The Budget: All cruelty springs from weakness
‘This budget is devastating for the vulnerable, and pays no mind to their survival’ writes Jennifer Wilson. It says much about the character of this government.
It can’t be denied any longer, conservatives really
do believe they have no responsibility to the vulnerable, and it is
perfectly acceptable to the Abbott government that those who can least
afford it endure the most harsh of fin
ancial limitations.This piece in the
Sydney Morning Herald reveals that while high income couples stand to
lose scarcely at all, families on benefits may lose up to 10% of their
income. Known as “Detailed family outcomes,” this information was
withheld from the budget, contrary to custom, by Joe Hockey, obviously
because it reveals the Abbott government lie that everyone will be doing
their fair share of the heavy lifting allegedly required to get the
budget back on track.
Abbott also stated in an interview with
Alison Carabine on Radio National Breakfast this morning that the
highly paid, such as politicians, judges and senior public servants,
will suffer a pay freeze for twelve months, costing Abbott something
like a $6000 addition to his $500,000 plus benefits salary package. Not
even the most witless among us could possibly believe this can be in any
way comparable to the situation of a young person without resources
denied Newstart benefits, and low-income families and pensioners having
to choose between a middy, a treat for the kids, the doctor’s bill, and
medicine, for which they will also have to pay more.
Pensioners also stand to lose extras such as free car registration,
and reductions in rates, water and electricity. These concessions were
made available to the people in the community who were recognised as
vulnerable and needing assistance by governments unlike this one,
governments who were capable of making such acknowledgements.
The question I am waiting for a journalist to ask the Prime Minister
and the Treasurer is, why are they placing an intolerable burden on the
most vulnerable while the wealthy are called upon to do comparatively
very little?
What is it in the conservative psychology that makes such unfairness acceptable to them?
No country can afford to be governed by people who hate and fear
vulnerability, as do these Australian conservatives. Far from being
adult such people are dangerously immature, incapable of understanding
any life experience other than their own. Convinced of its superiority,
this government asks little or nothing of those best placed to
contribute to the country’s needs, while demanding that those least
able, relinquish what little they already have. In other words, the
Abbott government is determined to punish the vulnerable for their
vulnerability.
All cruelty springs from weakness, declared the philosopher Seneca.
Wealth and power do not guarantee strength of character, and it’s hard
to detect that quality in Abbott and Hockey. Strength of character
requires the ability to identify vulnerability and refrain from taking
advantage of it. Hockey and Abbott have indeed identified the
vulnerable, and have proceeded to take the most appalling advantage, of
the kind they would never dream of imposing on the wealthy and
comfortable.
Conservatives are, in general, weak and cruel. Our government is weak
and cruel. We are in dangerous times, with this weak and cruel
government. As we have seen with the treatment of asylum seekers in this
country, (and this has been demonstrated by both major parties) once
the bar has been lowered for the treatment of a particular group of
human beings, it is very easy to escalate ill-treatment.
This budget is devastating for the vulnerable, and pays no mind to
their survival. This budget will lower the bar on the treatment of
vulnerable people in our society. It will become easier to treat them
even more harshly, to consider them even less worthy, to demonise them
as threats and parasites, just as has been done to asylum seekers in the
last fourteen years. And in the way of things, as history has
demonstrated over and over again, ill-treatment becomes normalised, and
scapegoats become the bitter focus of a community’s fears and
discontents.
Beware of cruel governments. They will only become more cruel.
Because they are, at their heart, cowardly and weak, and when the
cowardly and weak attain power, the vulnerable will be the first they
destroy.
This article was first posted on Jennifer’s blog “No Place For Sheep” and reproduced with permission
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