Hi onthebeach,

A point well made about attitudes of some to other peoples money. I think Killarney’s comments are based on reflective angst rather than thinking anything through.

For all the other posters squawking about this budget, may I offer my observations.

I think the squalkertariat is playing right into the hands of Abbott. Mostly because they have convinced themselves that Abbott is an evil idiot. As Sun Tzu says in The Art of War, “know your enemy”.

Abbott has known for a very long time that he will never be popular. So whilst the progressives and their media are busy reinforcing his “unpopularity” that he doesn’t care a rats about, there are burning resources for nothing. He doesn’t want or need to be popular but he does want to earn the right to be respected because that is so much more powerful and it is also immune to progressive rhetoric.

The Abbott administration has just placed on the table, the biggest pair of political gonads ever seen in Australia. Now he can sit back and watch the rest of the political forces destroy themselves.

This is a Clint Eastwood call, “make my day punk”. If Abbott cannot get the majority of what he wants through the Senate, I think he will pull the DD trigger and so do the opposition. There are many progressives who stupidly think they can win a DD, they are wrong and so are the new senators taking their seats in July. I don’t think any of them have the gonads to call Abbotts bluff.

If faced with a choice of a do nothing scenario of another ALP/Greens government, the electorates will ditch them both. Likewise, the new senators know the electorates are tired of minor party interests and new senators will never walk away from their six year tenure as highly paid and pampered senators or their pensions. Sure they will work round the edges as best they can however, if Abbott plays hardball, and he will, they will fold like a pack of cards out of self interest.

spindoc,

The electorate respects and will vote for a strong leader. Popularity as 'measured' by polls is irrelevant to all but the twits who exist in the superficial world of social media who really should get out more and preferably get a job.

If honesty were to prevail, all on here would admit what is obvious to everyone else as well, that there are thousands who have been have been making hay out of the government and the taxpayer for many, many years.

No doubt you gentlemen are all enjoying a very comfortable and privileged retirement. Only the wealthy have the time, energy and insularity to keep believing the fairytale that poverty is purely a matter of choice.

And as for all those U-beaut facts and figures used to lecture us dumbclucks and bleeding hearts that a safety net for the aged and vulnerable is no longer ‘sustainable’, then please explain ...

Why is it fine and dandy that 40% of the annual super contribution budget ($30 billion) goes straight into the retirement funds of the top 6% of earners?

Explain to me why the top one per cent of income earners get three times as much benefit annually in superannuation tax concessions alone than is spent on an individual age pension.

Explain to me what is so ‘sustainable’ about the fact that for every $1 billion we spend on tax concessions for super saves less than $200 million off the age pension budget.

Explain to me how people over 55 are going to be able to ‘sustain’ (that wretched word again) themselves when they are laid off, considering their long-term jobless rate (i.e. out of work for more than a year) is over 40%.

How do they survive until they are 70? You got it … make the ‘choice’ to use up their savings and draw down their super.

Silly them! No wonder they’re poor!

So, all you comfortably retired gentlemen, so deserving of all your lovely free time because you made so many splendidly good choices in life … what’s on the agenda today?

Golf or sailing?

well we saw the union industry's corrupt practices supported by the taxpayers for decades in the form of the car industry. Eventually all the cards tumbled. A lot more pain could of been avoided had the subsidies wound back much quicker. It is hard to see the pain of those who are genuinely reliant on welfare to suffer however everyone knows something must change. At least Mr Abbott/Hockey has shown some guts (with no votes to win)which could help us slightly through the next GFC. With Labour we would end up like Greece in no time. How quickly they sqaundered a healthy surplus and left us in deep trouble. The Labour/Greens supporters will be dumb enough to ask why when the cards tumble. Its those evil companies that employ people and pay most the taxes the will tell us.

During Rudd and Gillard we had over 50,000 welfare for lifers arrive WHY?

Because all refugees came from countries with NO welfare system or pensions.
In those countries your kids are your pension.

So come to Australia those idiots will pay you for nothing.

I am all in favour of a double dissolution, then the electorate can decide if they really want what the liberals are offering, rather than the pack of lies they promised.