Internationally award-winning poet and writer
Federal Budget a big fizzer
A report by Anne Casey on 16 May 2014 - originally published as Australia Correspondent to Smorgasbord and Sally Cronin's "Sunday Show" on UK radio station, Express FM 93.7 :
Australian Prime Minister, Tony Abbott has faced a tirade of abuse and accusations of lying following the release of his maiden Federal Budget on 13 May. Sounds like a normal day in politics?
Perhaps, but warranted, when his first economic program since taking office last September hits hardest those who are most vulnerable in our community – the unemployed, the sick and disadvantaged, pensioners, single parents and young people. To top it off, Mr Abbott has laid out an environment program befitting England in the nineteenth century!
Amongst the most unpopular measures in this year’s Budget are:
$80 billion in cuts to health and education funding over the next 10 years.- Tighter means testing and failure to maintain age and disability pensions in line with wages growth from 2017.
- $7.6 billion in cuts to foreign aid over the next 5 years.
- $500 million in cutbacks to indigenous affairs programs.
Massive failure on environmental responsibilities, including: - Shutting down the $3.1 billion Australian Renewable
Energy Agency which has helped fund Australia’s
world-leading solar research and promoted
ground-breaking advancements in clean energy technologies.
- Scrapping the ‘direct action’ program to install solar panels on
the roofs of one million Australian homes.
- Allocating $2.55 billion over 10 years to what analysts have
described as a ‘laughable’ attempt to meet even the most
pathetic carbon emissions targets.
- Cutting $459 million in funding for projects geared to
‘decarbonise’ electricity grids.
- Further massive cutbacks on environmental research as well as
support for energy efficiency across Australian industry, and a
low emissions coal initiative.
Since the Budget announcement on Tuesday night, it is not just the Australian climate that is heating up, with debate – both in the media and Australian Parliament – boiling over!
In other news from Down Under…
Former PM owns up in insulation tragedy
Former Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd has accepted “ultimate responsibility” for failures resulting in the deaths of four Australian men aged between 16 and 25. The ex-PM was answering questions before the Royal Commission into the Home Insulation Program. He said he had relied on the advice of others when approving the 2.8 billion home insulation scheme in early 2009. Three of the young men died of electrocution and one from heat stress while installing insulation under the scheme between October 2009 and February 2010.
Billionaire in roadside dust-up
Australian media mogul, James Packer and his best mate, Nine Network head, David Gyngell have buried the hatchet after their infamous kerbside punch-up on 4 May. The scrap, which happened outside Packer’s multi-million dollar beachside home in Bondi, left him with a black eye and a severely bruised public image. The impact on his $6.3 billion dollar net worth was the least of his problems, each man being fined $500.
MH370 still MIA
International search efforts, coordinated out of Perth in Western Australia, continue for the missing flight MH370 which disappeared on 8 March with 239 people on board. The hunt has faltered in recent weeks. All hopes of finding floating debris have now been abandoned. The Royal Australian Navy and the US Navy are focusing their combined efforts on subsea searches of the extremely deep and largely
uncharted floor of the Indian Ocean.