I heard that "working families" make up 35% of the population. Pity the invisible not working, single adults who aren't eligible for government income support.

What are working families? It’s a good question. One I asked myself last night when it was mentioned on the news for the umpteenth time.

The answer seems to be somewhere between workers struggling on little more than the dole, up to highly paid professionals and politicians. And, yes. What about pensioners and self-funded retirees?

The ALP MIGHT help the lower paid a little and the higher paid heaps!

Isn’t nice that there is still at least one contributor who can say what he has to say on one page

No different really from Howard's 'battlers'. All governments, regardless of hue and creed, feel the need to adopt a mantra, to project a brand. Call it the corporatisaion of politics. The more the govt syas the wrods' working families', the more likley we are to think they are doing something about it.
Just pure spin of course, but no one party is any worse than the other at this...

Working families is the current buz platitude, not so long ago it was "Traditional Labour Values"
This was repeated so ofter that I just had to find out what they were.
They were not warm fuzzy things like love, hope and charity but Solidarity,Socialism,Unions,Brothers,Fight the Righteous etc.,
So both platitudes are just twaddle.

The reason Labor focuses on such an irritating and meaningless platitude as "Working Families" is that they are trying to portray an inclusive message, compared to the divisive messages promulgated through the Howard years.

Howard gained support of the 'average Australian' by identifying enemy groups: first the so called 'elites', i.e. tertiary educated, inner-city dwellers who cared about social justice (strangely omitting the real elites - the big business owners, extraordinarily well paid shock jocks and cabinet ministers of course). Next on his hit list were asylum seekers. Then came Moslems and finally Trade Unionists, which is where he'd clearly gone too far for most people.

Each time he was inviting the general population to assume he was championing them by opposing these others.

Rudd is, on the contrary, trying to make us believe he is on our side by using a phrase that can be construed to include pretty much everyone. Meaningless but far less damaging than the Howard approach.

In addition to the excellent comments above, I'd also suggest that the lack of scrutiny of this term is due to the media's general laziness and lack of interest in digging up these projected fallacies.

This is also something probably that wouldn't have worked without the last government offering opportunity to practise leaving these ridiculous phrases to be ingested without a second thought... Right from 'core' and 'non-core' "promises".

There's nothing wrong with the "Working Families" banner so long as the ALP introduces discrete initiatives that take the unfair pressure off ordinary working people.

For instance, raising the Medicare Surcharge threshold does this. The losers will be the health insurance industry in the first instance, which will pass on its costs to those who have health insurance, who will in turn probably whinge mightily to the Government, which will force it to undertake a root and branch redistribution of the cost burden so that it is more equitable across the board. After the full cycle is passed through, the original unfair tax imposition will have been spread out across the whole of society. This is a (convoluted) example of helping working families.

Do the people with tiny minds think they could find something of substance to whine about?

Let's see now. Disabled pensioners are being left permanently on the scrap heap, but wait. About 100,000 Burmese have been killed in a cyclone. Can't talk about that can we?

Students are paying enormous HECS fees while our universities are being clogged up with foreign students paying enormous fees. Hang on. 10,000 Chinese killed in one village in their worst earthquake for 30 years. Can't talk about that can we? Oops. Forgot. The Chinese have been this months "enemies".

OK then, about 29,000 kids under 5 die of starvation die every day, can we discuss that maybe and try and force a new government to boost our aid budget?

No? We have to whine about two words as if the world will come to an end if they are used.

I heard an interview with George Megalogenis about his second version of "The Longest Decade" and the genesis of the term. It seems families didn't like to be called battlers, or middle class, or lower class.

It seems they took a small measure of pride in being working families.

So can the whingers talk about how they might have felt if Howard's ludicrous "aspirational nationalism" had stuck. Personally it sounded a bit too much like nazism to me.

While the repetition of the term 'working families' does get irritating, I believe they were responding to research that people identified with this term. I can understand why it has become a focus for policy, because, I recall that when I first began to try combining work with family life, it was a shock to find how very hard it was. Our generation was the first to have large numbers of mothers re-entering the workforce and the policies and systems had not caught up to this fact. I don't think there is a real intention to exclude people outside of this category, it's just that this category is a crucial one for many policy areas that need updating - productivity, education, child care, taxation, welfare, housing, the list goes on. And because the family unit still has to do that unpaid work of nurturing the next generation as well as connect with the modern economy, we need to get the policies family-friendly.

This is 'buzz' to keep the dumbed down Australian public properly sedated. Intoned over and over ,it has a soothing effect and puts the babies back to sleep. It worked the last election and is still working though growing a bit strained.
The US has it's own 'buzz' in the mantra "Change". It appears to be working there as well although exactly what 'Change" is specified, no one appears to be asking for examples.
zzzzzzzzzz

I thought Howard started that mantra, was it a different one? Battlers? The mob? Omigod I've forgotten already!

I'm fed up with 'working families' - there are plenty of other workers out there as well. They contribute plenty to the treasury coffers. Others save taxpayers millions of dollars. The problem with the 'working families' tag is that other workers are not being acknowledged as they should be. It seems you need to be Dad, Mum and 2.4 kids before Rudd is interested.
Marilyn Shepherd before you start a grouch about people with disabilities I suggest you get your facts straight - far from being on the scrap heap they do a vast amount of voluntary work. Many organisations (and not just those for people with disabilities) would not be able to keep going without their efforts. Yes, there are a few bludgers (you'll find them anywhere) but many of them earn every paltry cent they are given

Labours core platitude “working families”

I thought the entire labour policy was a string of platitudes. Maybe the rest are non-core or maybe just classed as sentimentalist drivel.

Ah well, we will all find out tonight.

How a government can cry poor when it is sat on a $15 billion dollar annual surplus which it inherited from the previous liberal government (unlike the burgeoning debt which Keating left behind), is beyond me, they seem to be inventing the very cycle of events to ensure another “recession we had to have” occurs, maybe just to remind us all of how Keating did it. Next get rid of the Queen and the “banana republic” is with us.

Well when you see your social benefits shrivel and the socialist promises of the worker paradise wither, don’t blame me, I voted for the other side, not because I though they were much better, just they were more likely to leave me to make my own mistakes, instead of taxing me to fund the effort of making the mistakes for me.

Amen Col Rouge.This is Federal Labor is shaping up to be another NSW Iemma debacle.They have not a clue.

Communicat,

Having read M. Shepherds comments before, it didn't strike me that she was being louche enough to propose that the disabled BELONG on the scrapheap. I took her to mean that with the "working families" rhetoric the disabled (and consequently their needs/lives/contributions) were being overlooked?

Thanks to all for comments in response to this article. I am struck by the good faith reasons that some have given for defending that phrase -- I wish I could believe the ALP took the concept as seriously as you, but maybe I read them wrong.

Others are more critical of the concept than I am, and more critical of the government than I am too. Those who want this discussion to pay attention to the incessant clichés of the Howard government's years: I hear you loud and clear.

Meanwhile, a friend has forwarded me the transcript of Swan's Budget Address tonight. It seems he has mentioned the platitude 12 times in his 30 minutes, including an impressive 8 mentions in the first 10 minutes.

What's the big deal with political sloganeering? Everybody does it.

I remember "family values", "politics of envy", "Union Bosses" and "illegal immigrants". In fact I can remember back to the days of "Dole Bludgers".

It all depends on whether you're scapegoating somebody or creating an image. Either way they all have a product to sell.

Working families [read unionists] howards battles read the elites] its all about naming those you claim to be serving.

The working poor have long been oppressed by the howard neo con ,there is a party out there serving what the 700,000 organised lobby groups tell them to serve ,but none seem to want to serve the voiceless poor [dole blugers ,pensioners , druggies , and those on con-tracted work terms [the trolly pushers , cleaners etc]

Thing is the gst made everyone a tax payer ,everyone needs goods and services ,so the burden was thrust on everyone ,it has now been lightened on the working class [not contracted into unfair terms] as the load was taken from the ritch by howard and co.

But if your an underage drinker [or a smoker ] or need to by your drugs from terrosists needing a new porche ,you dont matter ,you are bound by the legal taxes that double your lifes tax burden ,

yet dont get measured in the statistics [and having no voice [read lobby] just grin and bare your burden ,coping all the blame as well as your own personal demons[then see yourself blamed and shamed by adverts you gross tax burden pays for ,by those elites hating you for trying to heal thyself , because there is no docter arround.

Going to a hospital you are told you are filth , smokers and drinkers cant get treatment ,nor jobs only get the blame , and ever more tax,noting legal perscribe and subsidised drugs killed 20,000 people last year [illegals 118] also that 1 in 100 hospitalisations are adverse reaction to perscribed drugs[1 in ten causing death]

What are working families? It’s a good question.
Mr right,
From my observations there are two kinds of working class families. One which has to have two incomes because it needs two incomes.
The other is one which doesn't need a second income but has it anyway because it wants to live the lifestyle of the western consumer.

If you tell someone that they are awesome enough times they will believe it even if they are not. If you tell someone they are stupid enough times they will believe that too, even if they are not. Labor have taken this into account in their last election campaign with the 'working families' slogan and it worked.

But the trick with staying in political power is to take away benefits early on in the budget and give it back close to the election. I'll bet my bottom dollar that the disability and old age pensions will be revised right before the next election. Mr Rudd and Mr Swan are playing games with whole groups of disadvantaged Australians lives for political gain, it's highly see through, calculated and miserable.

Cazza,

' "Working Families" is that they are trying to portray an inclusive message, compared to the divisive messages promulgated through the Howard years'

Tosh! I'm sure people who aren't considered 'working families' wouldn't agree. Since the budget, anyone earning over $100k got the message loud and clear the government doesn't consider them hard working. It's divisive class warfare. They should call them what they really are. The working classes.

' make us believe he is on our side '
Only if you're a double income family with kids, and see yourself as working class, and see 'the rich' as anyone earning over $100k.

BTW: The Rodent is gone now, so Howard Hating is like so last year!

wobbles,

'Union Bosses' was a great one. I think Joe Hockey still says it in his sleep!

Does anyone else think Labour still thinks it's in opposition?

It's been said many times that the Rudd Government is All-style, No-substance, and this is no better demonstrated than in their relentless repetition of the phrase "working families". Sounds great as a marketing term (and obviously worked well on a dumbed-down electorate last year) but when scrutinised, it actually stands for nothing. "Working families" is a bit of puff designed to distract from the lack of substance in the remainder of each sentence in which is squats. I'm sure many out there hear "blah blah blah working families blah blah Rudd government blah blah blah working families!" and it's enough to convince them this govt is actually interested in their issues.

Where the Rudd govt has succeeded best is in their marketing. They have done so well that Rudd's skyrocketing popularity seems to make Australian journalists cower away from asking hard questions, or asking follow-up questions, or even daring to scratch the surface on facades such as "working families" to see if there's any substance underneath. Bravo to Cassidy for bringing this issue to light.

I can only hope the backlash from the majority of Aussies not covered by Rudd's "working families" will see the phrase binned - because it's current use and abuse is an insult to the Australian electorate, and it's high time the mask came off our new Federal Government so we can all start scrutinising the hollow ideas vaccuum underneath.