Posted: 8:00 am on 11th May 2012
This week we have witnessed the remorseless growth of the welfare state under the guise of the federal budget. Politicians, as unprincipled and unimaginative as ever, have found another excuse (‘pressure on families’) to use other people’s money to bribe voters with new and expanded entitlements. This has reinforced the impression that this country is still a ‘beautiful fool’s paradise’ (as the naysayers of Australia’s ‘working man’s welfare state’ of…
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Posted: 12:49 pm on 7th May 2012
Budget rumours have included the announcement that, from 2013, all single parents who claim Parenting Payment will be expected to look for part-time work once their youngest child turns eight years of age. Those who don’t find a job will be transferred to Newstart Allowance, which pays $120 less each fortnight. Before 2006, single parents had the right to claim Parenting Payment until their youngest child turned 16, and many…
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Posted: 8:00 am on 29th April 2012
In looking at Europe, Australia may well see its own future. In some ways, Australia is just 20 or 30 years behind the developments in the Old Continent. Australia’s population is also ageing, albeit starting from a younger level. Australian governments have recently relapsed into financing their massive public spending increases on borrowing, just as European governments did in the 1970s and 1980s. And Australian government programs now sound as…
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Posted: 8:00 am on 22nd April 2012
In an Australian first, the Victorian government announced this week that a parliamentary inquiry will be conducted into the handling of child sexual abuse cases by the Catholic and other churches. It is impossible not to sympathise with victims who feel they will finally get the chance to hold their abusers to account. Giving people the chance to tell their stories can have a cleansing effect. Child abuse often occurs…
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Posted: 11:06 am on 19th April 2012
Joe Hockey’s comments on Lateline criticising the growth of the entitlement culture in Australia are correct. In this country, we are basically 20 years and one mining boom behind the dire situation in the European social democracies. The costs of an ageing population will add to the tax burdens future generations face unless we start to re-prioritise public spending and rediscover the lost ethic of self-reliance. But before getting too…
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