter of Australian properties are being bought for investment rather than to live in.
Over the last four years the number of investment property loans in Australia has grown by 37% compared to an increase of only 4% in the number of owner occupied loans, new data from Roy Morgan Research shows.
The growth in investment property loans over the last four years has come predominantly from the 35 to 64 age groups which account for 78% of the increase.
The study, which surveyed 45,455 Australians, showed while the proportion of over-50’s with an owner-occupied home loan has increased, the proportion of under-35’s with owner-occupied home loans decreased.
Roy Morgan communications director Norman Morris believes government policy is having an impact on loan types.
“Younger Australians may continue to find it difficult to enter the property market either for investment or owner-occupied because for both types they are competing with more cashed-up older property buyers.”
There are currently 105,237 people in Australia who are homeless. That means that on any given night, 1 in 200 people in Australia have nowhere to sleep. While Malcolm Turnbull joins the CEO sleepout in his comfortable warm swag, his government cut $44 million from funding for the National Partnership Agreement on Homelessness. This money was to be spent on capital works building shelters for homeless people and providing affordable housing for women and children.
There has been an upsurge of photos of Coalition MPs with charity groups with politicians exhorting us to donate more. Someone needs to remind this government that the mney they are spending is ours and I would much prefer to be looking after the vulnerable in our society and around the world than subsidising corporate greed and supporting armaments manufacturers.
What do you think about the government’s new policies? Do you worry about how the next generation will fare?
This article was original published on The Aim Network and has been republished with full permission.
Top Comments
I'd like to take a stab that there's a lot of welfare recipients on this thread.
this goes directly to my earlier post about how people who receive welfare are portrayed. Why is it so inconceivable to you that I just might care about people who are less fortunate than myself?
I too care about those aren't so much less fortunate but rather the ones who have suffered misfortunes, there is a difference! There's a lovely old guy across the street who was struck down with a severe form of arthritis at age 28. He was a gun shearer. He didn't have a wife or kids. I can't remember how many pounds he said he had saved but it was only enough for a couple of years. He's had to get by on every bit of help that came his way. He was getting meals on wheels but I cancelled that for him, I make a little extra at meal times for him. If for some reason we've had to go away, I organise friends to do it. Once a month our whole family spends a day cleaning up, inside and out. He has a cleaner who comes once a month but not too much attention paid to detail there. That's my neighbour BJs story. 2 doors down from him on the corner there are 3 single mothers sharing a 4 bedroom house. They've been there 5 years now. I can't tell you their names, I don't know them and nor do I want to. I just know that any given day of the week there are 32 cars (ok slight exaggeration) parked in the street while they and their bludger friends sit around sucking on UDL cans til wee hours. Now if those girls were 82, worked and saved to spend THEIR money on UDL cans, I'd probably ask them their names!
I agree there are people on welfare who rort the system - but they are not all like that, and I would argue, most of them are not like that, yet that is exactly how they're portrayed. The original post even suggests that people on here rejecting the budget must be on welfare and dont want to have to go out to work, when that is not the case at all. Before having my son I worked a 50-60hr week at a very good job. I now work part-time, but am also doing my Masters as well. I am not rich, but this budget wont come anywhere near to breaking me - but I know there are people out there who it will break and I think that is really wrong. Especially when so much revenue in the budget is lost to tax concessions that are nothing more than middle/upper class welfare - where is everybody's moral outrage about that?!
Take negative gearing as just one example - why should services that we all benefit from, eg: roads, hospitals, education, etc be compromised by lack of funding because someone is getting a tax break so they can buy an investment property? I dont see that as any different from getting something for nothing, just as you believe your single mother neighbours are. The difference is, the single mothers, elderly, poor, students, etc will miss that help a hell of a lot more than someone who can buy an investment property.
Aside from the fact that i personally believe its wrong to target the most vulnerable, its actually counter-productive for economic growth to make the poor, poorer. Not to mention the increased social problems it will cause, in terms of health, crime, etc. It will end up costing us more in the long term to fix these social problems than any measures you will save now in the short-term.
I'm sorry for the rant, but its something I'm really passionate about!
I absolutely get all that! I really feel I need to express once again that I am in no way against welfare and as I've stated, those genuinely in need probably aren't getting enough help. I'm from a highly populated country area where so many of the youth have a stuff you attitude. How can businesses be crying out for workers and yet there be so many people living off the system? I feel for those in need in the city areas where it would be crippling to collect benefits but here you really can have a lifestyle on benefits and whether people believe it or not, it is not isolated. I have no doubt I'm being judgemental about the girls but it's a little hard not to be, they aren't giving their kids the best start to life which is just one of the many they could be helping themselves. It's the no care factor unfortunately!
I would just like to take a moment to thank everyone for a great debate today. Certainly entertained me while being stuck inside with an extremely ill child and pouring rain. I look forward to tuning in again sometime X
And you too. You tried hard, and that's the main thing :)
It's a bit boring around here when everyone's right.
lol too true!
What I found interesting with your comments (and seeing them get nastier and nastier) was that you don't pay any tax yet get all high and mighty about others. You rely on your husband. His tax is calculated on his earnings, not on the amount of people his earnings support. So, your whole family is using services that only your husband has contributed to. If you worked, your husbands tax would be the same and you would be paying taxes too, and you, contributing to the country.
Instead of judging others, be grateful that your life seems pretty damn easy. Life can take an unexpected turn and you never know what the future holds.
I'm a little perplexed as to how my comments got nastier? I am sorry to anyone I may have offended. If having the view I have on handouts is what has offended you then sorry, no apology there, we are all entitled to our views just as you are. You are absolutely correct about handouts in which I have recieved, so you'll understand that I speak from experience. Where do we start? Oh yes, the baby bonus, that was BRILLIANT! Money for having the kids I would have had handout or not! The immunisation bonus, oh yeah, wouldn't have had my kids immunised without it. Then fortnightly payments doubled, AWESOME! School bonuses, MAGIC! The best was the $15,000 stimulus, we ate lobster for a month on that one ; ) Do you know what the icing on the cake was? I didn't have to ask for any of it, not one single cent whether we were struggling or not! No forms, no centrelink visits, not even a phone call. Forgive me if I see something wrong there! Some of it Liberal, some of it labour, I don't really care who did it but someone needs to fix it. You can judge me as a pampered SAHM as much as you like but trust me, as a fan of the bartering system, I've done everything I could have and so much more to pull my weight! I'm not happy to just live, I need savings and by God I've worked hard at it! My husband was offered a FIFO position yesterday which if he takes won't make much difference to our lifestyle but considering it'll be 4 times what he makes now, that's a lot of savings and a lot of help for the kids I chose to bring into this world. If you read anything I wrote you would have read if people with able bodies and minds would help themselves, there would be so much more available for the ones truly in need. I don't think anyone would deny a genuinely needy person but someone who hasn't given a working life everything they have including the skin off their bare hands at times, doesn't deserve shit!