AUSSIE BUDGET 2023
I’ve just had a look through the federal government’s second budget and I’ve got to say that I don’t like what I see. It’s designed to look like a responsible budget but it does less to help people than it projects and it’s terribly lacking in imagination.

I mean, I can’t read through the whole thing but I did look carefully through the full budget document — not just the summary — all the bits that looked interesting to me.

This is not leadership. It’s more like a process of assisted dying — eking out a slow death and you can see the dead hand of bureaucracy in it everywhere.

With their energy solutions, it seems like they’re giving low interest loans out to people to improve their energy efficiency in their homes but who is really going to take on more debt at this time, even if it is low interest or no interest?

With the NDIS, that bloated carcass of bureaucrats, the NDIA, get $732.9 million or so more over four years when they’re already doing a terrible job — mostly just trying to find any excuse they can not to allow recipients to spend the money they have been allocated. Labor’s always saying that the Liberals just say no all the time but Labor seems to be rewarding an organization that loves to say no to the people they’re supposed to be there to help. Seems Labor’s also found $13 million to police the NDIS system to ensure the public isn’t being ripped off but it’s not the public who are being ripped off. It’s the recipients, who even when no services are available to them and they make reasonable requests for equipment as an alternative to services, these reasonable requests are refused time and time again.

With electric cars, they’re taking away the fringe benefits tax exemption for plug-in hybrids, which seems like a counter-productive move given their stated priorities.

Around $150 million to improve life for Aboriginal people in central Australia looks good on the face of it but the $365 million required for a referendum on giving them this Voice in Parliament is a huge waste. If ordinary non-Aboriginal men and women really had any sort of voice in our parliament then it might be of use but if we’re not consulted about things like increasing the pension age and whether we go to war or fund wars, or not, how could anyone think that this Voice for Aboriginals will really do them any good? Damn but it’s really just more big government.

The energy price relief plan looks good for eligible households but the government has not made it clear if this maximum $500 a year is in addition to rebates welfare recipients receive already or if it includes what they get already. Also, I’d like to know why the Australian Energy Regulator gets over $3 million a year to monitor coal and gas markets? I mean, isn’t that part of their job anyway? Even if it wasn’t, surely it wouldn’t take more than one bureaucrat to keep a daily tab of what prices were for coal and gas on one simple lap top costing no more than $1000? It would probably take him or her a couple of hours a day at best! Just how do these bureaucrats do things?

Funding to cap electricity coal at $125 per tonne could help to keep power prices down but I can’t really see why the funding amount should be kept secret. They cite commercial sensitivities but really the only people who don’t know what’s going on here are the public.

I applaud the $326.7 million going to support front line services for vulnerable women’s safety and the $194 million going to Aboriginal women’s safety. Thank god our government does, to some extent, have a heart.

As for the near $190 million we are giving Ukraine to help it fight its war, plus quite a bit more for Defence Force deployment, this is an absurd and atrocious waste of our resources. Many commentators are now recognizing that Russia could not tolerate Ukraine being part of NATO. It would have been like Mexico welcoming in military assistance and bases from China on the US border. The US would not have tolerated that. Moreover, the US had Ukraine littered with questionable bio-weapons labs. What responsible leader would not have done all it could to counter such an appalling risk? Meanwhile, as the war labours on, thousands more soldiers on both sides are killed. Why should we help to perpetuate it? Again, Albo, if you wanted to help Ukraine, you should have at least run a substantial poll of what Australians thought.

The same goes for the nuclear subs. It’s a huge outlay — reputedly up to $368 billion over 25 years or more than 10 billion a year for half a dozen or so subs that will be the first to be blown out of the water in any true conflict situation. Just toys for the Navy boys. A fleet of 368 high powered, missile armed patrol boats would serve the protection of our huge coastline far more effectively and would probably come in at a lot less than $368 billion. It would provide a lot more employment for sailors, also.

The long-term dental funding reform package seems to be just a stop-gap after decades of irresponsibility that is simply not cost effective. It’s well documented that bad teeth lead to other illnesses including heart conditions that cost the community far more than a decent dental package would cost.

With the Arts, the policy is truly just servicing the dead. All that Labour is doing is providing a few dollars to keep the jewellery polished (sustainability payments) but there’s nothing for creators of new work. There’s no recognition of the deep funk our people are in after their abuse by government during the pandemic. Nor is there any recognition of the value of the creative genius of this nation that could lift them out of it. Yes, there is $199 million for the creation of four new administrative bodies in the Arts. Great, more bureaucrats for the arts.

It seems that our Labour government can allocate nearly $8 million ($2 million a year over 4 years) in a vain attempt to combat misinformation online while giving nothing to the creative paragons whose life’s work it is to generate positive and valuable information. Just who do they think they are? The arbiters of what is true or not? When government thinks it’s the best one to do that, you’ve got real trouble — Big Government with a Big Daddy complex. It is not the role of government to be the arbiters of what is acceptable information. That is the job of each and every one of us — the job of the individual to decide for himself or herself what is true or right or not.

Parenting payment being extended to single mothers of children under the age of 14 (up from 8) is a good idea. These children only have one parent and they need them around.

A national autism strategy is also a good idea but can they really achieve anything with less than $7 million a year?

Overall, piss poor but, dammit, I can’t imagine the other side of our Bolshevik Uniparty system would have done any better.