On Friday, An Onymous Lefty penned a post on his blog:
Finally, a decent, progressive government, committed to ensuring that wealthier Australians don’t have to pay as much tax to support carers living in poverty. I mean, really - Tax cuts; or government helping people in dire need put food on the table? A freaking easy choice, say Kevin and Wayne. Screw those poor people!
You can imagine the rest.
On Saturday on the open thread here, there was a vigorous discussion of the abolition of one off bonuses to pensioners and carers - which had never been budgeted for, but were paid directly on an ad hoc basis by the Howard government from surpluses.
After having intervened from overseas on the weekend, Kevin Rudd yesterday sought to lay the issue to rest, telling a post-Cabinet press conference that carers and pensioners would not be worse off as a result of the budget and that the government intended to provide recipients of benefits with greater financial certainty. Today, the opposition are jumping up and down demanding certainty - appearing to want a pledge signed in Rudd’s blood or something - while trying to spread uncertainty as widely as possible for their own political purposes.
This has been something of a communications disaster for the Rudd government. One way of looking at it is to ask the question of whether it’s partly a product of over-centralisation of message control in Rudd’s office. Ministers intoned a standard line of refusing to comment on budget deliberations, while the PM was in New Guinea building bridges. This had the effect of fueling the story, because this line wasn’t sufficiently flexible to reassure anyone. By the time Rudd intervened the story had huge legs and was (unwarrantedly but understandably) causing great distress in the community.
One might have expected a better and more measured response from some bloggers - who after all often claim to be beyond the hype and hysteria of the hypermedia cycle of the MSM. Rudd is not philosophically likely to go after carers and pensioners, and nor were the leaks to papers which aren’t exactly friendly to the government benign. In the rush to judge, and condemn, no one appears to have consulted Labor policy which pledges an upward adjustment to the rate of pensions, nor stopped to consider that all the signs pointed to rolling such ad hoc bonuses into a higher regular payment. Perhaps the near simultaneous release of a Treasury paper which critiqued the increase in welfare spending under the Howard government didn’t help, but again it doesn’t take too much political insight to realise that the government’s modus operandi will be to rein in spending through means testing middle class welfare, not taking aim at the poor and vulnerable. In fact anyone who’d been reading what Lindsay Tanner has had to say carefully over the last few months would know that.
This raises the question of why both journos and some bloggers were so prone to an insta-response whose parameters were defined by Labor’s political opponents. One of the culprits here is surely the speed of the media cycle which discourages reflection and reasoning and privileges hyperbole and pre-judgement on the basis of partisanship and ideology.
For the hamfisted response, though, the government has only itself to blame. Tony Blair’s experience should be an object lesson in how overcentralising spin and “message control” can result in a negative story spinning out of control. If Ministers hadn’t been robotic reciters of lines, then surely their political sense would have suggested a way to kill the story stone dead before it got wings.
And surely too one of the government’s spinmeisters and media gurus should have realised that the days of the budget being a set piece for announcements are long gone in favour of a rolling cycle of policy announcements, and re-announcements. After all, that’s how these ad hoc payments came to be off budget in the first place.
Cross-posted at PollieGraph.
Elsewhere: More at This Will Hurt Me….
Jeremy’s blogging motto should be ‘If you can’t say a thing sarcastically, then it’s not worth saying at all.’
Mark says;
oh, yes, the anti-Rudd bias of Australian media. For example, this is The Age’s Catherine Deveny reporting on the election outcome;
- and that was an election that got her all “buzzy and post-coital.
She goes on to ask “Who are we going to hate now?” that Howard is gone.
And here’s Tracee Hutchison reflecting on the same post-coital afterglow;
Oh. My. God.
Speaking personally, Rudd has performed a lot better than I ever expected.
After 11 years of expecting pollies to break promises, lie, cheat etc and of seeing Labor govts at the state level underperform (from a leftist point of view - they’re still better than the alternative) I think most bloggers have been subconsciously waiting for Rudd to let them down.
So there was an element of ‘at last! the thing that I feared has come to pass!’ in bloggers’ reactions.
The msm will have to be careful of how they handle issues like this, however - too much ‘crying wolf’ and the public will disbelieve it when Rudd actually does stuff up and the msm tries to bring it to our attention.
I really should have endorsements like that on the sidebar.
Mark - if the claim turns out to be wrong, and the government has no such plans and does no such thing, then I’ll be the first to say “thank God” and withdraw any remarks based on the story. In the meantime, I’m happy to do my part in highlighting to them how politically inconvenient to them such “budget responsibility” might be.
It’s also not in the slightest bit unreasonable to criticise them for their first major spending priority in office; giving (or, if you’re a neocon who sees that tax money as MINE ALL MINE, “returning”) $30 billion to wealthier Australians. And Rudd does keep talking about his “razor gang” and how there’s going to be some “unpopular” decisions coming. I’d be inclined to bet money that the people with whom those decisions are “unpopular” will not be the middle-class white Australians who used to vote Liberal that the ALP wants to keep.
How much do you want to bet, Jeremy?
And are you still of the view that Rudd won’t be increasing the overall payments? He’s made it very clear that he will. Or are you, like, Dr Nelson, waiting for a pledge signed in blood?
Eliot Ramsey at 2, you don’t appear to understand that there’s a distinction between op/eds and bias in reporting. The big problem with the reporting of events - as opposed to political commentary - is that it’s governed by a pack mentality and isn’t informed by anything much other than the spin of the day from whoever plants the story. As with this - there’s more than enough evidence around to suggest that cutting pensions in real terms would be something Rudd wouldn’t do.
mckenzie at 3, old habits die hard. I think Rudd with his determination to deliver on election promises (even with things like the tax cuts which I oppose except for low and lower middle brackets) is really trying to restore trust and confidence in government.
Has he? Excellent. Where? If that’s what he does, great, and I’ll be the first to applaud it.
I still want to know what “unpopular” things he has planned. He’s certainly trying to prepare us for ‘em. If it’s not carers, how DOES he plan on paying for those tax cuts?
I bow to your greater knowledge of the political process but it still seems unlikely that a story so toxic to labor, if manifestly untrue (not in terms of the detail but in terms of the perception of an overall cut to carers income), would be allowed to run unchecked for two days. If a week is a long time in politics then 2 days is not a particularly short media cycle and you would think pollies would be pre-adapted to the pace. It seemed exceptionally strange to me; everyone sees a “no comment” response as cause for doubt. Perhaps the delay really was due to exceptionally poor advice and over-centralization rather than a rapid re-think, but that demonstrates implausibly execrable judgement on the part of the advisers. Then perhaps I expect too much from the process.
Do you read posts, Jeremy?
I’ve already pointed out that Rudd has said explicitly that pensioners and carers won’t be worse off as a result of this budget, and that obviously implies (and he made it pretty clear) that one off bonuses will be rolled into regular payments. Labor policy at the last election was to increase the rate of pensions.
As to where the money will come from for cuts, again as I said, if you follow what Lindsay Tanner has been saying for months, it’s pretty clear that means testing middle class welfare is mooted.
If you want a personalised assurance from Rudd, or advance copies of the budget two months before it’s finalised, I suggest you take that up with Wayne Swan.
Or if you want to respond according to your own pre-formed view whenever there’s a leak in the papers, you can keep doing that, without bothering to inform yourself of what the Finance Minister has actually been saying. Again, might help if you read the post.
Su at 6, I think specifically what’s wrong with the process is that people aren’t meant to say anything that hasn’t been pre-agreed without approval from the PM’s office. This is a case study in how dumb that sort of “message control” can be. It wouldn’t have played out in the same manner had Rudd been in Australia, but it’s still fatally flawed.
Cuts have already been made the the National Capital Authority (33% staff loss) and to the budgets of the National Art Gallery and Museum in Canberra. Although it’s a big issue around here, I’m guessing that it hasn’t had any coverage beyond the Canberra area.
I’ve read about it in the Fin Review, Mindy. If people really want to know what’s going on with this sort of stuff (and IR as well), it’s worth the $2.70 a day as a lot goes in there which isn’t covered elsewhere.
These cuts, and others, are a result of the “efficiency dividend” for all Commonwealth authorities and departments which has been in place for some time. They’re separate to structural cuts to spending programs which will be announced in the budget.
[…] Anyway, I don’t want to crap on any more, but I thought that Mark Bahnisch eloquently summarised the whole kerfuffle on Larvatus Prodeo this morning. […]
Jesus, Mark, could you BE more patronising?
You made that claim in your post without a link; in any case, the fact that Rudd has now come out and made a vague claim, now, that these people will not be “worse off”, now, several days after the original story, now, doesn’t make my originally posting about it unreasonable.
I hope you’re right about how Rudd’s going to tackle the funding-the-unnecessary-tax-cuts problem, but leaving this sort of thing hanging in the wind for a few days doesn’t make me too optimistic.
Good post Mark. Many people were very quick to jump on these rumours and stories of misinformation as fact and proceeded to carry on like pork chops. Rudd has confirmed that these people will be not worse off in the Budget. If it doesn’t happen, then the Government will have some explaining to do.
It would seem that Rudd is planning to make the financial support to these needy people permanent as opposed to the one-off payments brought in by Howard as a bribe before the 2004 Election. I think that’s the right thing to do. Hopefully, where these people deserve or need extra financial support than they’re already getting, they receive it.
I suspect that there are plenty of left bloggers out there that have been wary of Rudd for quite some time.
The fact is that Kevin Rudd is no left hero, quite the contrary. A lot of the exuberance at the elections result was because Howard was defeated, rather because Rudd was an inspired left choice. It was because ‘it felt good when my head stopped hitting the wall’ principe.
So immediately when there is an issue which is seen as a ‘betrayal of traditional left labour principles’ whatever they are. Rudd gets jumped upon.
I expect this to increase substantially as times goes on.
Mindy, from the cuts being made by the ‘Razor Gang’, it would seem that Labor is not a friend of the arts. Another cut that has already been made is a $100,000 grant to Chamber Music Australia, an important and internationally renowned chamber music event in Melbourne. I’d like an explanation from Mr Tanner about that - I mean how would that grant have fuelled inflation?
I’m sorry, Jeremy, that you found me patronising. I could always try for over the top sarcasm if you prefer that genre of writing.
If you’d like a link, here’s one:
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I don’t see that as a “vague claim”. I think you’re just reinforcing the point I made in the post - you’re inclined to look at all this with your mind already made up.
Haven’t followed this up because I’m supposed to be working, but the talk around Adelaide Writers’ Week was that there have been cuts to the National Library as well, including to the acquisitions budget. More cultural history down the oubliette.
[Mark, has the preview function gone in the big reshuffle or is my browser just not working properly?]
But then, what better time to run a kite flying exercise than when the PM is out of the country? I’ll stop now but to anyone in the ALP intending to write a memoir in the distant future; I want to know what Really Happened; all 20 versions!
Peter Martin in the Canberra Times makes the point that the Coalition’s spending on the Carers and Senior bonus was merely a last minute exercise to lower an embarrassingly high surplus. He then goes on to say -
Peter Martin’s spot on, as he usually is.
Dr Cat, an answer to the question in parentheses can be found here:
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Jeremy says:
Here’s why. Just before the election, Nielsen’s pollster John Stirton compiled data using opinion polls from the last four campaigns, broken down by age groups, and compared it with opinion polls taken in October and November.
Sub-urbia…
…versus Maximum Security Twilight Homes.
And do you remember this?
Well, let’s see what those “sweeteners” will be come the budget.
su at 20, I can’t see it as having been a kite flying exercise, for at least two reasons:
(1) While it’s completely wrong to see budget cuts in toto as unpopular, people are likely to accept cuts to middle class welfare they know in their heart of hearts is really unjustified, not taking a bludgeon to pensioners and carers. Taking a bludgeon to the unemployed on the other hand… Whatever you may think of Kevin08, he’s still a very clever politician.
(2) Contrary to what some people think, ALP governments don’t delight in kicking the underprivileged!
It’s another one of Rudd’s achilles heels at play here - the control fetish over the media, and the dysfunctions of “message discipline”.
A lot of political stories are really quite simple much as we sometimes like to think a lot is going on behind the scenes. This is one of them.
Alex, if we are talking about “an insta-response whose parameters were planned by Labor’s political opponents”, then is the Canberra Times’s Peter Martin another example?
So, will the Rudd Government be recompensing carers “properly” at an “extra $1600 a carer a year”?
Let’s see?
Eliot Ramsey, I realise you’re just trying to find whatever chinks you can in Rudd’s armour from your right wing position, but your comment makes no sense:
(1) If there’s one thing Rudd has demonstrated, it’s that he will deliver election commitments at all costs. Hence the tax cuts. If you want to know what “sweeteners” there’ll be, just do some more research. Anything they promised on the public record in the campaign will be delivered. As I said before, Rudd is making a serious effort to restore trust in government - even if most of the political class would praise breaking the tax cut promise to the skies. You’d underestimate Rudd’s determination at your peril.
(2) Governments don’t go around trying to punish older demographics for not supporting them, they try to turn that around! Your comment appears to imply that Labor wants the voting patterns from last election to be set in stone forever. Of course, they don’t. They want to maximise their vote to its utmost to the degree consistent with their approach to government. As do all governing parties.
Huh? That’s not what Martin is arguing. Nor is he “one of Labor’s political opponents”.
No idea what you’re on about, old son.
Yes I accept your last point. I am perhaps reading too much into the detail.
But in regards to: 1) They have signaled cuts in welfare though, so how they will do that without at least nudging the underprivileged with their toe?
And in regards to 2) The point is that if it were a KFE they had not yet made up their mind whether the move constituted a kick or something milder; they needed to find out. From a bean counter’s perspective a non-recurrent supplement is just that;so perhaps we can withdraw it and even though it is an overall deficit to them, people will not mind since they already knew it was not forever and therefore have sensibly not formed any expectation of its continuing. This is a very logical position to take and it is the position that many people commenting on blogs etc took before Kevin stepped in late Saturday.
Su -
(1) as I said wrt 1 in the post and in several comments, means-testing middle class welfare.
(2) I don’t think they needed to fly a kite to get an adverse reaction. It could have been predicted. They’re not amateur hour politicians!
Mark says:
Exactly, Mark. If the Coalition that “should be condemned” for not recompensing carers properly to the tune of “an extra $1600 a carer a year”, do you honestly think Martin will condemn Rudd for likewise not recompensing carers with “an extra $1600 a carer a year”?
Then, and I didn’t make you say this, you said;
Well, that hasn’t been demonstrated anywhere yet, apart from a few cost-free stunts like the “Sorry Day” victory celebrations.
Brendan Nelson moves to censure the Government for “failing to guarantee the payment to carers and pensioners”.
Great work, Brendan. Maybe a failed, baseless censure motion will make us (the electorate) take you seriously…
The premise here is non-existent. Howard didn’t “guarentee” the payment - because it was a series of one offs not provided for either in the budget or forward estimates.
Its been a shameful media beat up right from the start.
Journo asks a question, gets a standard polly straight-bat non-answer and suddenly carers are being burnt at the stake, tearful stories of hardship abound, reader polls eliciting negative results [the ABC had one which ran the whole gamut from the ALP are ‘really, really nasty bastards’ to the ‘ALP are mildly nasty bastards’] and we can take it as graven in stone fact that the ALP is/was/maybe not going to screw carers when in actual fact there never was any such statement.
Gotta do something about the media in this alleged democracy.
Way to completely twist quotes into illegibility, Eliot.
Well said, hannah’s dad!
Mark says;
What, Rudd’s “when it comes to the bonuses system, carers and pensioners will not be any worse off under the Budget”?
No less vague than Howard’s and Costello’s “wage earners won’t be any worse off under WorkChoices” or “interest rates won’t be any worse under the Coalition”.
I mean, really. Rudd’s a politician, Mark, no matter how “buzzy and post-coital” the media try to make him out.
The line I’d run (maybe they have already?) is: “Mr Nelson is asking us to deny a baseless rumour that we’re going to penalise vulnerable Australians. We’re not, and never said we would, but until recently he was supporting workplace laws that penalised vulnerable Australians as a matter of policy.”
But seriously: people flying kites are the journos - they know there are cuts coming, they know they’ve got to come from somewhere, and from here until the budget they’re going to be asking the governments to deny that they’ll be making cuts that hurt carers, pensioners, working families, diggers, retired cricketers and so on down the list. Every time they get a response that’s anything short of “No, Never. No frikkin way.”, hey presto: there’s a story.
It’s not the ideal way to conduct a debate on reigning in national spending, but it’s to be expected. It shows the structural encouragement in the media cycle for spinning every damn thing: judicious leaks would fill the vacuum that has so far been given over to speculation.
PS - Could the opposition possibly have taken any longer in trying to make hay out of this? They seem a bit flat-footed, no? More concerned with mergers, I guess.
Andos says;
Hang on. Some Rudd stooge at the Canberra Times admonishes the former Government for not adequately recompensing carers with “an extra $1600 a carer a year” in order to excuse Rudd for failing to commit to not cutting the carers’ allowance altogether? Ha ha. Now there’s a “twist”.
Listen, for all any of us know, Rudd may indeed come good with something. But it’s plain as day he’s not giving anything at this stage except evasive, Howard-like “nobody will be worse off” generalities.
Since Rudd has just INCREASED payments to most pensioners except aged pensioners who already had with his $125 pr. qr utility allowance, something Howard REFUSED to do for the disabled, single parent and other non-aged pensioners,I’m having a bit of a common-sense credibility problem with the idea he’s going to cut allowances for carers and aged pensioners. I’m on teh far left, I don’t admire Rudd for heaps of reasons, but I just don’t see him doing what the media/Lib beat-up alleges. Sorry. (Sorry meant sarcastically.) And the increase in the telrphone allowance to $33 if you’re on the net doesn’t really indicate he’s going to be tough on the poor and underprivileged either. I did note the Government was a bit more sure of itself in Parlt. today, and completely in control of Question Time.
The big quesation I have is why some-one in the Govt. was so stupid as to let this run. Why didn’t Gillard knock on the head before Rudd got back from handing out largesse in PNG?
The alleged leak from the Government as reported by Matthew Franklin and Simon Kearney in The Australian.
“LABOR will scrap annual bonuses of $1600 paid to carers as its budget razor gang carves deep into welfare programs to cut spending and curb inflation.”
Straight out of the Opposition office. No doubt.
If it was ‘kite flying’, ‘might scrap’ would be used rather than ‘will scrap’. And please a leak from Labor about ‘carving deep into welfare programs’.
I must admit, I was surprised that so many so-called Labor supporters bought this crap.
Well despite knowing this was all a beat up I joined in over at Blogocracy for several reasons.
1. This might have been the ALP feeling the waters. I was quite fine to judge and punish them just in case they really were that stupid.
2. To prove that left wingers are quite happy to criticise their heros.
3. To prove that we will hold Rudd to greater accountability.
4. To stop the ALP from getting lazy. Hint : look at state NSW. We can’t be taken for granted at that sort of level in the Federal sphere.
Besides, it was fun to see the right wing death beasts suddenly become keyboard warriors for compassion instead of talking about how the free market shouldn’t be constrained by welfare.
And yet, it was the extraordinary unresponsiveness that lent credence to the story in the first place! I doubt anyone would have blogged it but for the surpising silence. I didn’t take any notice until three separate ministers had stonewalled it. Not amateur hour enough to even flirt with the notion of cuts but just amateur hour enough to allow themselves to be crucified for two days over cuts they had never intended to make? It is all contradictory. If Kevin is really refusing ministers the very basic degree of autonomy that would allow them to deny a completely fabricated story when he is momentarily indisposed, then he is not a Very Clever Politician yet.
Instant gratification! No not carers and pensioners bonuses but nearly as good. My barbedwire connection has LP pages in a twink! Is this the future? Can I forget fibre to the node? Wacko!!
Nelson and Abbott were being very tricky and disingenuous in the censure debate demanding a LUMP SUM Payment.
There was a lot of political naivety on display by just about everyone involved over this.
The ALP thought they could play the old three card trick where they drop a hint that some group might end up worse off, the media gives it a passing mention but quickly moves on. Meanwhile the group mentioned pricks their ears and pays attention. When the budget is finally delivered and doesn’t take anything from this group, but actually gives them slightly more - they remember that nice man Mr Rudd a whole lot more than they would have if their ears weren’t originally pricked by comments (off the record of course) that suggested that they might be worse off.
The ALP were a bit naive thinking that a desperate opposition and a few members of the media desperately seeking to make the first hit on a new government wouldn’t kick up a song and dance over something which is so obviously a pile of nonsense.
The bloggers and reporters were naive by ignoring what is actually going on in the Dept of Finance with the razor gang and actually believing that it was possible that the ALP would kick the shit out of carers to save an amount of money worth less than a departmental computer system upgrade. I mean - come on. The ALP slashing carers payments?
Pull the other one, it nationalises the banks and sends unionists around to turn off the lights.
I’ll probably get thumped for saying this, but some of the bloggers need to take a deep breath and think about things before they fire off. The reporters have an excuse - their job is to deliver eyeballs to advertisers, as sad as it is that’s the business model and why stories like this get an easy run in the MSM without people up the food chain telling them to put it back in their pants.
But we bloggers don’t really have that excuse.Being keen to be outraged is one thing, but setting aside all political reality to do it and getting sucked into a spin cycle is another thing entirely.
Just watched some bits from QT on the news. Nelson and Abbott looked like a pair of hysterical shelias! Kev gets up and says “To the party of newly found compassion opposite,,,” to laughter from govt benches.Kev’s unflappable, cool, calm and dignifed and ain’t that getting up the Libs noses!
He isn’t quite in the same league sarcasm wise as Gough and PK but he ain’t far behind.
IMHO Kev is just toying with them, giving them enough rope,,, them Bang! budget time EGG all over faces!
SO I’d say chill folks, Libs may get a tempory bounce in the next poll or 2 but when the truth outs they’ll need more than a merger or a new party name to save their mangy hides,
@ 43. That is an explanation which I can believe wholeheartedly.
Well that would be typical if you don’t automatically accept my assertion, wouldn’t it Mark.
Possum says: “The ALP thought they could play the old three card trick …”
I say: what he says. There will be cuts in the budget, but they won’t be to carers. When they take away child bonuses (boni?), remove the requirement to take mandatory health insurance and the like, and increase pensions by $10 per week, but take away the one-off ‘bonus’, people will say “Oh well, it could have been worse! At least he didn’t slug those nice carers!”
I thought it was rather transparent. This is a pre-budget snow job by the government.
Heh!
And Barnaby (for PM?) was on SBS last night promoting merger Qld style - ie a Nats takeover.
Possum’s hypothesis is still too complex by half for me. Governments stuff up. And su, Rudd is not a very clever politician yet til he gets over his Goss era habit of trying to run all communications from the PM’s office. It’s worth noting here something Crikey has been (rightly) running with for some time - there are very few experienced journos among the government presser ranks. Just a whole heap of 28 somethings. We’ve already seen numerous examples of own goals from Rudd’s staffers. They’re not Machiavellian, they’re just little boys.
And the Opposition Orifice STILL isn’t happy even when Keven all but announces increases to allowances for Carers.
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hannah’s dad is spot on with the media disgrace angle.
From Frank’s link:
Forced. Whatever. It’s probably what was going to be done anyway. Can’t any of these well paid journos find someone to tell them off the record what the actual story was? Nah, we’ve now got a standard narrative arc - meejah beats up story, meejah proclaims “backdown”.
“I’m sorry, Jeremy, that you found me patronising. I could always try for over the top sarcasm if you prefer that genre of writing.”
Cheers. That’d be great.
Actually, Howard refused to state that no one would be worse off under WorkChoices. And he’d be spinning in his political grave to see you make a mess of his carefully chosen weasel words on interest rates.
But this is as dumb a proposition as most that come from the RWDB debating point generator bot.
WorkChoices impacted on a large number of Australians in different circumstances differently. It’s very hard to establish statistically whether interest rates are higher under either party because the party in office is one of only many causal factors, and impossible to prove that “interest rates will always be higher under Labor” (Howard’s actual claim).
With carers’ allowances and pensions, it’s dead easy. If, after the budget, they have less all up, then Rudd has lied. He’s not dumb. He won’t fall into some schoolboy trap dumbassed Tories think they’ve caught him in.
Sure, Rudd is a politician. Who’s saying otherwise? But it’s obvious to anyone with a smidgeon of insight that one thing he sets great store on is keeping his word. In massive contrast with Ratty. It’s proving a political plus for him. Only the stupid think that lying and weasel words are the only path to political fortune. And in the end, they weren’t for Ratty either.
I think this piffle from Eliot Ramsey is just the latest instance of “Rudd is just like Howard” with a twist. If this is the best the depleted ranks of keyboard warriors can come up with…
“And the Opposition Orifice STILL isn’t happy even when Keven all but announces increases to allowances for Carers.”
And the media is complicit in this beat up when you get SMH headlines such as “Rudd won’t guarantee carers’ bonus”. When you read it Rudd actually said in parliament “I give an absolute guarantee that those carers will not be a dollar worse off,”.
[And the media is complicit in this beat up when you get SMH headlines such as “Rudd won’t guarantee carers’ bonus”. When you read it Rudd actually said in parliament “I give an absolute guarantee that those carers will not be a dollar worse off,”.]
And the Ch 9 4.30 news did pretty much the same thing and concentrated on Nelson yelling like a Banshee “Demanding A Lump Sum Payment”
Yep, and all this goes back to the fallacy that getting rid of the bonus constitutes a “cut”. It doesn’t if it’s rolled into a regular payment - which increases according to an index rather than being static like the bonuses - ergo people are better off over time having higher payments than one offs.
The media coverage sucks.
The opposition, with obvious help from Newscorp and people who should know better, have managed to maintain inequity. Rudd has been forced to continue carer grants to all, regardless of means.
Some of us have seen it all before and it aint pretty but it will happen and no amount of [understandable] angst will stop it. Thing is what can be done about it? Presenting the true facts is not and never will be the intention of the msm. How to expose them??
[The opposition, with obvious help from Newscorp and people who should know better, have managed to maintain inequity. Rudd has been forced to continue carer grants to all, regardless of means.]
Exactly.
THey would prefer people to survive on the Carers Allowance of $108 per fortnight recive an extra $600 bonus each year.
Plus the MSM keep feeding the $1600 line that it applies for ALL carers - only carers who qualify for both the Carers Payment AND Allowance get the full amount.
58
Rudd hasn’t been forced to do anything, the opposition are jumping up and down in frustration because they can’t make him crack. Rudd is way too smart for them, sticking to his guns repeating his original statement that no’one will be worse off.
The “grants” will no doubt go but the (maybe $30 a week) pension incease and the $700 worth of utilities and other allowances will more than make up for that
And the ABC South East radio were all outraged and huffy and condeming this for two days.Then they interviewed Mike Kelly (member for Eden Monaro), who actually pointed to the facts of the matter, that this disgraceful excuse for an opposition had decided that the way to gain political kudos was to frighten the shit out of the vulnerable.
This whole tawdry saga of misinformation, propagated by innuendo and rumour and used by the idiots in opposition to peddle lies and misinformation makes me sick. If they think that this sort of behaviour, including brendas histrionics in the house today will win them votes they are sadly mistaken. And why indeed should Rudd disclose budget information at this early stage?
[From the ABC Comments on the unsucessful Censure Motion.
[Helen:
11 Mar 2008 5:05:30pm
You are obviously not a carer Drew!! The lump sum payment gives we carers the opportunity to do something special with or for those that we are caring for…a special gift, a weekend away. If it is just rolled into the overall allowance, it will just go in to medical expenses and general cost of supporting the person we are caring for!!
Good on you Opposition for taking a stand on our behalf!]
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Jeremy here is the only one that smells something bad going on,maybe its his cat,but I dont think so.Over the last few weeks a redefinition of Party,powers and placement of party in spectrum has taken place with the ALP. And today they can pick their own Ministry.This stuff is a blinding attempt to gain full control so no veering off the friends of business line.If some jerk says we have to cut into welfare no matter how unpopular its going to be,Uncle Rudds your undertaker!?What I think is bothering Mark is the noise generated by the Liberals,it is evident the pensioners and carers,are not persuaded by promises whenever they are made,but respond only when there seems an overabundance of economists determining wether pensioners and carers have to think about economising,and on what!?I can also honestly say,even if Mark disagrees,I cannot accept that Labor in the modern sense,as I have seen it,given two hoots to the unemployed,and I can find abundant evidence I have witnessed in my life.Whitlam,Hawke Keating,have or did have a masculinity problem,and today Rudd has it with Unions.Hawke couldnt handle as a Union organisation President an unemployed union..basking in the glow that these people would and wanted to end up in other unions.Whitlam gave us Regional Economic Development schemes,all dandy and fine accept went to water,no improvement in skills or job prospects,and at he time I was working on a apple orchard ,earning much less for the hours,and hammering my stomach and gut away on export apples,if my memory serves me.Keating decided it was just collateral damage if very low income people had to find numerous ways to identify themselves to open a bank account,all the assistance labor has rendered the unemployed over the years,is to state,we the politicians are doing this for you!?The unemployed generally have to listen more than Catholic Priests to everyone gainfully employed.And Mark if you wont include State Labor Governments as part of the Clowndom seeing they are often the Administrators of Federal Policy,even if you find my writing without much evidence of pain endured,you will be wrong when the State Clowns are analysed as providers of joy to the unemployed.
Carers actually save the Govt money and make a lot of happy well cared for folks. It is a thankless job, but the thought of a loved one going into care because of memory problems or something else does not bear thing of. All pensioners are not thought of by Govt or really appreciated. It would be better if everyone got something in June. Families are on the breadline for instance and pensioners find it hard to make ends meet. It would be better to have payments every 3 months, or start cutting down on cost of living.
More rubbish from the Opposition Orifice.
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Kim Mar 11th, 2008 at 6:04 pm
Kim, this lies at the heart of this ‘issue’. But what to do?
If, Frank Calabrese, your point at 63 is that these irresponsible carers are misusing the Carer Supplement then you are way off the mark. In fact having support (including financial support) in order for families to take a short holiday is recognized as an essential part of maintaining the wellbeing of carers and those they care for. Respite services offer just that kind of assistance and they are funded from the public purse. They are also massively oversubscribed as are all services for the disabled and their carers.
I’m glad Nelson’s motion didn’t get up. I’m sick to death of people using circumstances they know absolutely nothing about to score points.
Mark and All:
What is at issue here is - the perception of sneakiness and dithering.
[1].The one-off carers’ bonus from last year The media beat-up cried out to be turned into a political opportunity with two bold forthright unmistakable statements - “ Yes, of course we will scrap it. Why not? We are a responsible government; we don’t go in for one-off pork-barrelling stunts like the Howard government did … BUT …. We owe a duty to our wonderful carers; we will look after them even better than did the Howard government”. I know Rudd said something like this but without boldness and directness and he certainly failed to turn the issue around to his advantage. This could have been done without inviting further relentless probes by the Opposition into the Budget – as this fumbled reaction to the beat-up news story has now done.
[2]. Scrapping the dental program. A far more serious problem for the Rudd government. It showed that whoever was involved with reviewing that program was ignorant of what hundreds of thousands of carers and health workers do every day – and why they do it. Worse yet, they showed the whole world that they didn’t have a clue about the implications of chopping that program. For all I know, they might have sought the professional opinion of a Professor of Dentistry …. but did they run it past anyone working day-in-day-out in a residential care facility? Duh …..
It is a serious matter because it will now give rise to scepticism about future reviews of any programs. A benchmark for decision-making has been set …. it’s on the ground!
[3]. There was no rush to judgement. Nor any need for pledges signed in blood. It was just hard experience, that’s all.
Regardless of whatever was in election speeches and policy statements, every incoming government [Labor or Coalition, it make no difference at all] has hit the most vulnerable with funding cuts, sometimes unintentionally, sometimes with the noblest of stated intentions …. but the result for those affected is always the same. It’s what all of us have been taught to expect ….
If Rudd wanted to show his government wasn’t the same as previous governments, why didn’t he hammer home the very simple message “We are different. We are better” right from the outset? He didn’t. Now he is paying the price for that neglect.
As soon as I read in Teh Oz of rumours of carer’s bonus being cut, I knew exactly what was going on: a bit of accounting to remove a non-recurrent bribe and roll it into the usual welfare allowance.
I also knew how Dennis Shannahan would spin it: as a “honeymoon is over” story for Rudd. I wasn’t quite prepared for the hyperbolic “Rudd’s Reputation In Tatters!!11″ headline, but I thought at least any half-smart journo would mention that the disappearance of the bonus could likely be offset by some other measure in the budget. But I guess our Dennis ain’t even half-smart.
Conversely, I was watching “Sunrise” on Sunday morning, the bobble-heads were tut-tutting that nice Mr Rudd’s faux pas, when the political correspondent (Mark Riley?) calmly noted that Wayne Swann criticised the idea of an off-budget “bonus” payment when it was introduced, and how Swann mentioned that the general welfare system was a better mechanism. The journo then opined that this was the most likely occurrence come the budget, and that there was no need for panic.
At least it convinced the bobble-heads, and hopefully anyone else watching, that the whole thing is a shameless beatup. I wondered why Dennis Shannahan and the other sad excuses for journalists at Teh Oz and Teh ABfnC could not do the same.
But then again, as soon as this story appeared someone from the Gummint should have had the nous to smack it down.
Mark - Maybe its too many years of being under a Howard government but do you think we should read anything into the statements about carers and pensioners when he’s been specifically asked about carers and seniors?
oops -sorry about the quoting above. Now if only I could edit my comments
I went and added a backslash where you forgot it, Chris.
Several observations here.
Firstly, why the fuck is this thread getting so long and heated about a very muddy media interpretation of an incoming Government’s rejigging of a former Government’s election promise.
Secondly, I came here for the waters.
Thirdly, I’m beginning to think I was misinformed.
Now that LP has had a rebore and oil change, can we revisit some of the classics - like the I Condemn threads, top ten -insert culture object here - lists, shitfaced haiku challenges and hot chicks with weapons threads?
I’m not objecting to the serious threads here but let’s temper the mix again with some more lateral if not thoughtfully frivolous stuff as well. After all, all work and no play makes Jack strocchied.
I think maybe it is, Chris!
Will pass on your suggestion to the management, Nabs.
I posted this in Saturday Salon and put it here as well at risk of being lambasted cos I am damn sick of being ignored by Gov and the general population…
What you all don’t seem to realise is that the invisible people in this discussion are people with disabilities who live on the Disability Support Pension. I do and none of we 700,000 DSP recipients have had a bonus at all over the four years. Not $500 let alone $1600!! This is despite many of us having to live on the DSP (same as the aged pension and below the poverty line)for our WHOLE lives while we try to cope with the extra costs of disability (sliced cheese cos we can’t cut block cheese, taxi fares as transport is still mainly inaccessible, etc many things too numerous to list) as well as live our lives without timely or adequate Govern