My dear Kevin,you are observably not an old age pensioner, maybe a self fundered retiree of high order in which case you would not have received this windfall which gave me peace of mind in reducing debt amassed over the last year as inflation far outstripped any meagre pension increase, shame on your negative far right wing attude.

All this agonising over what to spend it on. The answer is obvious.
Hookers and booze, at least then the money stays here.

Seriously I think it is rdiculous waste of money and from a carefully martialled budget surplus at that.

Well BIGMAL what a nasty bit of work you are or is your attude to do with the fact you did not get the bonus, poor people do not on the whole wast money, unlike you they can not afford to

I am with bigmal.

I thought of the morally righteous cause initially, until I saw that response and

I agree.

Hookers and booze and maybe a toy boy for the lady in my life (thats equality for ya)....

Now, Thelma and Louise.... get down to your thongs and lets party....

If that outrages all the prissy and political-correctly motivated bleeding hearts and do-gooders....

I will consider it a bonus...

Oh, how very troll Sir Colin.

Not much respect for the old in modern Australia and we are the poorer for it. I am beginning to believe the words of my GP who said that if euthanasia was legalised there would be many who would bully old people into it.

Pensioners who provide their own housing would be spending the lousy $1400 on insurance and rates, wouldn't they? Even though councils have had an enormous rates windfall from inflated land values, many already have their hand out again for rates increases above that. Then there are the other 'user pays' of government they have to pony up for themselves or do without. Government gives with one hand but takes it all back and more with the other.

Kevin Luxford personnifies the smug middle-class who, unwittingly, find themselves the recipients of the Howard legacy of middle-class welfare.

The fact that he has to 'guess' that by now his Christmas bonus has gone into his bank account is very telling. Unlike many pensioners and other low-income Australians, who checked every day, he clearly doesn't need the handout.

Similarly, Luxford doesn't know what to spend it on - it's not enough for a new car, which he doesn't need anyway, and he already has too many books. But I can assure him there are many Australians who knew exactly what they needed including to pay off some of their debts, clear the rent backlog, visit a dentist, buy some books for their kids, and get new glasses.

Luxford's phoney and tasteless agonising about not earning his bonus - that 'some poor sod' would have been better off if it had not been taking off him by the taxman in the first place - is puerile posturing and totally self-centred.

If he has qualms, he could easily whip down to the Smith Family or the Brotherhood of St Laurence and make a donation to help the homeless or some poverty-stricken family to have a better Christmas than they are now likely to have.

He might also make a donation to an overseas aid program to help buy a goat or build a well for a subsistence village. Not everyone who needs a hand up is a "wheezy old geezer with one foot in the grave and the other on a banana skin" who is just waiting t spend a gift "on red wine and brandy". Give it away Kevin. It won't hurt a bit if you don't need it.

Kevin, you'ld lend your money to the government so that it "will never be wasted"? Good grief, which planet are you on, have you no knowledge of government spending processess? The States' GST windfall has been blown on rapid growth in public servants and their wages, with no community benefit. Governments have far too much of our money, if you can't spend yours more wisely than they can, then give it to me.

My wife and I received $3100, now parked in a high-interest fund for contingencies following the collapse in value of my (modest) super.

I am not in the least interested in defending myself against comments from people who do not know me and know even less about my affairs, but I do want to apologise to people struggling on the basic pension whom I have upset and for whom the bonus means a great deal of relief.

As some have correctly pointed out, I am not in the class of people who really need this handout. And that is my point, made somewhat tongue in cheek. I am concerned because the government appears to be spraying money around on quick fixes, and I wonder how much proper analysis has been done.

Hopefully, the Henry review of taxation may soon result in a much better deal for pensioners in dire circumstances. In the past I have more or less happily paid all my taxes in the hope that the government of the day would do something useful with the money and provide a decent safety net for those in the community who need it. But I have been dismayed, even alarmed, by the pathetic performance of governments of all political persuasions over the past few decades. Our education system is run down, the health system is woefully under capacity, (and God help you if you have someone with a serious mental illness in your family), and little has been done to increase the capacity of public transport, let alone investigation of and investment in alternative, renewable, energy sources.

Call me any name you like, but in addition to that, please focus on real issues confronting this nation.

Kevin Luxford

Kevin,

"And that is my point, made somewhat tongue in cheek. I am concerned because the government appears to be spraying money around on quick fixes, and I wonder how much proper analysis has been done."

Precisely

Kevin, the rundown systems are precisely because Labour State governments have wasted their resources. Queensland "public servants" (and perhaps others) have tenure, the states have lost revenue but will have to continue paying bloated wages to a bloated workforce. The spending cuts will therefore fall on provision of infrastructure and services. I'm sorry if I was abusive, but anyone who has worked in government will find your attitude very naive. Current and ex-public servants who genuinely seek well-informed policies in the public interest are probably the strongest supporters of smaller government.

KevingtonBeare “I am not in the least interested in defending myself against comments from people who do not know me and know even less about my affairs,”

Ah a man after my own heart.

“I am not in the class of people who really need this handout.”

Someone recently criticized me for applying and getting the grant for a LPG car but I would defend your right in suggesting you are entitled to apply / benefit for everything the state allows you. You did not write the rules around this recent piece of socialist largesse and vote buying. You should not be criticized for benefitting from it.

All that Kevins vomit of dosh has done is weakened the economy for what might happen in 2009….

Oh I forgot, he wants to mortgage our children’s future by running a deficit budget…..

Faustino, with the damage which is going to hit the private sector next year and the way civil servants always whine on about ‘parity’ I would expect them to take a 30% pay cut forthwith but am not holding my breath.

Bugsy “Oh, how very troll Sir Colin.”

Col is not short for “Colin” as to the rest….

Comments like that simply promote you as a Grinch….

....and your sense of humour wan't what I expected it to be. So sorry, my mistake.

Spikey your rant is tiring.

I'm sick of winging bludgers.

I'm a pensioner. As a late starter, & one of Bob Hawke's "silly old buggers", I was chucked out of the workforce, [due to age] when my youngest still had 3 years of school to finish.

By the time she was through school, & set up in a in a job, & a training course, my little super, & savings were gone, but living on the pension is not hard, if you don't drink, gamble, or smoke too much. I have found I can even save a bit, to fix the things that wear out. It would be a breeze for a couple, if they got on, well.

After a year, my 19 year old car my daughter used was feeling the pinch of a 48Km each way commute. I offered her my 28 year old one, but she didn't like it too much. After a promotion, with a loan from the bank, she bought something qiute a bit younger.

When I got my $1,400 bribe, I was going to buy a Ferrari, a nice old one, of course, but then we found out how much a 19 year old has to pay for car insurance. I only had to add another $350 to get that payed.

Spikey, I can't imagine why you would want to waste money on a well for some over seas subsistence farmer. If they are too lazy to dig their own, they don't deserve one.

I dug my first when I was 9, & just about every kid I went to school with, many of them girls, had dug one or two, by the time they'd finished primary school. If we wanted water, we dug a well. Us kids could fit down the three foot diameter cement pipe, every one used to line them, & our dads couldn't. Besides, they were better at pulling up the 5 gallon kerosene tins of dirt, or mud, than we were.

Enjoy your bribe fellers, I know I did.

My father who was born 1900,very little information and spent the first 50 years of his life as a wheat cocky. He always would say that money cannot be wasted as it was made to go around. The problem is when the money stops going around. I think he wad referring to the great depression.

We see the greedy mocking the one time bonus for older and disadvantaged Aussies.

Waited 12 years for Howard to do something and got nothing but sneers and bigger tax cuts for the rich.

Idiots here don't understand that there is no one that doesn't pay tax in Australia. Thanks to Howard even the poor and those with no income at all pay tax, including children.

So a one time refund is way overdue and there isn't a pensioner out there that will waste it on a spendathon. A grand only goes so far anyway. Like, it pays a few bills and that's about it really.

Those sick morons making fun at the expense of the elderly and poor will find life finds them out. Everyone gets their turn in the barrel boys.

I agree entirely with Kevin's sentiments.
In any case the bonus has no chance of achieving anything positive for the Australian economy and it is too small to make any impact on the Chinese economy through which the money must pass via the purchase of their manufactured goods back again to us by way of iron, coal and other mining exports to them.

The holiday resorts of Fiji and drug dealers of Kings Cross are reportedly very happy with Kevin Rudd and his stimulus package.

The idea underlying this misguided policy is Keynesian economic theory that we can create real wealth by taking money from A and giving it to B.

But this theory is wrong. Only work and savings create wealth.

Consumption, spending, and governmental re-distributions do not create wealth. If they did, we could create wealth by paying people to dig holes and fill them in again.

The only economic activity that governmental re-distributions stimulate is the appearance of wealth created by consuming capital, which makes us as a society poorer.

Every word of the Economic Security Strategy is false. It is not economic, it is wasteful; it does not promote security, it promotes divisiveness; and it is not a strategy, it is a superstition

Well said Kevin.

You know loosers will always be loosers, no matter what they are given.

If the line up at the local pokie venue on the day that the bonus was handed out is anything to go by, these looseres will always look for someone else to blame for thier self induced poverty.

You could given them ten grand and they would still waste it.

I must hand it to Kevin Rud. A well laid plan because he knew that a large portion of his hand outs would be returned by way of gambling, drinking and smoking taxes.

Throwing money at people who have wasted many an opportunity in life is not the answer, but at least they had a few happy days hey!

Spare a thought for all those people on Newstart Allowances

- who get $50 a week less than other pensioners,
- have the expenses involved in looking for work - transport interview clothes,
- may also have medical expenses because they are sick and ought to be on a disability pension

K Rudd's $1000 bonus didn't extend to them unless they had children

Yes good point billie
What a shame the $1000 wasn't given out by way of food, clothing or other nessecery vouchers. Cash is just to easy to waste.

Spend mine on a water tank for drinking water. Our water supply comes from the Bedford Weir then on to Blackwater and piped to us in Bluff. I had to get rid of my water tank from the old house because tanks were deemed potential mosquito breeding reservoirs, 16 years ago, and the water supply was reasonable to drink.

Since then good farmland and the rivers running through have been mined for coal & our water supply has dropped to a level where the cows refuse to drink if they can get an alternative source.

http://qcl.farmonline.com.au/news/state/agribusiness-and-general/general/epa-must-shape-up-after-fitzroy-failings/1389932.aspx

What sad lives some of the right wing poster on this site must have. I see most of their comments were posted on Christmas day. I can only guess their day didn't go well and they thought they could share the hate around a bit to make themselves feel a little better.
The bonus payment was not designed to create wealth it was designed to stimulate the local economy. The demographics of the payees were because they would be the people most likely to spend it. And spend they did.

Kenny, I don't have a problem with people who spend it, it's the ones who waste it that I have a problem with and, as one of the dwindling numbers of tax payers 'who pay more tax than they receive in hand outs', I think I am entitled to ask why this is allowed to happen to 'my money'!

I have the upmost respect for our genuine struggling senious, while at the same time I have zero sympathy for loosers, the ones who have failed in life and expect the tax payer to continue to feed their habbits, the very cause of thier failures.

Now if this makes me a 'right winger' as you state, then I for one am proud to be a 'right winger'.

On the other hand, I have been a recipient of some of the cash by way of meat sales at my shops and I have seen several seniors buy extra meats just so they could have a family gathering at christmas and this was very pleasing.

Much like the child bonus of $1000 per child, just how much was spent on the children I wonder?

Hasbeen
You have my upmost respect and I wish you well.

Thank you for setting a fine example of what our pension system is all about. Helping those who help themselves!

Kenny
In answer to your comment about posting on christmas day.

I consider christmas day just another day and often one to get over the huge week I have just worked. My kids are grown up and I have no desire to follow or believe in a superior being such as the 'god' that many of you choose to worship.

By all means follow as much as you like, after all that is your given right but please don't ram your beleifs down my neck.

I think the aim was to spend it within Aussie made stuff and industry... from buying pot, booze and a hooker to buying an Aussie made Hills Hoist clothes line it makes no difference.

Where Mr Rudd went wrong is that some people will just save it.

I asked the girl at the bank how people are spending it, for if they
have a few kids and are on the dole, its quite a large amount.

She told me that some said they would not spend it all at once.
So they withdrew half in the morning and came back for the other
half in the afternoon :)

Ah so much for my hard earned tax dollars....

I did what all fair minded people should have done with their bribe, I gave it to tax-payers, to help them pay their bills. No I am not a self funded retiree, just a human being who does not believe in robbing hard working tax-payers.

" I did what all fair minded people should have done with their bribe, I gave it to tax-payers, to help them pay their bills."

LizzieE, I see you took the hookers and booze option as well.

Well done.

Merideth
The best way to ensure that this money would have been spent rather than saved, would have been to NOT HAND OUT MONEY but to hand out food, clothing etc vouchers. Try to bank those babies!

How sad, these far right clowns have held sway on this blogg,

you realy do not get it do you?

wake up fools!

this has to do with giving a helping hand to the most needy in our society, Christ would understand and condem your hard line comments
and in the main you claim to be good christians.

OH what are we to think about you well healed people!

JMCC “this has to do with giving a helping hand to the most needy in our society, Christ would understand and condem your hard line comments”

A helping hand could have been done with more “responsibility” by adjusting the pension rates which these people qualify for although, I am still trying to work out why someone who has decided to parent children need special handouts from the government for the issue of their love making… I know when I was fathering my daughters I saw little to nothing.

However this was a cash bonus and it was centered around ensuring the statistics showed that Australia did not lapse into recession during the December quarter. One anticipated result was giving the money to the group who “qualified” would be that they would spend it in the retail sector.

I am in that group which did not receive a government bonus. I am one of the saps who is taxed excessively to finance this vote buying bribe.

I am one who did not vote for KRudd and Co last time and after this disgraceful display of economic vandalism. will not vote for him next time.

I am fortunate, I have already organized as secure a business future as I can but 2009 will see a lot of businesses fail and a lot of confidence collapse. With that the $10 billion which Krudd squandered in his lady-bountiful bonus scheme will not be available for him to support any critical initiatives (but socialists never have “initiatives” only retreads of flawed policies of previous failure governments) of course, we are told they could always go into deficit budgeting, mortgage our children’s future with our the Krudd government debt, instantly increase the interest burden on every tax payer…

Keating did that and then complained of turning us into a Banana Republic…

Typical socialist double talk…

Don’t blame me, I voted liberal/coalition.

Col;

of course you supported Howard, your class will always support far right wing theory and I respect your choise, but offer your comment with grace and stop branding all low income citizens as 'bludgers' I take offence at your attitude.

I to paid high taxation during my working life as a marketing executive and later as a motel operator. We all shy away from paying our fare share for the good of our civilised society but in the end we can look at Oz and say this is the best place in the world to live.

JMCC you might find my the attitude of my “Class” (whatever that is) offensive and you are likewise entitled to believe that too, however

“We all shy away from paying our fare share for the good of our civilised society”

I pay the taxes I am assessed and recall the maxim

No tax payer is liable for a single cent more than his assessment and every taxpayer is entitled to deploy whatever legal means are available for him to minimize the taxes he is assessed (basics of the Denning Judgment).

Anyone who thinks “government” can more wisely spend the monies extorted from their electorate, is in serious doubt of possessing the competency to cast a vote.

“and say this is the best place in the world to live.”

Largely due to a decade or so of coalition prudence.

If we had been left in the hands of socialists, Keating’s “Banana Republic” predictions would have come true but fear not, KRudd is well on the way to raping the economy to finance his socialist whimsy and with new carbon taxes in 2010, he will ensure we share equally the poverty of his fraudulent policies.

So JMCC,

I am one of the 58% who pay more in tax than I receive by way of benifits from government hand-outs.

Where do you lay, or are you simply one who accepts the hand-outs then criticises the generators of these hand-outs, the 58%ers?

As a 'cash positive' tax payer I think I am entitled to know just where my tax dollars are being spent and, if they are in fact being wasted by those who have wasted most of what they have earned throughout their lives and now turn to us for support so they can continue on their wastfull journey they call living. This is of casue assuming that they have actually earned anythin at all as many of them have rarely worked a day in their lives.

I have always said there is nothing wrong with someone either choosing not to work, or choosing to piss ones money against the wall. Just don't expect the 58%ers to keep bailing them out.

After all, we 58%ers first have to pick up the slack for the 42%ers, then pay the bills.

So if you are one of the 42%ers, then please don't winge, just be greatfull for our efforts.