So all of a sudden our neo-liberalist right-wing government has found 300+ billion dollars. All of a sudden the much talked about and essential budget surplus is not only 'surplus to needs', or vital to the success of our economy - it has been chucked completely out the window.
Over the past 2 decades, during which time they held power for 14 of those 20 years, the LNP has deliberately engineered the downfall of what we were once proud of as a nation - our publicly owned social services. And they've done it all for the love of an unrealistic and unsustainable political ideology by:
- privatising what used to be, and still should be, government run utilities (electricity and water) - result: households really struggling to pay essential bills
- drastically reducing funding for public education and supporting its privatisation - result: massive rorts by private RTOs, the almost complete annihilation of TAFE, Australia slipping way down the performance scale internationally
- increasing prison numbers via mandatory sentencing without increasing funding - result: many on remand waiting to get to court, overcrowded prisons, little money for rehabilitation or programs to keep people out of prison, further oppression of our first nation's people
- slashing funding to health - result: overcrowded, understaffed emergency wards, long waiting lists for 'elective surgery', which includes hip replacements
- slashing funding to family courts and womens' shelters - result: more domestic violence, more deaths of women - currently running at 1.5 per week, too many kids needing out of home care and not enough foster carers
- withdrawing huge amounts of money from environmental programs and organisations - result: more clearing, degradation of the environment and a complete fuck up of the Murray-Darling river system causing mass fish kills, including 100 year old cod
- forcing fledgling alternative energy businesses to move overseas because of a lack of government support, which includes a spectacular failure to deliver a carbon reduction policy
And don't even talk about the overall denial and lack of vision on climate change on a warming, fire prone and increasingly parched continent. Or what's happened to arts funding......phhhtt! That's a luxury (though football, cricket and rugby don't seem to be).
I couldn't have imagined a more thorough failure of the current government to look after its people - all of them, not just the wealthy ones - or provide responsible leadership.
Yet suddenly, after decades of keeping the unemployed severely oppressed well below the poverty line with catch phrases like: we want to give Australians a 'hand up, not a hand out' and 'the best form of welfare is a job' (really? what job?), fudging the unemployment figures by categorising the under-employed, casualised workforce as 'employed' - SUDDENLY.......there are millions for generous 'job-seeker' and 'job-keeper' payments. Child care is now free, landlords aren't allowed to evict tenants and banks can't foreclose on home mortgage or small business loans. After decades of lecturing the nation as though we were naughty toddlers, justifying their meanness ad nauseum as 'responsible economic management' they have cast fiscal caution to the wind and completely nuked 2 decades worth of neo-liberal propaganda. WTF!
Left-wing commentators and organisations are actually smiling on the TV - they have hope in their eyes for the first time in years (if you forget how much they were smiling about the predicted landslide Labor election victory in 2019 before they got smashed).
Even me, one usually so skeptical and mistrustful, was starting to believe the LNP had FINALLY started to develop a social conscience. The reality hit me around 2.00 am this morning - what the hell was I thinking? I nearly bought it myself.
The LNP patriarchy are shitting themselves. Everything they are doing right now, is being done to save their beloved Capitalism.
If you think they have really changed, that they are going to be more socially minded, even kind, from now on - I'll make a prediction. We are already being warned these drastic measures are temporary. Just wait until we get to the other side of this virus - when the country is 300+ billion futher in debt - because then you will see even more draconian budgetary measures, and they will have even more justification for screwing us into the ground.
Figure & speech: Author, Ronald MacDonald figure
Background image: https://www.netclipart.com/isee/iRJRhiJ_sydney-harbour-bridge-cartoon/
Ever since the covid supplement was announced I have been saying they have basically admitted that the existing unemployment benefit is woeful and I thought we had seen the end of the $257 newstart forever but as I read through to the end of your post I had a realisation of what you were about to say. You are most likely right but I hope you are wrong.
ReplyDeleteGod help us all
Kylie I hope to God I'm wrong too, and I'lll be happy to make a public declaration to the effect. But I really struggled to see how there could be such a radical conversion - unless Morrison has had an epiphany because his pastor was diagnosed with the virus, causing him to doubt his own immunity. It's possible of course, he is involved with a charismatic religious branch of Christianity and may well have had an epiphany. It would be wonderful if he had because Australia might start becoming a more equitable place.
DeleteIt takes a pandemic for your government (and ours) to acknowledge the great chasm between the 'haves' and the 'have nots.' We, too, are getting help, but it will all go away when this virus is done with us. My dream will likely not be realized: that we need a national health care system, higher wages, better child care and education. Not to mention reducing our carbon footprint before we kill the very organism that we rely on.
ReplyDeleteYes, Tara it's very sad that it takes something so dire to make them act. I have little confidence their ideology will change. I fully expect they will attempt to go back to how things were BV (before the virus). I'm hoping like hell the collapse of the system that gives them their power will stop them. It's either that or nature will do it, but it will take too long and I think irreversible consequences will occur before we get to the point. The collapse of capitalism could well save the human species.
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