SURPLUS – The only thing that we achieved in office under Howard was to accumulate a surplus. This felt good, and so we want to keep doing it because it makes us look good.
Scare Tactic: “Families know they have to spend within their means.”
Reality Check – Services and infrastructure needs to be keep up to date and able to accommodate changing needs of the population, and these things come with a price attached.
Families that are good with their money understand the difference between debt that invests in the needs of the family into the future and wasteful debt buying useless things they can’t afford and have no value over time.
For more explanation of the numbers and surplus and position of both, this is a good article that covers off on the detail http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/opinion/tony-abbotts-economic-action-plan-doesnt-add-up/story-e6frg9if-1225906538599
National Broadband Network
We don’t really understand technology either how it works, or what the uses for it into the future might be, but we like to save money and the internet is a bit interesting but while it is nice to have it is not really important.
Reality check:
Uses for the internet are developing in ways that we cannot predict, but will fundamentally change the way that we do business. Reliable high-speed broadband is important particularly for remote Australia, and providing services to regional areas with our sparse population means that private companies are not likely to be motivated to deliver to remote areas.
While people are using wireless on their phones etc, this is not an indication that wireless technology is suitable for a national broadband network. The NBN is not about downloading games, or trivial matters, and it is more akin to building a freeway for safe, speedy travel, compared to using a two-lane suburban road to travel between major cities.
More details here from those involved in the rollout of the NBN and in a position to know the facts of the merit of the NBN and the financial aspects. http://delimiter.com.au/2010/08/18/quigley-openly-slams-coalitions-broadband-policy/
Paid Parental Leave
We’ll tax big business and pay you direct through the government, for six months based on your income, so if you are on a high wage, and we will pretend this is like ‘leave’ from your job. It isn’t because the employer has nothing to do with it and nothing to keep you connected to your job while you’re away on ‘leave’. We don’t really like this but we need the women’s vote, so we’ll cop it sweet if it gets us in.
Reality Check: Though it seems like a positive thing to enable women to take leave when their baby is born, the way this is set up has the effect of providing middle class welfare to people who are already more advantaged financially than other sectors of the community. Make no mistake this sets a precedent to show that one life, one baby, is worth more than another life and baby. This is elitist and shows a disdain for those who are in occupations that are less well-paid, but no less important to support and worthy. For those women who are not working when they conceive... it is not clear what their entitlement would be if any.
It is not clear to me how often women may take this leave and what criterion is in place before it becomes available to an employee. It is unclear how this would be treated in the case of the self-employed.
While paid parental leave scheme is desirable, it should be questioned if a system that rewards those who are already privileged, over those who are on lower incomes, and those unable or unwilling to bear children for one reason or another, but who have other responsibilities just as important to their role in the family as is childrearing. Similarly, those women who have raised their children with no such assistance, and now have to support themselves financially, while caring for elderly parents, or grown children with disabilities, and men who may be in similar circumstances.
Turning Back The Boats
The less said about this disgraceful approach the better.
This is the Tampa all over again.
A beat-up and the media seem to have been inclined to give oxygen to this nonsense.
Shame on everyone for this getting any traction at all.
Workchoices: We won’t talk about this because we believe it is the right way to go but we want to get in office first or we might not get back in, so we will pretend that we have some respect and care about what the voters said at the last election.
Reality Check: We cared not one whit about what the voters thought after the 2007 election, as demonstrated by unwillingness to compromise or pass bills that were mandated in the last election. To demonstrate this, go no further than a willingness to overturn the leader of the party who had made a compromise on climate change, in order to stop this from happening, despite the clear wishes of the electorate in 2007.
Unemployed + Aged
Reality Check: People relocating cannot guarantee that their job will not finish. If they are no longer required what then? Nobody can live for 6 months without income to support them. Unless they start to steal or pimp themselves, or their kids, out for money.
People over 50, over 60, over 65 are unlikely to be placed in a job. If they are already in a job they may be fortunate to keep their job until they retire. Those who are unemployed are unlikely to be accepted for a job. There is a real potential that there will be a growing group of people between 45 – 65 who are unable to find work and not eligible for assistance. They may erode their superannuation during this period and be left without any savings for their retirement.
Finally, the penny dropped for me this morning when I hear Mr Abbott on the radio, commenting that he:
“...would be a Prime Minister for Australia, not a Prime Minister for the world.”
“I wouldn’t ‘have tickets on myself’ about my role should I be elected”
“I would be paying back the debt, stopping the big taxes and turning back the boats.”
Despite the disingenuous cries of “Labor’s debt” throughout the campaign and the wailing about how the Coalition always has to be responsible, this is completely disingenuous and they well know that we have weathered the global financial crisis in good stead.
What is interesting to note is that the whole campaign can be summed up as having a ‘personality’ and that personality looks like this. It emulates the character of one with low self-esteem, where to put your head up and be ambitious and to go for goals, is decried as a being egotistical and brings us the Tall Poppy Syndrome to remind us that we are nobody and nothing and should not have the gall to aspire to anything beyond a grinding existence. It tells us repeatedly, what we can’t have, can’t afford, can’t do, can’t aspire to... Just sit down and shut up and stay scared.
We are much easier to manage when we think that way.
They think we are dumb enough to fall for that.
Interesting that the boys from Yes We Canberra, were the ones to point out that while Abbott has gone on and on about families being careful with their budget, that private debt is way out of control compared to government debt. Also that Abbott’s personal mortgage (shown as some $700,000) is a monstrous amount of debt compared to his salary.
Apparently “we” have to worry and keep our heads down, but in private, anything goes and so this is revealed as a manufactured tactic meant to manipulate and frighten. Do as I say, not as I do. Okay for me... not okay for you.
I guess the question is ... are we dumb enough to fall for the scary poverty mentality that we’re being sold.
Will we oblige by falling for that.
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