Craig James from Commsec comes on TV after the budget and hits the nail on the head.

The budget is all about reinforcing the 3 P's.

POPULATION - beefing up immigratiion

PARTICIPATION - of ONLY young mothers through childcare rebates would you believe

PRODUCTIVITY - by an overall reduction in the last 10 years of education spending and an outsourcing of skills to lean, hungry, Clayton Australian migrants.

Such policy does boost economic growth for the rich at the expense of the poor whose silence is bought for $16 per week tax incentives while behind closed dorrs Packer pays his executives $5 million bonuses.

BUT even that isn't the REAL problem.

The real problem is that immigration policies have made the cost, availability and future sustainability of

rents
power
fuel
water
transport
air quality
environmental degradation
police
hospitals

way beyond the providing capacity of this country.

Thus the 3P's policy is NOT SUSTAINABLE after about 2010 when shortages in all the above factors combine with stress and violence to create the seeds of revolution in this country

By 2025 when oil runs out, the consequences for Australia, based on theory of population dynamics where populations outstrip resources, is nothing less than CATASTROPHE.

Costello and his budget are failures not because Australians don't KNOW what I say is true but rather because he knows it too and cynically buys our votes with pissant tax cuts and the fear of interest rate rises and falling property prices that pique the worst emotions of fear and greed in every one of us.

The budget OUGHT to have focused on reducing Australia's population and increasing productivity through FREE HS broadband educaton like Britain's ubiquitous Open University. To this end, only teachers should be immigrated and ALL sections of the community should be given $8000 reabates to study and get back in the workforce, not just young women.

KAEP, dont be so sexist and narrow-minded as to think that women are the only ones that need childcare to get back in the workforce!! There are increasing numbers of fathers that take a large role in childcare, and also single fathers that require childcare in order to work.

The participation is also designed to be boosted through the lifting of the marginal rate threshold from $25k-$30k, which means that for those earning between these amounts, each extra dollar earnt has only 15c taken out, not 30c.

I'm a mountain man and I love country gals. I'm neither sexist nor narrow minded. The fact is that the whopping majority of intended recipients of childcare rebates are women under 35. Your selrctive remonstration is just silly.

As for the threshhold, the maximum benefit is around $700 per year which is hardly comparable to the 8 grand PER CHILD coming to chamber of commerce eye candy candidates.

As for being sexist, are you so naive as to really believe that women are better in the workplace than men to the extent of these outrageous incentives?

E Pluribus Unum!

KAEP, sounds like you better stick to the mountains. The $8000 you speak of is:

1. Only the maximum per child. The rebate is 30% of out of pocket costs of childcare UP TO $4000 per child per year. So in actual fact it could be MUCH higher than $8000 per woman

2. It could also be much less. Eg, if you only use 1 day per week childcare at $5/hour for 9 hours per day and get are entitled to childcare benefit of 40% (they actually only pay 40% of the benchmark rate which is $2.90/hour), your out of pocket childcare costs will be $5x9x52-($2.90x40%x9x52) = $1797.12. Then your rebate is 30% of this, so is $539.14. Even if you use this childcare 5 days a week, your rebate will only be $2695.68, so in the current situation you could get a maximum of $5391.36. Note the $8000 you are rabbiting on about.

3. It will be double this year only because the government has fixed up an idiotic problem. Until now, you have had to wait until you lodged your 2007/08 tax return, to claim for costs incurred in the 2006/07 year. Thats a potential wait of up to 2 years. All that has been done it thats its been brought into line with any other tax rebare, claimable in the tax return for the year that the expense was incurred. Because its been brought forward, some families will get their rebate for costs in the 05/06 year and the 06/07 year at the same time.

4. Stop referring to women getting the rebate. Its paid first to the person incurring the childcare costs (usually the woman), but if she doesnt need to lodge a tax return, or hasnt paid enough tax to benefit from the rebate (which until now has been non-refundable), it has always been able to be transferred to a partners tax return.

Do your research.

You ought to stick to mounting men and leave the running of the country to the gals.

I think a little history lesson is in order here.
After ww2 our leaders realised, that to protect ourselves our population was too small, we had a newly independant Indnesia on our doorstep with a land shortage and a large and growing population, China with the same problems, who knew what they would do? no one!.
We needed more workers for industry, development and defense, (i.e. Snowy Mountains Scheme largely built by migrant labour,) even after all these migrants took up jobs we still had full employment.
Srangely enough most migrants work and pay tax which supports insfrastucure.
If an excess population is going to cause all the problems you think they are, why not just sterlise all teenagers.
Ridculous! of course! just as ridculous as your essay