richard.obrien's blog

Like Joe Hockey I too belong to the sacred brotherhood of men who do their own laundry and I cannot begin to explain to my uninitiated brethren how much insight and understanding of the average Australian one gains from the loading and operating a washing machine. The fact that Joe makes the effort to wash, as well as possibly fold and put on his own undies has been blatantly ignored by a biased media intent on misrepresenting his values.

Here are a few ideas to get you started Tony.
Abolish negative gearing and Capital Gains Tax breaks - $36 billion per annum.
Close Immigration detention centres - $8 billion (plus about that much again in expenses Scott Morrison hasn't tabled)
Fix loopholes in the mining tax - $35 billion
Reverse Hockey's decision to end all ATO investigations into illegal tax havens and fraudulent practices - $27 billion
Close superannuation tax loopholes - $24 billion
End subsidies to mining and the fossil fuel industry - $15 billion

Last week Andrew Forrest proposed that all people receiving welfare payments, including sickness and disability support, should have their incomes managed by the government. Forrest, like the Government, argues that spending has gotten out of control. He, like the Government, has got his maths wrong.

Welfare as a percentage of government expenditure has fallen in the last decade. The number of people on welfare in Australia is the lowest it has been in 17 years. Apart for the age pension all areas of welfare dependency in Australia are decreasing. So why the emergency?

Well that's it ladies and gentlemen. The day we spent three years turning the Australian political landscape into a circus for. The day when the promise that catapulted Tony Abbott and his band of merry thugs, loons and psychopaths into government was fulfilled. The repeal of the carbon tax.

The proportion of people in Australia on welfare is the lowest it has been in 17 years. Out of 30 OECD countries Australia ranks 25th for spending on social security. Australia spending on disability support and pensions is well below the OECD average and total welfare spending is less than two-thirds of most European countries.

Government's response: Radical overhaul.

As a general rule I don't like to dignify Murdoch's brown shirts at the Daily Telegraphy by commenting on the vicious hatred that spews from the pages of this septic rag, but I take great exception at today's front page. Four generations of my family have served in the Australian military and I don't take kindly to them, or anyone else who has defended this nation, being used by gutless bigots in an attempt to disguise their cruelty as patriotism.

Dear Mr Shorten,

You will have no doubt seen the most recent opinion polls which show the Abbott government is quite unpopular at the moment. They show that people are angry at being ripped off by a budget that amounts to little more than the pillaging of public assets by corporate lobbyists and donors.

In the USA there are 100,000 children in adult prisons. Children as young as 8 are being tried as adults at the discresion of prosecuting attorneys meaning children are targeted on the basis of race and socio-economic status.

The US Supreme Court has decided that children do not have the same level of responsibility as adults in criminal cases. This has not stopped some states sentencing children as young as 13 to life without parole.

Tomorrow is the one year anniversary of the Rana Plaza collapse in Bangladesh. Sohel Rana, the plaza's owner, ignored warnings from safety inspectors that the building was about to collapse and forced around 5,000 garment workers to return to work. The collapse of the Rana Plaza resulted in 1,129 deaths and over 2,500 injured.

The government won't be telling us how an asylum seeker under their care was murdered and scores of others beaten and terrorised. They won't be telling us why the Federal police are refusing to cooperate with the PNG police investigation. They won't be telling us why the organisation responsible for the brutal treatment of detainees is now also also the organisation responsible for monitoring their welfare. They won't be telling us why those detainees will now be denied access to legal advice and representation.