As it's more than 100 days now, it has been suggested that a new thread was needed. The current govt has been breaking promises and telling lies at a rate so fast it's hard to keep up.
This below is worrying, "independent" pffft, as if your own doctor is somehow what? biased, it's ridiculous. So far there is talk of only including people under a certain age 30-35, for now. Remember that if your injured in a car, injured at work or get ill, you too might need to go on the DSP. They have done a similar think in the UK with devastating consequences.
and this is the 2nd time recently where the Govt has referred to work as welfare???? So when you go to work tomorrow (or tuesday), just remember that's welfare.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-04-20/disability-pensioners-may-be-reassessed-kevin-andrews/5400598
Independent doctors could be called in to reassess disability pensioners, Federal Government says
The Federal Government is considering using independent doctors to examine disability pensioners and assess whether they should continue to receive payments.
Currently family doctors provide reports supporting claims for the Disability Support Pension (DSP).
But Social Services Minister Kevin Andrews is considering a measure that would see independent doctors reassess eligibility.
"We are concerned that where people can work, the best form of welfare is work," Mr Andrews said at a press conference.
I hope Abbit and his maaaates choke on their Xmas pudd sixpences
If only the msm had of been even a little truthful BEFORE the election....sigh
not the entire article
Joe Hockey and the cry wolf government have only themselves to blame
This is the government of cry wolf.
First we had the pre-election Debt-and-Deficit cry. Now we've got the Iron-Ore-Crash cry and The-Senate's-on-the-Loose cry.
The Debt-and-Deficit crisis was so bad that the Coalition did absolutely nothing for months after being elected – no mini-budget, no austerity measures. It just tottered along until the budget and then proposed a series of grossly inequitable measures.
Now Treasurer Joe Hockey has confirmed what anyone who looked at the Coalition's promises always knew – you can't remove two taxes, maintain expenditure for all major programs and cut the budget deficit at the same time.
He also now knows that estimating government revenue and expenditure and getting the budget into surplus is not quite as easy as he thought when he poured scorn on former Treasurer Wayne Swan for his efforts.
In addition Hockey wants us to believe that we won't see a surplus in his term simply because he's copped low iron ore and coal prices and an obstructionist Senate. Well, let's take a look at that.
His Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook statement tells us part of the story. But it's not the whole truth. It states that iron ore prices, currently at $US63 a tonne, are around the lowest level since 2009. That's true.
But what it doesn't say is that 2009 was a year of historically high prices. When Labor came to government in December 2007 the iron ore price was only $US38 a tonne. A year later it was $60 a tonne, a price well below that at the start of this financial year.
Not only that, we must also keep in mind that this year exporters have dramatically lifted the volume of iron ore exports, raising overall revenue.
There are a few other little things Hockey doesn't draw attention to, though they're in the MYEFO documentation. You recall that evil Carbon Tax. Well this financial year the government will happily collect $1.8 billion from it - $105 million more than expected in its budget. On top of that it's also going to collect a handy $40 million net from the evil Minerals Resources Rent Tax, which it let run until September 30.
But the biggest deceit in ministers' statements is the implication that they're dealing with a major economic crisis. They're not.
This is not 2008. We are not threatened with a run on the banks, requiring immediate government action. Worldwide confidence has not collapsed, with major companies going broke. China is not about to introduce a 4 trillion renminbi ($800 billion) stimulus package to help keep the world's economy afloat.
Labor dealt with that crisis, keeping Australia out of recession and preventing a blowout in the deficit flowing from rising social services payments and falling tax receipts.
The MYEFO assessment is that the global economy is recovering from the financial crisis but at a slower pace than expected at budget time.
For Australia the only significant thing that has happened in the global arena is that prices for our coal and iron ore exports are back to normal.
In the technical jargon, our terms of trade (that is our export prices related to our import prices) are now at about the level they were in 2003 and are still well above their level for the past 30 years of the 20th century. And that's a crisis!
No, here's the crisis. We have a bumbling government which took its pre-election instructions from the mining industry and has since done its bidding. It got rid of the mining tax and it got rid of the carbon tax. Nobody likes being taxed. But if we must have taxes, it's best to tax something we don't like – carbon pollution – than something we all need, say food.
