this is a excellent budget

[*mrgrizz*]

for the first time in years the cash cow.....me......single, no kids hasn't been spanked.

and i will be paying less for your kids......you know the ones that you decided to have not me

[crystal**flake]

Again Iza to you didn't read my post as I intended it to be taken.

[lane-ends]

Remember when wars used to cull the population so that their wasn't an excess of youth competing for jobs.

When the the mentally ill where just locked away in asylum

Kids were sent to work in the pits

3rd world conditions for kids was ok

The old and sick just died early due to poor medical system

Privilege was inherited and everyone else can go eat worms if they weren't happy.

Disabled just had to sit on a street corner with cap in hand

Abused kids just had to shut up and keep it in the family.

If the wife nagged too much just give her a good pasting. Its a husbands responsibilty to keep her in line

Then the do gooders started to interfere and ruined it all bringing in welfare and giving the 'ordinary" people a chance to get out of the gutter

Remember when you used to have a job for life and not kicked on the scrap heap any time and told to "earn or learn".

Living on welfare is hardly an easy gig. Sure means test it, but cull the top not the bottom. Getting it reduced once you start living the high life when you start earning over $75 a week. Where's the insentive when you get a 50cent in the dollar cut at that threshold. So whats the governments response. Freeze the threshold, a reduction by stealth

[freakiness]

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@crystal**flake wrote:

The $7 fee is exempt for children 16 and under.

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No, they are not, according to the reports I've seen.

[crystal**flake]

Well its not what I have read and heard Freaki, but I will go google now.

[izabsmiling]

Abbott's attack on youth: The birth of a lost generation

 Kellie Tranter 19 May 2014

The misguided policies of the Abbott Government will turn young people who need a little help from a long term asset into a current liability, writes Kellie Tranter.

THE ABBOTT GOVERNMENT’S pre-election ‘Our Plan’ included a promise to help young people get jobs. But by disembowelling the support services young people need to find suitable work, they haven’t just broken yet another core promise — they are creating a lost generation.

Firstly, the government would be well aware that a quarter of young Australians aged 17-24 are not in full-time study or work. That’s generally not due to any unwillingness to work or welfare mindset, but simply because there has been a fall in full-time employment opportunities for young people.

Secondly, the Government would know that after the global financial crisis 15-19 year-olds lost nearly 100,000 jobs, a matter which has not been adequately addressed or properly managed by any government since.

And, finally, the government’s budgetary position assumes that the lives of young people are relatively secure because they can rely on family as a financial backstop — a proposition contradicted by the fact that the major cause of homelessness for young people in Australia is family conflict and breakdown.

The budgetary attacks on Australia’s young people mirrors the paternalistic brutishness of the ‘earn or learn’ welfare crackdown the UK Tory government introduced in October last year. Just like the U.S. model for financing tertiary education, the Abbott Government is effectively importing and implementing policies from countries whose income inequality is among the highest in the developed world.

Britain's growing poor driven to food banks & payday loans to stay afloat

 Play Video

The Government also fails to understand that schools aren’t responsible for the transition of young people into work. Their role is to provide education: curriculum delivery and academic outcomes. Successfully implementing programs in schools to develop employability skills in our young people – communication skills, personal presentation skills, the attitude to work, the ability to work as part of a team – requires good relationships and regular interaction between schools and local employers, facilitated by experienced local, independent intermediaries, like the successful Partnership Brokership Program. 

It too was overlooked in the recent budget.

The government’s excuse not to continue the Partnership Brokership Program may be the fact that it was implemented by the previous government, but they have failed to provide any policy direction that local, independent, intermediaries  continue to link schools with employers to assist with the transition of young people from education to work. 

And their attack goes even further.

The Budget states: 

‘The Government will achieve savings of $52.5 million over four years by limiting the number of times that volunteer job seekers can access Jobs Services Australia (JSA) to one occasion…’

In other words, young people who do not receive a Centrelink payment – which is most young people because of the level of their parents’ income – will be entitled to only one visit to a job service provider. 

This is combined with the scrapping of important interactive online resources for young people like the My Future & Jobs Guide websites. Achieving “savings” perhaps, but at what cost?

 

As one source in the youth employment sector puts it:

"Anyone who works with young people knows that after six months a young person becomes disconnected from the workforce. Employers who see that a young person has been unemployed for six months will seldom give that young person a look in. The Government is under the misapprehension that young people don’t want to work rather than recognising that they don’t have the tools or support to get employment. Families will become more fractured. Young people will move into group housing with friends to share the cost which will create the inevitable social problems caused by a lack of adult supervision and guidance. Accessing support services – if they are aware of its existence – will become a hidden cost to families as the funding model for these organisations moves to a user pays system.”

The misdirected policies of the Abbott Government are turning young people who need a little help from a long term asset into a current liability. 

read more:http://www.independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/abbotts-attack-on-youth-the-birth-of-a...

[cherry*135]

The following is for  anyone of retiring age ( pensioners and self-funded retirees) or those that have parents/in-laws that are retired.

I know a lot of aged pensioners here (NSW) take advantage of the travel discount.. they can travel on the train anywhere in NSW for $2.50. Get on a train around 9am and it is full of retirees.

Budget's secret sting for pensioners and mature aged workers.

Pensioners, mature-age workers and self-funded retirees will be stung sooner than expected by the budget.

Those eligible for the part pension from next January will be hit by an effective 50 per cent tax as super payments are included in both means tests, financial advisers warn.

Worse, after July 1 this year those on concession cards which are available to pensioners could lose as much as $2000 a year, says Louise Biti, head of technical services at Strategy Steps, which advises financial planners.

The pension concession and Commonwealth Seniors Health cards offer travel, electricity, phone and council rate discounts in an agreement with the states.

But buried in the budget documents the government reveals it will be "terminating" this agreement after July 1, saving  $1.3 billion over four years.

"It will hurt pensioners the most. This will cost $1000 to $2000 a year. No one was expecting that. Since it's not a direct payment to pensioners the government didn't want to highlight this," Biti says.

The separate abolition on September 20 of the "seniors supplement" attached to the Seniors Health card for self-funded retirees will cost couples $1320 a year.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/money/budgets-secret-sting-for-pensioners-and-matureage-workers-20140516-zreh5...

[freakiness]

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@*mrgrizz* wrote:

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@freakiness wrote:

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@*mrgrizz* wrote:

for the first time in years the cash cow.....me......single, no kids hasn't been spanked.

and i will be paying less for your kids......you know the ones that you decided to have not me

---

If you don't have children you don't pay anything for them.

Your taxes go to general revenue not to any women or children that you accuse of taking money from you..  

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well as a taxpayer, i am paying for other peoples kids.

i don't mind educating them, or providing hospitals for sick ones.

but if you decide to have kids why should your income be topped up by the government? if you can't afford them don't have them...simple really.

i would like lots of things i can't afford, where is the line for the hand outs?

i have already stated i do not support paid parental leave.

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No, as a taxpayer you pay your tax that is all.

It's not your choice to determine where general revenue is spent or how it's divided up.  IJust imagine all your contribution goes to the fuel rebate for miners if that makes you feel better.  Or perhaps the maternity leave for wealthy people if you'd rather.

[donnashuggy]

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@*mrgrizz* wrote:

for the first time in years the cash cow.....me......single, no kids hasn't been spanked.

and i will be paying less for your kids......you know the ones that you decided to have not me

---

I never decided to have them, it's a natural thing that happens you know 🙂 Some people get sick, they don't plan it either? Believe it or not some people are born with disabilities? Some are born black with alchoholic parents that beat them up? Some are born to white prostitutes that happen to be heroin addicts and they don't plan that either.

Lifes a bit of a lottery, not sure if you are lucky having a single income with no kids, I didn't actually know I was alive until I had mine.

The real truth is that as a working mother I am paying for your lifestyle - hope you enjoy it (hugs)

[freakiness]

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@crystal**flake wrote:

Well its not what I have read and heard Freaki, but I will go google now.

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They are not exempt and the fee will apply to vaccinations which have previously been bulk billed.

[crystal**flake]

Freaki I googled and found this, so you are right in a way, but last night I swear I heard him say that children under 16 were exempt.

The doctor will be allowed to pocket $2 of the fee, while $5 goes to the government, raising $3.5bn over four years. For patients with concession cards and children aged under 16 the fee will apply for only the first 10 services in each year.