The Bludget

The Australian federal budget has been handed down for another year, and as far as I'm aware, it contained no real surprises. A whole heap of tax cuts aimed at making the wealthy better off, and those are being funded by reducing benefits for disadvantaged members of society such as the disabled and single parents. However, what's most disappointing out of all this is the reaction of the opposition. The Labor Party, which purports to represent the people supposedly at the "lower end" of the scale, seems more interested in arguing over who should get the tax cuts, rather than doing anything to assist those who are truly going to suffer at the hands of this budget. I can only presume they seem to have jumped on the media-driven bandwagon in this country of trying to put down the genuinely disadvantaged members of our society.

Contrary to seemingly popular belief, not everyone who's on unemployment benefits, a disability pension or a single-parent pension is there simply because they don't want to work. Indeed, my own mother used to walk 6km a day to clean hotel rooms for $6/hour to "work", and still had to rely partly on a benefit to raise my sister and I because the "wages" just weren't enough to live on at the time (even then we were still basically living on the poverty line). Heaven help anybody who happens to be in this position right now.

The basic fact of the matter is, there are still not enough jobs in the nation for every adult of working age. While it's all well and good to encourage people to look for work, this is a fact we should never lose sight of. In the case of the disabled and single parents, there are often other hurdles to be overcome such as the blatant discrimination which is still alive and thriving in this country. This is something that can't and won't be simply weeded out with anti-discrimination laws (as they are impossible to police), but rather than acknowledge the above issues and attempt to find solutions within that framework, the cultural way in this country right at the moment seems to be based on simply apportioning blame on whoever is the easiest to blame.

Something else that didn't escape my attention out of this bludget (but did fail to surprise me). Another $56 million to build a training centre somewhere in Europe for more elite athletes, but bugger all for education to assist people who want to become doctors or scientists or other professions that might actually make a positive contribution to the world in which we live. Yet more populist policy no doubt. It's a pity that these professions don't award gold medals, then they might start to get the recognition they deserve.

Still, the saddest part about this whole situation is that none of the above surprised me.