The Australian government released their budget today and it makes for some fairly interesting reading.
A lot of chest thumping on the television screen, a lot of men and women dressed in suits far too late into the evening.
There are talks of early elections, perhaps prior to the Olympic games, while everything is going dandy. While the government is handing out lolly bags worth $6 billion before June 30th; while our attention is diverted away from the world and firmly planted on our wallets.
Australians have always complained about our North American brethrens egocentricity.
“Those Americans can’t even name all the continents”.
“Those Americans still think that Kangaroos and Koalas rule Australia with a despotic fist and an iron will”
“To busy thinking about their capitalist conspiracies to take over the world - Right wing imperialists”
It’s a sad day when you realise that your own country is too busy thinking about its own economic prosperity to think about our own actions and mistakes.
It’s a sad day when you realise that something as inane as a budget will probably win the election (all other things being equal) for a government that has turned back from every societal step forward, from the signing of the Geneva Convention to the establishment of the UN.
What has effectively happened is that the government has increased the thresholds for the top two tax rates, meaning that instead of paying a 47% rate when you earn $62,000, you will only pay that rate when you start earning $70,000. This will be increases to $80,000 later.
The government has also increased spending for the Family Benefits Scheme, Superannuation contributions, Security and defence, benefits for carers and care for the aged.
This leaves nothing for those who are not old, rich or with children. I believe that benifits for the old and families are absolutely necessary, but this budget it basically pandering to those who have it all. Those with high incomes and families will get the biggest tax breaks and benefits, while those who are poor and have no one get nothing, the Army gets more bullets to shoot at dirty foreigners who might try and attack us, while ASIO gets more money so they can prove that dirty foreigners are trying to attack us, those who are imprisoned and seperated from homeland and security get nothing. Universities get nothing. FUCK.
All the Labour party can do is squawk about how it’s “not fair”, not realising that its not the people earning under $50,000 per annum that are the major candidates for wild shifts at the polls. It’s the stable Australian middle-class. The very same middle class that holds the “bleeding-heart” mentality that the Liberals hate so much.
The worst thing about the Australian middle class is the fact that, collectively, it’s a political whore who will always sell itself to the highest bidder.
We like sitting in restaurants with the wine and fettuccini wildly accusing Howard of waging a war against the ABC, refugees, world peace, multilateralism and the indigenous population. But when push comes to shove, when you give us a $75 extra a week if we’re earning a dual income of $150,000, we’ll vote for you at the polls and bitch about it once the money has gone on that just fabulous Louis Vuitton bag we couldn’t buy last year because we had to get the brat a Playstation and a plasma T.V.
People earning under $50,000 a year are just about going to hate everyone because they are on less than $50,000 a year, especially if they have a family. It could be why the Howard government has given them NO break whatsoever in this budget. Hate swings both side of the fence and as long as Howard and his government maintains a strangle hold on the cities and just leaves it to the Labour state governments to self –implode, the status quo to these people looks as good as anything else. Figures they can’t understand splash the screen saying things can’t get any better than this.
I haven’t been bought yet and there’s nothing in the budget that’s going to help me. From this privileged position I like to think that I couldn’t be bought. But then again give me $150000 a year and the opportunity to get that little bit more and I could change my tune.
We all do.
That’s what budgets are for.