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.
Background to that.
The Australian
The Budget is Joe Hockey's do or die moment of truth
Two weeks ago Tony Abbottโs new whip, the amiable Queenslander Scott Buchholz, was compelled to deliver a simple, brutal message to the Prime Minister: if the budget tanked, Joe Hockey would have to go.
The message, based on feedback Buchholz had received from colleagues, which he felt duty-bound to report and which he relayed to the Prime Ministerโs office, was that if Hockeyโs second budget went down badly, Abbott had to dump his Treasurer. The clear subtext also was that if he did not, he would put his own survival at risk again.
Buchholz refuses to discuss private conversations but word seeped out, so โ because he hates it when colleagues refuse to put their name to public comments โ he provided a brief response when I approached him about it on Tuesday: โI think Joeโs done a good job in difficult circumstances, and I think he is well aware of the importance of this budget landing well.โ
Indeed. Very well aware.
There is so much riding on Hockeyโs second budget. It has to provide a springboard for a posยญsible early election, or it has to extend the reprieve granted to Abbott in February, or rebuild Hockeyโs reputation or even ยญresurrect his own leadership ยญambitions.
It also has to restore confidence in the economy with sensible, affordable measures that would not only expand the workforce โ the welfare and childcare changes โ but expand the workplace to accommodate them and convince people the government knows how and when it will get back to surplus.
Everything has to fit together perfectly, economically as well as politically. Nothing, but nothing, can go wrong.
This will be Hockeyโs last chance to prove himself. Unlike others close to the Prime Minister, Hockey cannot go into witness protection or blame subordinates. While Finance Minister ยญMathias Cormann, Assistant Treasurer Josh Frydenberg and Social Serยญvices Minister Scott Morrison, have done well in ยญsupport roles, they can only do so much.
So, no pressure then.
If Hockey fails to deliver, then it remains to be seen, given his own culpability, whether the Prime Minister dares move him to ยญplacate his MPs and immobilise challengers so he can last until an election closer to the due date โ because it certainly wonโt be early.
Buchholzโs action was not surprising. Anyone who has spent 60 seconds or less talking to backbenchers, frontbenchers, insiders or gets a similar message. When people are not professing profound disappointment in Abbott, they are despairing of Hockey. Individual MPs have also told Abbott, particularly during Februaryโs leadership crisis, that Hockey should go. They say ยญAbbott refused to engage, remaining noncommittal, neither defending his Treasurer nor condemning him.
Roll on the wholly unnatural photo opportunity of the Prime Minister with his Treasurer on Tuesday, ostensibly to review the final budget figures, which had two objectives.
The first to reassure the public everything was under control, the second signalled to backbenchers that this budget is as much ยญAbbottโs as Hockeyโs. So they rise or fall together.
MPs concede the scene-setting for this yearโs budget is vastly improved on last year, although the fact it remains unfinished so late raises concerns about how well it will hang together.
Like everyone else they are suspending judgment, waiting to see the measures in full, to hear the speech, for the reaction from their electorates, from business and obviously the polls. As one of them said yesterday: โWe are in a kind of twilight zone.โ
They look for a flawless performance on the night, then in the days following, when it could easily fall apart if the Prime Minister or the Treasurer meanders off message or mucks up on the detail.
The content, the presentation, the selling โ all of it has to hit the mark.
If they get it right, and seeing as Abbott boasted privately to journalists over drinks at Easter that he could beat Bill Shorten in an election if the polls narrowed to 52-48 Laborโs way, which is where Newspoll has it now, then as Laurie Oakes reported last weekend, an early election sounds seductive. The day after the budget last year, Abbott threatened that if it did not pass he would call a double-dissolution election. The budget did not pass.
This year, less than a week out, he has done nothing to dampen speculation that an early election is possible if his budget is so popular that it will pass.
Governing seems a more appropriate response.
An early election, with its smell of self-preservation, carries grave risks for Abbott and his government, despite Bill Shortenโs flaws. Queenslanders especially draw the parallels between Abbott and Campbell Newman: he was unpopular, he tried to wrong-foot Labor by calling the election sooner than expected, then was beaten by an opponent with all the ยญcharacteristics of vanilla.
Which is why one scenario still being canvassed internally at senior levels โ outside the PMO โ is for Malcolm Turnbull to be made Treasurer.
If asked, Turnbull would have no choice but to serve, otherwise he would look churlish or that he was putting his own ambitions ahead of the governmentโs interests. Proponents argue this would harness Turnbullโs popularity, quell โ if only momentarily โ his lust for the leadership, possibly enabling Abbott to last long enough so that Morrison could emerge clearly as his successor, because the Right hates Turnbull and harbours doubts about Julie Bishop.
Another scenario being canvassed is that Morrison, who of all the leadership alternatives stands to win no matter what happens, steps into Treasury. Morrison, happily converting from stormtrooper to sugar daddy, has shown he has the right temperament and stamina for the Treasury portfolio.
All this supposes Hockey would go quietly.
Some time ago when commentary suggested he should be dumped, Hockey let it be known that if he was, he would โbring the house downโ. Hockey could have some almighty tanties; however, he would have to ask himself if he wanted to be remembered as the man who, by his performance in and out of Treasury, helped ensure the Coalitionโs demise.
So do you actually have your own/some thoughts apropos Saava's article?
D9275: "now joe wants people to spend money they haven't got to spend
what happens next I wonder"
Swan started out well, he spent money that was left in the coffers. Then he continued to spend money he hadn't got to spend, hence his legacy Swan Song :
I promise you a surplus garden, oops, I promise you a surplus garden, oops, I promise you a surplus garden, oops.
@monman12 wrote:So do you actually have your own/some thoughts apropos Saava's article?
I have my own thoughts on it
abbott is a habitual liar, whenever he's caught on something it's ALWAYS someone else's fault
... Like PETA Credlin, junior office staff, or the old LNP mantra of "it's all Labors fault" ,or just anyone really, as long as it's someone else
