I am amazed at the number of people that I come in contact with who are NOT interested at all in the politics of this country.

Every individual should at least follow the ongoing proceedings of the Parliament, to see for themselves the furore that is enacted in
both Houses as the children squabble and fight to gain a few "brownie points".

The electorate is waiting in dread of what is coming for many constituents, as the Government Treasury representatives and ALL
of their think-tank spin-doctors decide exactly who is going to get the proverbial axe in the looming Budget.

Myself and my wife live in fear, bordering on terror of what these clowns have planned for us come Budget Day.

We are Old Age Pensioners who live on a small Superannuation Pension and a Part Old Age Pension.
We budget our income carefully to enable us to pay our bills etc. Never do we go away on holidays, our income simply does not
cater for that type of luxury.

We are hearing these "leaked" suppositions that indicate to us that the likes of us are going to be targetted for
drastic cuts in our Pensions,(always the ones least equipped to fight back), whilst at the same time obscene increases in GST,
Fuel Excise and the general cost of living.

We cannot understand how the mainstream Politicians can keep giving themselves Pay Rises, shunting off Billions of
Dollars in Overseas Aid and hosting all of the usual G( pick a number) type fiascos, etc, etc, then telling us that we are
living in the "lucky country" which is obviously very "lucky" indeed for them and their mates!

Dear Crackcup,

<<Every individual should at least follow the ongoing proceedings of the Parliament>>

Why, do we have enough psychiatrists to handle all the resulting cases of depression?

<<I am amazed at the number of people that I come in contact with who are NOT interested at all in the politics of this country.>>

Reinhold Niebuhr wrote the following prayer (commonly misattributed to St. Francis of Assisi):

God, give me grace to accept with serenity
the things that cannot be changed,
Courage to change the things
which should be changed,
and the Wisdom to distinguish
the one from the other.

As politics is one of those things we cannot do anything about other than pray that the earth opens up and swallows the parliament building while in session and all politicians be taken by the plague, we better have a life of our own:

Living one day at a time,
Enjoying one moment at a time,
Accepting hardship as a pathway to peace,
Taking, as Jesus did,
This sinful world as it is,
Not as I would have it,
Trusting that You will make all things right,
If I surrender to Your will,
So that I may be reasonably happy in this life,
And supremely happy with You forever in the next.

Amen.

Yuyutsu, "As politics is one of those things we cannot do anything about other than pray that the earth opens up and swallows the parliament building.."

Maybe Crackup should add another complaint, that people are dismissed when they pass a certain age and are not listened to.

The ethnic, gay and feminist lobbies do very well indeed out of their representations to politicians. They even manage to swing from the taxpayers' teat while they are doing it.

The problem for seniors is that they do not present a credible block of votes that can and will be shifted. As proof of that I would warrant that some, many?, age pensioners who read your reasonable post would likely disagree with you solely because you are to some extent a self-supporting retiree. I don't know where the dog-in-the-manger attitudes originate, but from my reading and listening it seems to come more strongly from one direction.

However it is apparent that the old are not respected and valued as in many other countries. The Left don't appear to be very keen on older people for a start, except for taking away their assets and after death too via death tax, which the Greens are pushing of course.

Yuyutsu,

Part of my reply to you was in answer to Crackup. Sorry for any confusion to your both. Have a good day.

Dear OnTheBeach,

The Australian electoral system is designed to keep ordinary people out, leaving only two parties on stage, Tweedledum and Tweedledee, to stage a constant rooster-fight between them in parliament, to entertain the public as the Romans watched their gladiators, creating artificial drama to divert attention from their common everyday aggression against ordinary people onto esoteric minor differences that are irrelevant to most of us. It's not that I'm excited about democracy, but nothing short of proportional representation can even be remotely called 'democracy'.

Israel, which has proportional-representation, had an "aged-pensioners" party, which in 2006 took 7 out the Knesset's 120 seats, partially as a protest vote by young people as well. At the time they became a part of Israel's coalition-government (but they failed in the 2009 elections due to internal disputes).

I wouldn't worry too much Crackcup a lot of the current noise is window dressing so most will say, "phew, it wasn't so bad after all" after the event.

There is no way any government could survive, giving a huge maternity bonus to wealthy women, a huge pay out to the "disabled" in the NDIS, & a huge boost to school teachers in the Gonski school funding fiasco, if they were to cut the pensions at the same time.

The current government know that as well as anyone, & are not about to cut their own throat.

If they have half a brain, they will recognise that bureaucrats vote Labor, & restrict their cuts to that sector, which would cost them nothing, & probably earn lots of brownie points with the general public.

We pensioners may be squeesed a little, but I doubt it will be enough to break the bank.