Why Adhoc Abbott can steal a march on Detail Devil Rudd

Cos a lie can race around the world twice in the time it takes the truth to put its boots on.

Or more precisely, we live in a complex world, and it takes time to create change. While Abbott can put the boot in to some wretched scapegoat in 5 unscripted minutes, what can the truth do, except quote boring research and statistics. As if some swingbat voter is going to switch off MasterKapo to go fact-checking when its so much more fun to poke a scapegoat with a stick.

DH was in the audience for the ABC's inaugural Q&A with Kevin Rudd. (By invitation, don't y'know). She was on the edge of her seat cos she doesn't like seeing anyone humiliated, and would not like to see a newly elected PM fall flat on his face. And it all seemed like a terrible risk for Rudd to front up to a bunch of axegrinders like us who could hit him with anything.

But Rudd was right across it all. He has a huge head for detail. And he had a spontaneous sense of humor too. DH was dead impressed and came out thinking "What more can we expect of any human being for a Prime Minister".

Let's face it. It's all about the Geeks vs the Jocks. And it's time to declare open warfar. Now DH is a geek from way back, a brainy weakling who suffered at the hands of the popular girls. And she's cast this battle between Rudd and the Mean Girls, Abbott and Hockey.

Geeks rule. Or oughter, cause they can do more than slap backs and pose artfully in jockstraps at footy matches.

DH will be voting Labor, for all their mistakes.

Rudd Bonus reignites Class Struggle: Grumpy Old Policy Wonks vs Grinning Housos Clutching New Plasma TVs

Yes! DH has one at last, thanks to the Rudd bonus. Actually, she bought it out of her tax refund earlier this year. But only because she was worried she might not get another job by Christmas. So she figured if the worst happened, the bonus would still allow her to participate in the Nation's most sacred religious rite, the annual re-enactment of the "Resurrection of the Retailers".

(For more innocent days, refer to Quick, hide the plasma TV! Vinnies pays a visit).

All this is by way of thumbing her nose at the Scrooges who begrudge the masses their little bit of Xmas Cheer. It makes you long for the good old days of feudalism really, doesn't it? Back in ye Goode Olde Dark Ages, you only had to vouchsafe your liege 10% of your turnip harvest as rent, you hardly worked except at sowing and reaping time, and at the end of the year, you got invited to the manor to be treated to the latest in communications technology (OK, so it was wandering minstrels wassailing on the back of a tumbril.)

Now we're hearing from the fiscally-responsible classes, if they can tear themselves away from Grumpy Old Policy Wonks on the super dooper widescreens that they've had since they first hit the market, now we're hearing that housos shouldn't have got their $1000 quid, because they'll only spend it on Asian Electronics Multinationals. That's if they're the politically correct left wing middle-classes. Otherwise, they reckon we're all gonna spend it on booze and gambling. Talk about projection at its most obvious! Not screen projection, dummkopfs! Psychological projection, as in Jung and Freud, as in projecting your own secret desires, onto the Other, who can then be disposed of without too much grief.

NO! That bonus should have been spent on worthier recipients! It shoudda been spent on foreign-owned management consultancies like Price Waterhouse, to generate highly responsible feasibility studies, evaluations, reports, assessments, strategic plans, and generally hide the paper trail of blame, should things go pear-shaped.

And another thing, (not to carp on and on about it), but how many times must DH remind you all, (Wake up and smell the bad breath. Something rotten in the state of Howard's Australia) that the budget surplus was extracted from our teeth in the first place.

The ABC's News, in one of its most shameful episodes, trumpeted Tony Abbott's "concern" that beneficiaries would spend it all on booze and gambling. DH was not aware that people with disabilities and pensioners were such a rambustious bunch! Somebody should tweak Abbott's nose for him, and send him into orbit.

Alas, they're all wrong. That 1000 quid is more likely to go on new dentures.

Howard Govt cares 2.963962 times more about being re-elected than it does about the Nation's Toothache.

How, you ask, did DH arrive at this remarkably accurate assessment?

DH has been hanging out with bureaucrats a lot lately, and has been seduced by the glamour of it all. Where once she favoured good looking fellers, she now gets off on acronyms, indices, bar charts and assessment tools. And it's giving her ideas.

See, DH has always had this problem about understanding Governmental largesse. For instance, in the last Federal Budget, Peter Costello announced that his goverment will spend $378 million over four years for patients whose dental health is impacting on a chronic medical condition

WOW!!! That sounds like a lot of money.

GEE, maybe she really misjudged those Liberals down there in Canberra when she called them cold-hearted meanies???

But what does it mean? Like how many toothbrushes will it buy you, or how many Toothbrush Distribution Strategic Services Policy Officers, Class 7-8, EFTS's will it fund? And what about if you already have a toothbrush?

And is "toothbrush half-lives" a useful unit of measure in other policy areas, like funding for the Commonwealth State Housing Agreement for instance, or is it too specific?

No, clearly what is needed is an independant largesse evaluation tool, not tied to the vicissitudes of toothbrush futures.

Any assessment tool has to use as comparison something that has ABSOLUTE value to all politicians, a measure of just how important something really is to them.

And that's when DH realised just what the Howard Governments most important and most valued expenditure items is: .

Their annual taxpayer-funded propaganda advertising cost
(or ATFUPAC for short)

Now over the past 3 years the Howard Governments has spent $850 million dollars of taxpayers money on self promotion.

Thats an annual ATFUPAC of $280 million per annum (rounded)

Now with the dental expenditure, $378 million over 4 years equates to $94.5 million per annum (rounded).

Now divide the tooth expenditure by the ATFUPAC and you arrive at the following: The Howard government cares only 33.75% as much for the nation's teeth as for getting re-elected, or conversely, 2.962963 times more for getting re-elected than for reducing the nations toothache.

No really, it's TRUE. Check the figures. This is real mathematics. If you don't believe DH, ask Ross Gittins, only Australia's top economics writer, if you didn't know. DH took a stab at figuring out his email address, emailed the whole calculation to him there, asked him to check it out, and get back to her if there was an problem. And so far he hasn't complained.

. . . . . . . .
. . . . . . . .

. . . . . . . .

You just dont geddit, do ya?

All DH can say, is that you must have learned basic numeracy at a school or university funded by the Howard Government.

Anyhow, watch this space because DH will be applying the GLET (Governmental Largesse Evaluation Tool) to the entire budget anytime soon.

Abbott and Pell, Right to Life Hypocrites of the Year

What is it about Christianity and hypocrisy? It seems the ideal of Christian love is more easy to execute in theory than practise.

These "Right to Lifers" will fight to the last drop of semen for the right of any conceivable blastocyst to be delivered.

But they all vanish into thin air once the embryo crowns.

And you can't see them for dust should the newborn have a disability.

No, the posse is off again, galloping off to lasso the next round-bellied mare to corrall.

Oh yes, once the child has a disability, then, let them eat off $350 a fortnight.

Oh yes, and they can get their teeth fixed if some itinerant Thai buddhist dental charity comes into town.

I'd like to make Abbott live on that, the hypocritical hound!

As for Cardinal Pell, DH totally applauds his laying down the gauntlet to people who call themselves Catholics. With a bit of luck some of the will finally face up to the absurdity of their position and vote with their feet.

Read the following article, worth reprinting in full from SMH's Heckler.

As some of you may know, DH has a child on the autistic spectrum. This brilliant article tells it EXACTLY as it is. This is the way the harrow goes.

Paying the price of parenting an autistic child

• Jasmine Smith
  June 8, 2007
  

"HELLO. I'm sorry you don't qualify for Department of Ageing, Disability and Home Care assistance. Records show that your private child psychologist reported that your child can speak and his IQ is not under 75. We cannot case-manage you or offer you funds. Have we sent you our handy-dandy list of places to go, things to do?"

Several times. Things to subscribe to and stuff for autism cost money and are spread from Carlingford and North Rocks and Forestville and Putney and Peakhurst and Campbelltown and Woop Woop. Nothing accessible by public transport with toddler in tow, you understand.

Indeed. The child speaks because we have scrounged $20,000 for private speech therapy, occupational therapy and more, while on a public health waiting list and riding taxis to the therapy groups. When not managing the toddler, I campaign for autism therapies to be put on Medicare.

The department is right. We are well-off. My husband has a job at the moment. He didn't for five years. That's Asperger's for you. The house is weatherproof and we own it. It has needed renovation since 1970, so we cannot sell, mortgage or rent it out. What are we complaining about?

Nothing really. Just autism. A sort of big nothing. Your child watches shadows and fluttering leaves when he should be watching the rest of his soccer team. He does a teapot dance facing away from play at the far goal when he could be striking the ball. He is a bit slower than the others.

His chances of living independently, being employed and thriving socially are diminishing with every year that he doesn't receive any sort of behavioural therapy. The education system says we're ready for the mainstream; which is odd, considering that my son is nearly seven but has yet to make a friend - unless you count sitting on kids or kissing Jack. Apparently, saving money and sticking to the Board of Studies curriculum is more important. The school says we're doing well enough and should be happy with that. They won't have to live with him when he is a maladjusted, rejected 25-year-old.

We are paying for private therapy for half the family because of the grief of autism. Moreover, we were a bit preoccupied when the only rellie living locally, my brother, started making cries for help. We have hardly had time to grieve since he committed suicide.

We don't qualify for autism therapy or the department's help. So what do we do, buy lottery tickets? Shame the odds are longer than the incidence of autism!

Go Maxine! ... and deliver us from the Right Hon. Mr "Banality of Evil"

...thinking of the "budget surplus" extracted from the nation's rotting teeth, the choking of public housing, the ruination of childcare subsidies, the disgraceful transfer of funding from the poorest schools to the richest, the harassment and villification of battlers while pretending to be on their side, the transference of wealth from the working poor to the big end of town, the punitive and humiliating regimes of Centrelink, the gutting of Centrelink subjecting welfare recipients to bungle after bungle and desperation-inducing delays in payment, the breaches of the weakest, the deliverance of the effective CES (Commonwealth Employment Service) into the hands of unscrupulous private operators, for blurring the hard won boundaries between church and state, the tolerance of extremists if they happen to be Exclusive Brethren, the wedge politics, the non-core promises, the attempts to stifle dissent, most recently the unbelievable attempt to make individuals pay for organising boycotts, the Serf "Choices", the trashing of the ABC, the conscription of people with disabilities into pointless low paid jobs, the training of strike breakers in a Moslem state, while subtly stirring up race hatred at home, the fear campaign on terrorism used to supress civil liberties and freedom of the press, the toadying to that pathetic little jackanapes Bush in the Iraq debacle, Christmas Island, the detention centres, Siev-x, the Tampa, the undermining of Habeas Corpus with the Hicks case ...

But thanks for the free "Be Alert but Not Alarmed" fridge magnet!

A Christmas Carol for Our Times

or, What the Dickens is this country coming to?

Mummy, who are the Merry Gentlemen in the picture?
Hush darling and eat your Christmas gruel.

But mummy, why do the gentlemen look so merry?
Because they have a Monopoly of the Government which means they can do whatever they want.

Can they stay up as late as they want and never have to go to sleep?
Hush now darling, and let me tuck you in. Mummy has to go to work now.

But Mummy, it's Christmas!
Yes, darling, but Mummy traded away her Christmas holiday to buy you your lovely gruel, remember?

B-b-but mummy, I don't like my gruel anymore.
Yes darling I know, but after Mummy paid the mean landlord from the D'oH 30% of her wages, plus 30% to the ATO, plus 6% to HECS and 4% to repay her Austudy Supplement Loan, and on top of that because she is a contractor, 9% of her wage to fund her own super, she had to spend the rest of her wages on buying your drinking water, so she didnt have any money left over to buy turnips this year.

Mummy, will we have turnips for Christmas next year, do you think, if I am very, very good?
Yes sweetie, because Mummy has joined a Union, and they will fight for our right to eat turnips every year!

What's a Union, Mummy?
Well, once upon a time, long long ago, when the land was flowing with latte and honey, before everyone worked 60 hours a week with no overtime or penalty rates, for $3.50 an hour, Unions used to fight for our Rights.

What are "Rights", Mummy?
SHH!!! Don't ask so many questions! Someone might hear us! And anyway, mummy can't remember anymore

But how did the unions fight for our Rights, Mummy?
Well darling they used to go out on this thing called a strike.

Could we go out on a stwike, Mummy?
No darling, we would have to pay a big big fine, like a billion zillion trillion dollars, and the mean men could put us in jail.

Don't worry mummy. I'm going to SHOOT those mean men with my GREAT BIG BLASTERATOR, and I'm going to buy you as many turnips as you can eat EVERY Christmas!

Suddenly, a mighty crashing and banging is heard from the chimney:

And then, in a twinkling, was heard on the roof
The prancing and pawing of many a hoof,
As mother and child were turning around,
Down the chimney a figure leapt out with a bound

EVERYBODY FREEZE! DROP YOUR WEAPONS!

We have reason to believe that you have been spreading SEDITION and inciting a minor to call the Prime Minister a "Nasty Little Meanie". And I'll take that Blasterator, Sonny. One more stwike and you're out!

As for you, valued Centrelink Customer, No. CRN 125 904 038, it has come to our attention that you do not have a Treating Practitioners Report in triplicate explaining why you are late for work. Therefore the terms of your individual contract are now void.

Thanks to Government Reforms making Australia Fairer,
You're Breached!

And with that, the SAS storm trooper tore the workhouse ID tag off the Mummy's ankle, and smashed his way out through the front door.

I'm scared Mummy.
Don't worry darling. We'll go down to Vinnies, and we might be able to convince the nice old 12 Step Veterans down there to give us some yummy tins of recycled beetroot and creamed corn, some No Frills tuna in bilge, and if we're very lucky, even some instant mashed potato flakes!!!! Now wont that be fun?!

Season's Greetings
One and All

This is Australia,
2007

Baby rent payers

DH had thought she had heard it all. But here's a new one.

 

At a forum organised by the Greens in Glebe last Saturday, she heard from a woman whose daughter had been hit with rental arrears for her new baby backdated to his birthdate. Just when you need more money for all your new needs.

 

Maybe Peter Costello, who asked us to have one more for our country, could think about the country reimbursing a fraction of the costs of our contribution, at least till they're old enough to be cannon fodder for the homeland.

 

Talking about which, DH viewed a 4 Corners report on our new caring sharing army. DH is not a pacifist, but it is heartbreaking to see such lovely young people training to kill and be killed.

 

 

Quick! Hide the plasma TV! Vinnies pays a visit.

Just kidding. Of course DH doesnt own a plasma TV. But she feels as guilty as if she did. She doesn't look as poor as she is, and you would never guess from a first look at her place that she doesnt own a single item of furniture worth more than $60. The TV is eight years old, and the last time she bought a HiFi was in 1976. But it's amazing what you can do with 2 brightly coloured cushions, and a little Lack, Billy, and Klackbo. (And if you dont know what she's talkin' bout, you're clearly a traitor to Western values).

 

Why does she feel guilty? Well, she feels so sorry for the poor volunteers of St Vincents who are  being shamelessly exploited by the 3 Scrooges, Howard, Abbott and Costello, These poor people,  in their naivete. imagine that by giving up their precious hours after work, taking time away from their families, and wasting petrol to drive over with some electricity vouchers,  they are doing Christlike service for the poor, when in fact their main service is to make Costello look good on budget night, by doing for free what the Commonwealth Employment Service once did for award pay.

 

And in turn, people like DH have to play their part, and look suitably miserable, humble, contrite, and grateful.

 

Once the unemployed had rights. THeir benefits were enough to cover the utilities. Now they must beg.  They know the vouchers are out there, but they must needs open their homes to all comers for the privilege of getting a $30 voucher. (Actually come to think of it electricity is a State matter. You mean, Labor set up this appalling arrangement with the churches???)  

 

Well, DH;s place looks good and cheerful, and she wouldnt be caught dead in grubby trackie-daks. So she found herself feeling she had to do something to make her visitors feel the trip was worth the effort. And before you knew it, she was whining and carrying on as if she was in the confessional booth, forgive me father, for I spent $12 on the cushions, but the keyboard is not mine, and anyway its broken, and dont be fooled by the speakers, I picked them up at cleanup day, and and and

 

BTW for the benefit of the downwardly envious, DH does have some part-time work. But most of it will go in Govt clawbacks, and as for the Dept of Housing, she's afraid they'll go into fibrillations when they have to work out her new rent based on a variable hour casual short term contract.

 

 

 

 

Charity means never having to say "We're accountable"

As we know, the 3 Stooges, 'Bad Daddy' State is offloading its welfare responsibilities to charities, by the tried and tested principle that whoever has a heart will eventually pick up the tab. They know that the bleeding heart Mummies of the Nation, (whether it's nurses, teachers,pr the good ladies of Vinnies) will work miracles on low, or no, pay.

After 7 weeks of unemployment DH has only received about $280 from Centrelink (Yes, for the benefit of the Downwardly Envious, DH has been looking for work, and does have something lined up, but still has to eat and pay bills in the meantime.) She has had to approach various charities for electricity vouchers, food vouchers and financial assistance.

DH believes that Social Security is, as its name implies a form of insurance for all of society. As a taxpayer for over 30 years, DH feels she has more than paid her premiums to tide her over in her times of need.

The charities have helped her and she appreciates their effort. But she is depressed by their naivety, and for all the grief they give "the poor" as a result. DH doesn't want money in the name of a mythical Jesus with a reputedly bad attitude on things she holds dear, such as a Woman's Right to Choose, or the rights of homosexuals to love who they want. No, DH wants the rights that were fought for by generations of unionists, reformers, and socialists. If we left social policy to the religious, women like DH would still be veiled and begging on the outskirts of town.

Charity is demeaning. Why should DH have to explain her life situation to strangers who have little education, or understanding, who know nothing about disability. Why should DH have to feel guilty because these poor souls turn up after a hard days work and she wasnt home when they called, even if she wasnt told they were coming?

What on earth are they thinking when they ask you "How much money do you need?".

Consider DH's inner dialogue:

Oh dear. What shall I say??? What is a fair amount?

If I get it wrong and ask for too much, will they think I am a bad selfish person? Will I be depriving others who are more needy than myself? I wonder how many other clients they've had this week? Am I even needy, or am I just a bad person who's not pulling their weight in society? Is my child really disabled? Am I really fatigued and depressed? Am I a dead loss to society if I don'tget a job at Woolworths as a checkout crone? How much longer can I afford to keep paying for private health insurance? ... yet if I stop now, how will I pay for my child's wisdom teeth extraction?

Yet, if I ask for too little, will I end up with less than I could have got?

Why should DH have to explain a disability that the volunteer ladies don't understand. Why should she feel desperate to prove that she is not making it up? Hasn't she had enough grief already? .Must she dramatise all the dramas of her life, which are bad enough as it is without having to turn on a royal command performance?

And what about the charities that ask you to put together a budget of all your expenses, including clothes, outings, entertainment?

HULLO! How much do YOU think we spend on entertainment and clothes from a weekly income of $250 after rent, which must still pay for transport, food, utilities, medications, school fees, telcom, .

Then there's the billionaire philanthropist who has set up a fund to give out food vouchers (from his own company ... one can only imagine the tax breaks he's getting. Why doesnt he just bloodoy well pay up his taxes and pressure his political cronies into maintaining a decent social security system?) (and where the hell is Kerry Packer when you need a good whipping gent?) Anyway, you can get the billionaires vouchers if you can get past the suspicious termagent who guards the phone... What they havent figured out is how you're supposed to get the shopping home - since the billionaire's company doesnt have a shop in your area, of the $100 voucher, $20 goes to the taxi fare home with the shopping.

Oh well, thank God, in our Brave New Australia, gotta be grateful we have food vouchers...

DH has to confess that she just spent $40 on a little black dress. But it was discounted from $120! She needed it to attend "drinks" for a leftist Labor politician, so she could hold her own amongst the Labor Glitterati without having to be ashamed of looking like a houso...

Plenty Kava for Johnny, eh?

Seems there was plenty kava for the Howard family in their role as New Guinea plantation stooges. So that's how they got to be so relaxed and comfortable ... and forgetful....

 

Loved David Marr's expose in today's SMH! 

 

 

Open Letter to Tony Abbott

[DH is stewing over Tony Abbot's juvenile gloating in the columns of the Sydney Morning Herald of Wed "The budget delivers, even for single poets" http://www.smh.com.au/text/articles/2006/05/23/1148150250816.html in which he tells us, contrary to the bleedin' obvious, that apparently we never had it so good.]

 

Dear Tony

 

Being as how I’m a 50 something heterosexual working parent who can’t stand poetry, you can imagine how that saucy little beast, Don John Howard, is always a-courting after me, dangling his tax incentives in front of my nose, flashing his wad of bills at me, enthralling me with tables of figures and calculations that at the end of the day always seem to add up to $7, or the price of 2 Macburgers, in my pocket.

What kind of girl does he think I am? Must think all the big numbers he pulls out of his hat, and the dazzling gold coins he extracts from my ears,  blind me to how much my standard of living has actually declined since he and his miserable crew got into power.

Who do you think you’re kidding Bud?

Of that extra $4664 ($8858-$4194) per annum, you reckon I now have,  (and has that figure been adjusted to the price of bananas recently?) I now spend $2600 extra on medical insurance that I was forced to take out when your government ripped Medicare to shreds.

May I suggest to your MacBrain constituency that the $7 a week tax savings they drool over in their MacSuburbs have been extracted out of their children’s teeth, thanks to the lowest act ever perpetrated by an Australian Government: the withdrawal of funding to free dental services to school children and low-income earners.

May I suggest that the $7 extra a week hardly compensate for the thousands they must now pay for private education for their childen since your government’s rob-from-the-poor to give-to-private-schools education policy sucked our public schools dry?

And is it a pure coincidence that while government debt is at an all-time low, private debt and bankruptcy has skyrocketed and the middle-classes are cannibalising their mortgages just to pay for the self-same private education.

All your government has achieved is to privatise its debts like you’ve privatised everything else. .

Did I say mortgages?  Nice work if you can get a foot in the door.

Do you think we will be so distracted by your pathetic attempts to foment civil war between Balmain and Blacktown that those 68% of people who reportedly would prefer social service to tax cuts are fooled. Nothing divisive about you, mate.

Well, I’ve said it before and I’m proud to say it again. I’ve still never met anyone who’ll admit to being greedy enough to vote for you. And I have connections Balmain to Blacktown to the Beecroft Bible Belt.  But there you go. I guess some people can’t live with the shame of voting for an extra $7 in their pockets while your government puts children in concentration camps, terrifies us into giving up our protection against becoming a police state, bad-mouth its own scientists when they talk about global warming. Err - until yesteday … hullo … suddenly when it comes to profiting from uranium and building nuclear power plants we have a global warming problem after all!

Well, I’m so disgusted by those crypto MacLiberal voters that I for one am coming out of the closet.

Yes, I admit it!  I am the “The Elite” that you love to revile. Yes. It was me all along! Yes. I’m the one that loves a latte, have a degree, and work for a pittance in the public sector, while living high on the hog of the disability allowance of $43 a week I shamelessly bludge off the taxpayer to pay for my childs extra needs.

And to clinch it, I happen to live in Balmain. Yes I know how envious you are. So why don’t you come up and see me sometime, Big Boy, and we can have a good old chatter in my luxurious public housing townhouse,. Don’t worry, you’ll soon get used to the piteous wailing of  the 200,000 poor buggers still on the waiting list who press their noses up against the window crying “let us in, let us in”. At least when they.re not out there pushing rents through the roof, thanks to your Governments exacerbation of rent inflation by cutting off funding to public housing.

Just make sure you don’t trip over the Rolls in the garage, (so much a feature of public housing life these days, if our past housing minister is to be believed}. We’re buttering them for our next fundraising sausage sizzle so that our school can buy some colouring in pencils for our kids.

Budget surplus extracted from our teeth

Costello and Howard can gloat about their huge budget surpluses, but isn't it bleedin' obvious that all they've done is privatised debt? We used to have private savings and public health and dentistry. Now the middle classes are eating up their credit cards and cannibalising their mortgages, while the poor can't even chew, thanks to the lowest act of all by the Liberals, their ruthless decision to cut funding to dental services. And so much for interest rates not going up! Though DH is delighted - one of the advantages of not having a mortgage, is that now instead of earning 2 cents a year interest on her Commonwealth Savings account, she'll earn 2.0003 cents.

Who voted for these people?

Today the Abbot and Costello government is pushing its welfare to work legislation through the upper house.

 

And in their arrogance, they are guillotining the motion through - ie gagging debate and spitting in the eye of democracy.

 

Some of the charming provisions of this bill.

• Under the Government’s welfare changes the income support paid to a single mother with two children will be cut by nearly $1,500 a year as a way of somehow ‘encouraging’ her to seek work and give up full-time care of her children as young as eight years old. That is over $28 a week less to feed her children, even if she meets the Government’s new work search test.

  At the same time, the non-working partners of millionaires are eligible to receive up to $3,300 in welfare in return for them not seeking work and instead staying at home to care for their children.

• According to the latest Brotherhood of St Laurence report, there are now 10-15% of Australian children living in poverty. Nice one for an economy that Peter Costello continues to grin about as never having been "stronger".  Well now the mothers of these children will have $28 less a week to feed them. 

• The 708000 people on Disability Support pensions will get no additional support for training. If they are pushed from the Disability Support Pension onto Newstart, they will suffer a $46 per week cut in benefits. Welcome to America! And we all know how they treat their poor.

• Lets not even mention how those who do get work and are in public housing will find themselves paying over 30% of their income in rent for largely ill-designed substandard housing, so that they can't possibly hope to save a cent, and then being asked to give up their homes despite having no savings with which to make the move. NICE ONE, NSW Labour!

WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE? AND WHO VOTED FOR THEM?