Sorry for the long absence

Sorry darlings for not posting all year.  Life got in the way and  quite frankly politics got boring. 

The lesson learnt from this year is expect the unexpected.

Quick recap. We have had three prime ministers this year. Rudd came back and toppled Gillard. Put the knife in, but like the murder on the orient express, his stab probably wasn’t the one that ended up political life. Sexism is alive and well. Decent, but simple, friends of mine called her a bitch and hated her? For what? Doing her job and putting in plans that benefit them? Not me, them!

Tony Abbott is PM thanks to the alp internal politics, Rupert Murdoch’s divorce from Wendi and his decision to still call Australia his spiritual home. Rupert’s renewed interest in Oz also has something to do with the fact the Brits hate him for phone hacking the Royals. 

But let’s stop the hate and look at their record. Oh we can’t because there is a media black out. 

Rumors have it that. Ausaid has been cut, more mining deals struck with Gina, more boats arriving and people being sent off to tent land in third world countries. Yes we will shove our problems onto the developing world. Most criminal of all is bringing out ol John Howard and getting him to deny climate change. 

 

i can understand why people voted for the lnp. The alp seemed as if it was a mess! But you guys were duped by the libs and the media. Take the blue pill, or is it red, see the world for what it is. Although I get why we can’t do that. We need some blinkers on. Even if you hate your neighbour and that bogan down the street because you are a aspirational snob or born with a silver spoon in your mouth (your poor mother)… I guess Abbott started life as a ten pound pom. David Cameron is an aristocrat, a descendent of the King’s bastard line, so there is no chip on his shoulder. He understands “noblesse oblige”. Oh the old rich. So much better looking than the nouveau riche.

Abbott defenders in the medical field have wondered if he is autistic. This is giving him too much credit. Like all the hopeful wrote, let’s give Tony a chance. How bad can he get? He is not the man he was when he said all those stupid things. To his credit the silence has made those who are less skeptical believe that we have competent, selfless politicians working for the good of the common people. The problem is no one thinks they are common anymore and people, people who would benefit from alp policies, are voting themselves into poverty.

Ozpolichix would like to congratulate those who can afford a good private school education, excellent health insurance, their third investment property, mining shares, uranium shares, a bit of outback land that is resource rich, Gina and daughter, Rupert and family, the coal industry and serco- making lots of money out of incarceration.

On the upside, maybe we will get some decent political satire in this country. I hope so because once Tanya becomes PM the whole affair will be too dignified.

You know you love me xoxo

Single mums, Centrelink and Fantine

The federal government has a new law regarding single parent benefits. Single mums (and the majority are mums not dads) now have to go back to work when their youngest is 8 years old. The government said that this is because in the past payments went all the way up to 16 years old for some people and this is a way of making the system equitable.

Now we all know the stereotypes we have of single mothers. We still demonize them as whores who have multiple children to multiple men. They rip off our system and bring down our school ratings. They are uneducated and they are fallen women, unless of course they do something amazing like start a successful company or write a billion dollar book franchise (Hello. JK Rowling). Oh, and don’t forget their kids are the shitty kids at your school.

I’d like to address that last stereotype. The shittiest kids at my kid’s school (a rather privileged place) come from rather wealthy families where both parents are present. I mean by shitty, I don’t mean drug dealing in the sand pit, but you get my drift.

I was prompted to blog again when I read a news articles about single mums who are doing it tough. One of the stories was in my local paper and told of a woman with mental illness who has to survive on less than $500 a week. Now if you live somewhere other than where I live, you might think “Woahhh that’s so much money”. But given that rent for an apartment is at least $250 for an apartment in a not so great area, that leaves you about $250 for the rest of the week. That’s about $35 a day.  $35 a day may be enough in say a place like Laos, but it’s not much in Australia if you have to raise a kid.

There was also a news article about someone who has to sacrifice private school education now that there are welfare cuts. The single mum makes just over the threshold per fortnight, so is surviving on about $450 a week.

If you are reading from overseas, you might be thinking “WTF? Why are Australian welfare kids going to private school”. Well it’s because the policies of the Howard government made private schooling affordable to most people. They are mostly church schools that are heavily subsidized by the federal government. It’s much cheaper and convenient to give a lot of money to a private school than to make a school in the outer burbs really good. So there’s this divide we have now where people think they have to send their kids to private school to get a good education, which leaves public schools in non-high socio-eco areas with the dregs of society.  It has become the norm to send your kid to a private school if you value education and live outside the leafy suburbs where the “good” schools are.

Back to this issue of welfare cuts for single mums.

The thing that makes me feel a bit ill about the whole thing is that people are supposed to turn to charities like Anglicare for support. Why not just put more money into welfare rather than subsidize welfare agencies? Do you hear the people sing?

http://www.news.com.au/national/support-on-hand-for-single-parents-facing-welfare-cuts/story-fndo4dzn-1226550367030

What era are we living in?

People do not understand that the “riff raff” that you are trying to avoid, could be easily avoided if everyone had more. You are less likely to go to school with a prostitute’s kid if that prostitute had enough to live on. I could rant on and on, but this blog endeth here.

Until next time. You know you love me.

OzPoliChix XOXO