It’s Time For the Disabled To Stand On Their Own Two Feet!
Antisocial Services Minister, Mr Kevin
Undress announced today that he had no announcement on changes to the
Disability Pension but that he had several things under consideration
including spending money on doctors to check up on the work of other
doctors. When asked if he was trying to reduce the number of people on
the Disability Pension, he denied this, saying, “This is not about
targets … it’s about a better system that will actually help people
because we think work is the best form of welfare.” He went on to say
that this was entirely consistent with the government’s position on the
Age Pension. “We promised that we wouldn’t be changing the Age Pension,
and we’re not. We’re just changing the age at which people can access
it. But we intend to keep it the same amount as it is now by abolishing
future increases. This is what we promised. No changes to the Age
Pension. And because it’s welfare, and work is the best form of welfare,
the longer people work the better. In fact, I believe that Joe is
considering a work for the pension scheme. Nothing too strenuous. And
only for those pensioners who are able to. But as most of them just
potter round the garden, so there’s really no reason for a large number
not join the Green Army.”
In response to a suggestion that it was rather un-Christian to
announce these changes on Easter Sunday, he insisted that it was
entirely consistent with the teaching of the Church. “After all, Jesus
did tell the lame to take up their beds and walk? He didn’t tell them to
go on the Disability Pension, did he? No, he told them to stop lying
around. If anything, it’s welfare that’s un-Christian.”
After Mr Undress suggested that this wasn’t about reducing benefits
from those incapable of working, but allowing people to stand on their
own two feet providing they had that many, a journalist asked where all
the jobs would come from, given that fully, fit people able to work full
time were finding it hard to gain employment, he suggested that this
was just a hangover from Labor’s poor management of the economy. “After
the next budget, there’ll be plenty of work for people when we reduce
the public service, because business will be booming. After all we’ve
stopped the boats and pretty soon we’ll abolish the Carbon Tax. This
will solve all our problems.”
In other government news, there are suggestions that the National
Water Commission may be abolished in a bid to save money. A spokesman
for the Minister’s Office, Mr Spinner said that it was unnecessary, as
it was only an advisory body and the Minister never listened to any
advice anyway. “Its functions could be much better served by using
private consultants, because they are so much more efficient. We only
pay for the advice we want. And secondly, bodies like this are subject
to enormous amounts of red tape where they have to justify their
spending, whereas private consultants don’t have the same restrictions.”
The press conference ended abruptly when he was asked if there was a
concern that this could drive up the price of Grange.
Mr Spinner later issued a statement clarifying that by saying “We
only pay for the advice that we want”, he actually meant to say “We only
pay for advice when we need it” and that while private consultants
didn’t have to justify their spending, this didn’t mean that they didn’t
spend their money wisely. He followed this by a further statement
clarifying that by “wisely”, he meant “appropriately and prudently”. He
followed this by issuing a statement saying that there’d be no further
statements from him on anything as he was going on leave, something
which he’d been planning for ages, and that any further questions should
be sent to the Prime Minister’s Office.
No comments:
Post a Comment