This article can be also found at this Hub Pages link, Australia Can Do Better.
Welcome to our article, Australia Can Do Better.
Dear readers, what we are posting in this blog is an old article, that I wrote years ago, but the problems we had then, are stil present today, so, we are repeating it here, to show you what we mean. You see, we believe that the
Australian government can do better if the politicians in power put people first. Therefore, whichever party is elected to form
government, when they budget or make new laws, they must put people first,
because that is their job, since that is the reason, they have been elected to
parliament. Of course, the political parties have their own beliefs, so, they
help some groups more than other groups. So, let us look which political party
is better for which group:
The Labour Party
helps the workers and the have-not. They also have idealistic ways to help all
communities; so, it is like the communist party, in the sense that they don’t
like the rich and the large enterprise. They like the government to be the big
spender, which is good, but they easily run out of money and that is their
biggest problem.
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Now let us talk about the coalition. The coalition like to make laws and budgets to helps the rich; they also help the poor and the have-not, but they are not their priority.
The coalition in government likes
large enterprises and the rich people, they are more willing to help the
employers, the self-employed and those that own properties, in the belief that
these groups will employ people gainfully, which will help run the country
without asking help from the government; so, the coalition government let the
country run on its own, as much as they can from these self-driven people;
which when the coalition is in power, they are more willing to use their own
money to run their business. But even this system misses a few things, because
there is no help for a large section of the community.
Anyhow, what we
want to say here is that both parties are not looking after those people that
are neither rich and no poor, they are left on their own to do what they want
to do, because they are self-employed, are farmers or own properties; but that
is not all, they turn to these people only to tax them, and worst still
sometimes they make laws or pass budgets that penalize them badly. Anyhow, let
us look at what the coalition did, when they did this mathematical heartless
budget in 2014 that has hurt many people.
The mathematical heartless budget
To understand what
I am saying here, we need to go back to Joe Hockey budget 2014; this budget
must be the worse budget ever made, because it penalizes those people that work
hard and look after themselves. If you ask me what I think about Joe Hockey as
a politician treasurer, I will say that they made a mistake to put him there.
Whoever becomes a treasurer must be somebody compassionate, he must think about
how his budget is going to affect the people, especially the poor people, the
pensioners and the family man; but Joe Hockey has no compassion in him, he
thinks only about the government bank account that is overdrawn, so, he wants
to brink the government bank account to surplus.
The then prime
minister Tony Abbott did not understand the situation any better himself, he
thinks that Joe Hockey budget is good; I remember Tony Abbott smiling and
laughing at budget night, when people were shocked at this tough budget. In my
opinion the PM should have at least be apologetic to the people that were
affected adversely, but he kept smiling and laughing, as if what they were
doing was great.
There were many
mistakes in Joe Hockey 2014 budget, but in my opinion one of the main mistakes
was the change they made to the assets test. Because treasurer Joe Hockey and
PM Tony Abbott made a disaster, when they changed it, from $1.50 per thousand
to $3.00 per thousand, when people in most cases cannot earn that sort of money
from their assets. Perhaps I feel this way, because I have been affected and I
have many friends that have been affected by the assets test badly, so, we hate
Joe Hockey, because he has robbed us of our fair share of money that we were
intitled to have. This is what we want to talk in this article, and
if this article is not enough will write another article, to show you what we
mean.
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Let us start talking about the assets test.
The assets test and
the pensioner the way we understand it.
Here we are forced
to repeat, that people work hard during their lives and save money, so that when
they retire, they can use this money or use the earnings from the assets that
they have bought to live a better life.
But this does
not work right all the time, because politicians introduce laws or taxes that
hurt people that have worked hard and saved their earnings, like the change in
the assets test of 2014 budget, that has cut off the pension to many
pensioners, other had their pension reduced so much that they can hardly live
on it, in fact, these people have to live on a budget that is a lot less that
the government pension. People that work hard and save money don’t deserve to
be treated this bad.
I don’t know
why the politician cannot work it out themselves, it is not that hard to add a
few numbers together; anyhow, it maybe that they are too lazy to do that, so, we
need to write down examples to show them what they are doing, because they need
to be explained the consequences of what they have done. So, let me write a
short example hereunder on how the assets test has affected these pensioners
that own two houses, one is their residence, the other is a rental property.
We are talking
about rental properties, because rental properties are at the top of the list
of the disadvantages that have resulted from the increased assets test. So, let
us talk about some friends of mine that will call, Mr. and Mrs X in a shortened
version, we will write a longer version in our next article.
Mr and Mrs X,
after the assets test was introduced, they informed me that the new assets test
has affected them so bad and in such a way that that they could starve,
therefore, they must withdraw money from their savings to live a modest life.
You see, they receive very little money from their government pension to live
on, because of the assets test. Their pension has been cut to $120 each per
fortnight, so, they receive $240 for both from the government pension, plus
their house rent that is about $13000 a year net, after expenses. This works
out at about $450 per fortnight for both, So, their income is now; $240+450=690
per fortnight for both, which is a lot less than the normal pension, which can
be about $1200 for both.
What is wrong
with the people in Canberra? Are they blind and can’t see that they are
punishing the people that have worked hard during their lives? They worked hard
and saved their money to live an easier life when they retire, but now they are
punished for having done that; this does not sound right to me, this should not
happen, if all citizens were treated equal, but that nasty budget broke all
rules, when they changed the assets test. I believe that the government, before
they change anything financially, they must ensure that all citizens should
receive, or they should be able to earn a minimum amount of money to live on.
Therefore, they should not bring out laws or budgets that make it impossible
for their citizen to achieve that themselves; but if they bring out laws like
that, they must reimburse the citizen for their loss, it is only fair.
But there is
more to worry about, if this trend of punishing the self-driven hard worker
continues, they will be killing the will of the hard-working people to earn and
save money and own a second property. You see, once this group of people
realize that there is no point to work hard and save money, because they will
be put in a disadvantage financial position from the government. They will stop
working hard and the looser will be the Australian government, because they
will run their business in such a way that they can collect the government
pension when they are old. I hope you see what we mean. I believe that
Australian government can do better than this, but they need to fix the
mistakes they are making, and most of all fix the assets test.
This article is
becoming too long, so, see you in our next article, where we will write a few
articles, starting with how the Australian pensioners are alarmed, and about
how the rental properties have affected the owners adversely, because of the
overrated assets test and to what degree. See you in our article,
To see more click on this link, Australia Can Do Better.
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