Do ya do ya do ya really care?
I make this pledge to you the Australian people.
I will govern for all Australians.
I want to lift everyone’s standard of living.
I want to see wages and benefits rise in line with a growing economy.
I want to see our hospitals and schools improving as we invest the
proceeds of a well-run economy into the things that really count.
I won’t let you down.
This is my pledge to you.
-Tony Abbott campaign launch speech, August 25 2013
Nice words but let’s face it – the Abbott government doesn’t give a shit about you. The evidence is overwhelming.
With one in seven Australians living in poverty, we have a Prime
Minister who spends hundreds of billions on defence, security, and
buying armaments. We have a Prime Minister who is so stage-managed he
refuses to face the electorate on Q&A.
Our Prime Minister for Indigenous Affairs has overseen the slashing
of funding and the abolition of many successful initiatives that were
working towards supporting our Indigenous people and closing the gap.
But we have truancy officers aplenty, even if most of them are working for the dole.
We have a treasurer who feels those on welfare, the ‘leaners’, should
be the ones to clear the country of debt. His justification for this is
that he must cut spending and poor families get more money from the
government than the rich, whilst steadfastly refusing to consider
raising revenue by cracking down on tax avoidance.
He tells the world that our economy is in good shape while whipping up hysteria here about a non-existent emergency.
After coming to power on the promise of reducing the debt, Hockey has
been borrowing so fast the net debt has increased from $178.10 billion
when he took over to $217.55 billion at the end of August. PEFO numbers
had net debt peaking at $219bn (12.7% of GDP) in 2015/16. The gross
debt has risen from $290 billion to $345.035 billion – that’s extra
borrowing of about one billion a week.
We have an education minister who has reneged on funding reform for
schools, wants to make tertiary courses unaffordable, has closed down
trades training centres, has insulted teachers, wasted money on a
pointless review, and wants to rewrite history as a Christian crusade.
We have a health minister who is busily unwinding universal
healthcare and preventative health agencies and who wants to discourage
the poor from seeing a doctor.
On one hand we are warned about the alarming increase in obesity and
diabetes, on the other we have the assistant minister for health, at the
behest of her junk food lobbyist chief of staff, taking down a healthy
food website.
Senator Nash
insisted the health star site be pulled down a day after it was
published in Febuary on the grounds it was published in error, despite
freedom of information documents showing the minister was warned it
would be published, and the states committing to spend $11 million on
it.
In June, a watered down version of the site was reinstated, with the
voluntary introduction period extended to five years from two and
companies allowed to use the star ratings in conjunction with the
industry’s daily intake guide. They also decided to continue voluntary
pregnancy warning labels on alcohol, despite poor uptake by mixed drinks
and so-called alcopops. Michael Thorn, the chief executive of the
Foundation for Alcohol Research & Education, said it was
“disgraceful” and put “booze before babies”.
“The alcohol industry will be celebrating that they have been able to
successfully avoid introducing a warning label on their products for
almost two decades,” he said.
One of the first steps of the minister for social services, Kevin Andrews,
was to wind back gambling reform laws despite recommendations made by
the Productivity Commission in its 2010 report into Australia’s gambling
industry and the Victorian coroner’s report linking 128 suicides in
that state directly to gambling..
This is the man who, along with our employment minister (he of breast
cancer/abortion link fame), wants to see young unemployed without any
income for 6 months of the year, and for the disabled to get out there
and get one of those thousands of jobs that are just waiting for them if
only they weren’t such bludgers. He also wants to lower the indexation
rate of pensions which will cause the gap in standard of living to
widen. All this while cutting $44 million from the capital works
program of the National Partnership on Homelessness.
We have an environment minister who wants to cut down Tasmanian old
growth forests and expand coal ports and dump sediment on the reef. He
has wound back environmental protection laws and the right to appeal and
gone on a spree of approving record amounts of fossil fuel production.
At the same time, he has overseen the destruction of the renewable
energy industry. They don’t even send him to world conferences on
climate change because, after all, what could he say other than sorry.
Not content with these overt attacks on the environment, the
government has quietly initiated a low key, unscheduled review into
Australia’s national appliance energy efficiency standards. The only
formal explanation offered to date is in the Energy “Anti-” Green Paper,
which refers to “opportunities to reduce the red-tape burden on
businesses”.
At least they were honest when our communications minister was
appointed to “destroy the NBN” and he has done a damn fine job of it.
Despite Tony Abbott’s election speech claim that within 100 days “the
NBN will have a new business plan to ensure that every household gains
five times current broadband speeds – within three years and without
digging up almost every street in Australia – for $60 billion less than
Labor,” the truth has emerged.
We will be left with a sub-optimal network, a mishmash of
technologies, at a time when the world is increasingly going fibre. It
will end up taking nearly as long and costing nearly as much as the
all-fibre network it is replacing. The industry – and many around
Turnbull – is increasingly realising this. But Turnbull will not budge.
Australia is the loser – all because of one man’s pride.
Scott Morrison, our immigration minister, is about as welcoming as a
firing squad. He is like Hymie from Get Smart in his robotic
determination to stop the boats at any cost. That goal apparently
absolves him from any form of scrutiny, criticism, or human decency. He
has a blank cheque and not one cent of it will be used to help
refugees.
Despite our growing unemployment, he is also front and centre in
providing Gina with her 457 visa workers – no rights, no entitlements,
and if they complain they get deported.
Our minister for trade is working in secret, getting signatures on
free trade agreements at any cost – it’s the announcement before the end
of the year that’s important, not pesky details about tariffs and the
fact that we no longer have the right to make our own laws without
getting sued by global corporations.
Our attorney-general, the highest legal appointment in the land,
thinks defending bigots is a priority. When faced with illegal actions
by the government, steal the evidence, threaten journalists with gaol
time and funding cuts, and introduce laws which remove official
accountability. And while you’re at it, let’s bug the entire nation and
make people prove themselves innocent. Even if they haven’t done
anything wrong I am sure they have had evil thoughts.
Barnaby was last seen trying to hasten the demise of a few endangered species that are standing in the way of his dams.
Warren Truss is run off his feet planning roads, roads and more
roads. Luckily they dumped that idea about releasing cost benefit
analyses for any expenditure over $100 million. Thank god we got rid of
that pesky head of Infrastructure Australia
so we could get someone who understands our idea of what ‘independent
body’ means. If the people want public transport they can build it
themselves.
And how’s our girl doing? She’s looking tired to me. Making a case
for a seat on the Human Rights Council whilst torturing refugees, or
being sent in to bat at the world leaders’ conference on climate changed
armed with nothing other than a rain forest conference, must shake even
asbestos Julie’s steely resolve. The Armani suits and death stare can
only get you so far. When in doubt, flirt.
I know you would like a mention Jamie Briggs but for the life of me,
the only thing that comes to mind is your fawning introductions for our
‘Infrastructure Prime Minister’….
”To introduce our Tony, is what I’m here to do, and it really makes
me happy to introduce to you…the indescribable, the incompatible, the
unadorable….. Prrrriiiiimmme Minister!”
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