I’ve waited a week or so before bothering to comment.  There is just so much, damn what is the word I want here, hyperbole?  Not really what I’m thinking but it is still appropriate.  The Fudget itself is getting a hyperbole driven sales pitch that any retail chain would admire.  The opposition to it getting a massive hyperbole injection via media, students, talk shows and people who don’t quite understand it.  And quite frankly I think this is a seriously flawed Fudget, unleashed upon us by those who think they know what is best for the country.  And that involves the absolute isolation and desecration of the less well off.

I have serious issues with the loss of support to the States for Education and Health.  These are massive amounts of money being ripped from what most people would readily identify as the 2 most important areas that government fund.  I am very concerned at the lack of support for young people and the ideology that underpins this loss of opportunity for independence for young people.  I am absolutely horrified by the removal of the safety net for those who lose their jobs, especially when this very government is effectively taking a chainsaw to the Federal Public Service.  I know what it’s like to have a job ripped out from underneath you.  I’m sure that many other Australians do too.  But I have serious doubts that any of the people who worked on the Fudget ever had.  And what in my view amounts to the opening salvo in a class war between the haves and the have-nots has been fired by this government, elected by the people, for the people.  I think the people are unhappy.

But possibly the worst of it is only just occurring now.  Last night one Liberal parliamentarian told us we should “go to Asia and live like the locals” if we think the Budget is harsh.  I suggest that sitting member should perhaps go there first, live on the streets for 3 months and then send us a postcard on how much he enjoyed it.  Nothing like a bit of first hand experience before advising us.  Then the person who chaired the Commission of Audit which helped the government frame the Fudget said we should “stop complaining” and lashed out at “modern Australian attitudes”.  Remember government of the people, by the people, for the people?  When the people don’t like the policy that you are attempting to implement, then it becomes incumbent on that government to adjust their policy to what the people desire.

Let me put this as plainly as is possible.  The “narrow, sectional” interests that Tony Shepherd is talking about are not the ones being attacked in the Fudget.  They are the ones benefiting from it.  Everyone needs to contribute is part of the mantra being spread about by the government.  So the politicians are on a pay freeze.  That’s a start.  Then a 2% “temporary levy” will be issued on anyone earning above $180,000 per year.  Temporary.  For 2 years.  2%.  That is not what I call a fair share of the heavy lifting.  Say 10% and make it permanent and I may think the load is beginning to be spread evenly.  Can the Defence spending on the over-budget and behind schedule Joint Strike fighters totally and then the Defence department is beginning to carry part of the load.  Can the 1.5% company tax reduction so that companies can carry some of the load.  Leave the Paid Parental scheme exactly as it was and that will reduce some of your nonsensical spending.  Leave the Carbon Tax well alone as it makes no difference whatsoever to Joe and Jill Average despite your overzealous stretching of the truth on how much more for electricity we pay – it’s pure bollocks.  But most of all, do not send politicians out to sell a Budget when they are obviously so full of crap that they cannot explain anything in laymans terms to the people they need to sell it to.  We don’t need slogans, winks, cigars or overinflated self values and egos.  What we need is a bit of honesty.  Some integrity.  Some actual truth would be nice.

But since this is turning into the Fudget emergency we needed to have I can’t see that happening anytime soon.   My greatest wish now is for the Labor, Green and Palmer United parties to have the courage to stand shoulder to shoulder and deny this Budget passage through the Senate.  The whole damn package.  Not bits of it.  No negotiations.  Just say to the LNP that you can take your Fudget and jam it where they sun don’t shine.  It is morally offensive that in the land of the “Fair Go” that this type of garbage is being served up as responsible fiscal policy.  Yet that is what we get.

So to those who voted for this government, I really hope you are loving this.  You got what you deserved from a party that campaigned on slogans with no meat, no policy, no thought, no intelligence and now we have no options.  Were Labor rubbish?  Probably.  Will this government ever be good enough to just be called rubbish?  Unlikely.