Bludget

Budget night used to be pretty simple; what am I paying more for and what am I paying less for? What gets given and what gets taken? For many years we just got stuff, as Peter Costello trod the boards of the parliamentary chamber, tossing tax benefits and franking credits to his beloved serfs. Some people didn't get stuff, but generally they couldn't afford televisions, so they were therefore none the wiser. These days it's harder to pick the winners and losers, give with the right hand, take with the left. A melange of cuts, additions, levies, offsets, delayed programs, new programs and token leftovers leave most at a loss as to where they are in a sea of economic dribble.

The ceremony of the evening has also dissipated, as the week before hand has become a government leak-athon, just so no one can claim to be surprised. In addition to this, some analysts have claimed that MULTIPLE budgets are written just in case one of those strategic leaks dies in the arse. Asides from this being completely demented, it pretty much ignores the principles of what good government should be about, and leaves you with a whole bunch of shitty populist cuts and middle class panders that don’t achieve anything.

Take for example the cutbacks in welfare payments to up to 11000 teenage single mothers. It's obviously been too good for too long, because too many people are honking on to that sweet single mother coin. How much will this deliver? Not much, a piddling amount in truth, but it will make those losers in suburbs happy to know they aren't 'paying' for some teenager to have kids for money. They'll be so happy in fact that they will literally skip to the bank to receive their baby bonus without irony.

As discussed in earlier pieces, the unemployed will also cop it in the name of national morale. The long term unemployed will now be forced to volunteer 11 months of the year as opposed to six. Wait. Forced? Volunteer? Is this like when you get in trouble at school and the teacher makes you 'volunteer' to pick rubbish out of the sandpit? Let's just call it what it is: pointless busy work designed to make people feel so horrible they'll either take the nearest shit-shovelling job on offer or top themselves. Hey, maybe an increase to the suicide rate will save us some money.

I'm sorry if that's a bit extreme but I'm sick to death of people hammering the welfare state once, and only once, they've reached a position of comfort in life. As soon as someone lands a good job, gets a house and whatever else is supposed to make you happy, it's a countdown to when they pay out on the 'bludgers'. The populism of the current political environment has only elevated this trivial bullshit, and it's about time someone got called on it.

So if you've never been unemployed, if you've never taken Austudy, if you've never received a low income tax benefit, if you've never got a baby bonus or family tax benefit parts a or b, if your parents didn't take them either, if you've paid in full for your entire education up front and your parents did the same then by all means look down your nose snootily at those who have taken advantage of the welfare system. By all means sit down tonight with a glass of merlot and decry the bludgers 'living' off 'your' tax dollars. It doesn't change the fact that you are an arsehole, but at least you're coming from a coherent ethical and ideological position.

However, if you have done any of those things then you can cram it with walnuts ugly, because you are the very thing you claim to hate.