Costello Budget

Costello has been boasting about his family friendly budget. He wants everyone to have more of them  for the sake of the country. He has also warned about the consequences of an "aging Australia" He warns that people will have to stay at work in their old age unless we have more children. But talk is cheap. The problem is that us low income people don't have the money to bring up children. Does Costello plan to remidy this situation? No he doesn't!

His tax cuts and cash in hand gimmicks may please some in the short term. But they don't amount to much when it comes to the immense amount it takes to bring up a child. Rent, school expensices, health, food, pocket money and entertainment cost heaps. The tax cuts and cash handouts don't even come close to covering forseeable price increases. Let alone give parents single or married, the money they need to bring up a child properly.

There is a public perception that single parents are bludgers who have children to scrounge off welfare. Society and especially, the Liberals place the burden of looking after a child onto the backs of single mothers (rather and only occassionally fathers). Child upbringing is not considered real work. It is certainly not considered worthy of a real wage.

Single parents are also subjected to the humiliation of being inspected. The aim is to determine whether they are "really single". In fact according to the Sydney Morning Herald, after this budget, this harassment is going to continue. in fact intensify. We beileve in independant status. that women (or men) should be paid for looking after children irespective of whether they are having a relationship. It is still a lot of work and they don't get much money.

For the sake of the economy, we are expected to have and bring up children. But what sinle parents are paid is hardly enough for themselves, let alone their child. Its time that child upbringing was considered work and paid for as work. Afterall  child rearers don't merely work forty hours. They often work twenty four hours seven days a week. And there is no child care more money who cant afford it either. We say A full wage for those looking after children Free  comprehensive childcare for all!

 

Howard & the Budget

For the Howard government, the unemployed are not even worth thinking about. Having dumped us into the hands of private job network agencies and onto work for the dole, Howard and Costello figure that we can now be ignored. So in this so called"big spending" budget do we get anything? No. Latham has presented himself as the great saviour of the aspirational voter. So the Latham threat has to be countered. Costello has done this with tax cuts.The idea is that if Latham wants to change the agenda dramatically, he will have to increase taxes on the aspirational voter. So either Latham will continue on the same as Howard (at least in terms of economics) or alteratively threaten to tax his beloved aspirationals (which will lose votes) Either way the Liberals win.  Do the poor receive any of these? No there is no tax cuts for anyone who receives less than $1,000 per week. Costello no doubt, figures that these people mainly vote Labor.

Costello has also made a big thing play for the family. Here he is also trying to steal Lathams ground. costello throws a fist full of dollars. There is no ongoing commitment to improved childcare. The bit extra offered to child care will not be adequate to satisfy the many thousands of children that Costello is sugessting that we produce. What about their education? What about cheap affordable housing? Ciostello says nothing! But in any case ACOSS inform us that those with 16 or 17 year old teenagers are actually going to be worse off. They lose $60 perweek in social security income which most parents need desperately. So much for Costello's "family friendly" budget!

But what does Latham Labor offer in response? Well at least he is concerned with unemployment nd the unemployed. But it is this type of concern we don't particularly need! Latham wants us to go back to the Hawke Keating era with forced training. It didn't solve unemployment then. It wont solve unemploymwent now! Free training is an option which we should have. But it shouldn't be forced down our throat. Train or starve is what Latham offers. But most training was (under Keating) a shere waiste of our time. A Social Security officer once told us that the average shelflife of a training scheme was only six months. Training is a boring waste of our time which leads nowhere. Worse still it is often a disguised form of work for the dole. It is always the bosses who benefit for our efforts

The Budget and Lathams response is just another illustration of how the major parties have nno answers to unemployment and treat us with utter contempt