The first year of this much hated Abbott government has aligned with the third year of the equally loathed Newman government reminds me of the Sir Joh LNP days in Queensland where corruption was rife and only ended with the Fitzgerald Inquiry. It seems appropriate to hear Tony Ftizgerald speaking out again.
Sadly we find a reluctance to discuss vital policy areas by communicative politicians and balanced journalists. I site as examples the savage cuts to CSIRO and the fast broadband that the NBN once promised, and has now been shelved in favour of a slower and less expensive version, a false economy. Alone these two regressions will cost Australia dearly in the future.
The nobbling of the previous government’s vision for the NBN and the cuts in research handed to the CSIRO will cost us dearly into the future, especially in the north where an enquiry into local soils would have been vital to the proposed development of northern Australia.
The poverty stricken are feeling the pinch and due to the lack of government investment their ranks will swell. Our economy will fall from 11th place (under Labor) to goodness knows where under the current government. If only for a government with leadership and vision!
In Townsville, a perfectly reasonable and sensible upgrade of the waste disposal system might be on the radar if we weren’t (and hadn’t been) under the influence of conservative forces for years now. I hope it does not stop creative people thinking and dreaming of efficiencies that better serve the common good.
I don’t believe we’ll see any change until we vote for different players, people who are prepared to close the “club” and do the right thing by us all, open all departments to more scrutiny and more analysis of the most cost strategies - in relation to processing waste as well as all other council functions.
Over 2 years into their 3 year period of government, and after belting ordinary Townsville families with cost of living increases, finally they (LNP) get around to “looking” at the homeless situation in Townsville.
Housing Minister Tim Mander has done very little for the homeless in the past and is certainly not in a desperate hurry to help them now.
The NGOs do what they can but here again the government has cut funding which makes it even tougher to provide care for society’s unfortunates.
Bring on March 2014, we desperately need a change in George Street, these unAustralian no hopers will be swept from office and hopefully replaced with a kinder, gentler more caring style of government.
If “all” the savings from the demise of the price on carbon is passed on by the energy companies my humble family stand to gain $4.31 per week, we are beside ourselves with this newfound affluence which according to Abbott will unshackle economic growth. I won’t be holding my breath.
Many of the former lifters who are now aged or disabled are increasingly concerned that the leaners in corporate Australia are avoiding paying their fair share of taxation and won’t be chased for their fair contribution to our nation. We want the return of the Aussie ‘fair go’ to apply to ‘all’ Australians.
I doubt very much that the average Australian approves of the ideology of the LNP at either level of government, or in local government for that matter. I choose to believe that the average Aussie is eagerly awaiting a strong leader from the centre-left of the political spectrum to lead us out of the abyss created by the current governments. Aussie ‘mateship’ is legendary forged in the hardest of times
We have seen a swift turnaround in the Australia we used to know, an Australia that encouraged people, an Australia that supported people compassionately; we are now down to being consumers in a business environment, no longer people in a caring society under the cruelty of the LNP. This is not the Australia that I know where mateship once thrived and anything could be done for a carton of beer by your mates. Have we really become just another State of the United States of America, I thought we were so much better than that.