Day to Day Politics: The Queen of Cringe and the Death of the “Funeral Expenses Allowance”
Saturday March 31 2018
I had fully intended to write about this delicate subject when all of a sudden things seemed to gather pace and no balls seemed to be flying everywhere. Late polished swingers, I’m told. In fact as a pensioner contemplating one’s final years I felt obligated to.
Things like the cost of one’s death become paramount when we face our final curtain. Funerals don’t come cheap. At the risk of sounding morbid, the cost of the bloody thing can put you in the grave sooner rather than later.
So when, as they have for many years, the government puts in $1300 to help out, you have to feel grateful. God bless ’em. Then when you find out that this meagre gift towards ones departure, after many years of toil towards taxes, is to be taken from us to lessen the government’s surplus, one cannot help but think, at such an inappropriate time, about the politics.
Then low and behold, as if by government decree there it was in the comments section of my recent post: “Can you please help me?”
Terry2 had written it for me: “A story about the queen of cringe and the death of the Funeral Expenses Allowance” …
“The big concern I have at the moment is the way the likes of One Nation with no intellectual substance can be so easily manipulated by the coalition government to do things that are patently stupid.
Crikey reports that on Monday night in the Senate, One Nation supported the government’s welfare crackdown bill, the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Welfare Reform) Bill 2017, which would among other measures have cut access to (and the level of) bereavement payments to people who had lost a spouse : the $1,300 payment was part of a government package of cuts meant for low-income households to assist in funeral costs. A budget saving of a whopping $1 million.
The vote in the Senate was 30/30 as two One Nation Senators failed to turn up. Cormann then called for another vote as the two Senators (Burston & Georgiou) had since entered the Senate. Clearly they had no idea what was going down, as they adopted the One Nation default position and voted with the government carrying the vote 32/30.
When Hanson realized what she and her One Nation numpties had done by assisting Michaelia Cash in getting this nasty piece of legislation through, effectively restricting access to this bereavement payment, she then pretended that she had sought to exclude the bereavement payment from the legislation.
So, after assisting the government to get this through the Senate she then told journalists that she had tried to “save” the bereavement payment after helping the government to get it through.
One Nation in extreme confusion then ran out a smoke screen and tried to blame Labor for trying to kill off the bereavement allowance even though Labor had argued and voted against it. Malcolm Roberts – remember him – who now works for Hanson actually tweeted that Labor were going to vote to kill off this bereavement allowance.
Hanson has since gone into damage control and told journalists that she is working with the government to retain this bereavement payment even though the legislation has already been passed with the help of One Nation.
Now it seems that they are going to vote with the government to reduce company tax for major corporations !!!
These people give me a headache!”
My thought for the day
“The knowledge that the one and only life we are living is but short should make it all the more precious.”
PS: Have you ever known a government as miserable as this? I have decided on a green funeral. That should lower the cost.
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18 comments
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Anomander
Return to home pagePauline’s latest post on her facebook page is complete and utter bullshit…
“The nursing profession has this month implemented a call for their midwives and nurses to declare ‘white privilege’ before treating indigenous Australian’s.
I don’t think for a second the majority of Aboriginals want this rot, it’s the bureaucrats who couldn’t get a job outside government who are enforcing these divisive agendas.
I WARN PEOPLE NOW – THIS IS ONLY THE BEGINNING!”
This is a lie being peddled by a guy who owns a labour hire firm that encourages low paid workers, often with poor English skills, to sign up to individual contracts. Depsite being a self-confessed union breaker, he has set up an alternative nurses union.
My comment on Pauline’s page…..
“That is absolute rubbish. How utterly irresponsible of you. This lie is being pushed by a guy who runs a labour hire firm who is trying to set up an alternate nurses’ union that encourages low paid workers to sign up for individual contracts. If you had bothered to contact the real union you would have been told that what you have said is complete rubbish. “it’s not a requirement for health workers to declare or apologise for white privilege”. Are you pushing this lie to deflect attention from the fact that you just voted to remove the $1300 bereavement allowance from our poorest people? Way to go Pauline, NOT. Stop believing what every crackpot says and start doing some real research for yourself. You are a dangerous embarrassment because you don’t have a clue what you are voting on and you believe all sorts of rubbish that is patently untrue. Do your homework Pauline.”
The whole bill is a nasty piece. In the same Parliamentary period the mongrels were pushing to provide billions of dollars to Corporations; and, they have now hit the unemployed for a sixer as well. Expect crime rates to increase when individuals are trying to gain resources to merely survive. Suicide rates are likely to increase through not being back paid by Centrelink when putting in applications.
I’ll get myself into trouble if I write more, have had to make a number of edits.
Funerals should be financed for by the State ; and no-one should go without a decent funeral for lack of funds.
John
complete confusion in the One Nation Party, according to one media report :
There is only one person to blame for this ghastly situation where the poor are being ground into the dust whilst the wealthy are gleefully sucking up all the resources of the country, and that person is the useless miserable tax evading PM who cares only to keep his job whatever the cost and the means. His double dissolution was the cause of allowing in all the riff raff, who with a very tiny amount of popular support, control the wellbeing and destiny of millions of decent ordinary citizens. The gutless filthy self seeker who lives in Point Piper, is the person at whom our resentment should be directed.
Put the word “welfare” in any bill and you can guarantee the duckwits of PHON will happily vote for cuts. Talk about betrayal of those you purport to serve. But, as withHenry’s point, those to blame are the execrable Michaelia Cash and her dear leader, the poseur prime monster. Truly, their meannessknows no bounds
A sad story, LJ.
Ten days ago PHON voted down help for burying the dead of the poor by mistake and recanted.
Next she will vote to give the rich $65b.
Who, expects her to be asked why?
I am sincerely hoping that the corp. tax cuts vote, or at least voting intention, and this begins to erode her support – I do actually wish the woman dead and I want her gone, which I’ll settle for
Word of warning John. My father passed away last easter and mum queried the cost of a plain pine box?
It was more than the three cheapest coffins on offer.
Seems like the eco trend dollar has made bio degradable pine boxes a profit maker in the industry?
John, in your postscript you ask, “Have you ever known a government as miserable as this?”
Mike Carlton has answered that question very well in his very pertinent piece in this morning’s Saturday Paper “The Land of The Fair Gone”. I recommend it to all IAMNers.
https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/opinion/topic/2018/03/31/the-land-the-fair-gone/15224148006022
I think a lot of the problems with Hanson and Dumb, oops, One Nation can be laid at the coils of the mind worm that is Ashby. He’s the (sigh, time to use the hoary old phrase) power behind the throne whispering in her small brain. If the party falls apart he’ll jump ship and latch on to someone else like the political parasite he is.
Cardboard coffins, the only way to go. Preferably recycled cardboard.
PHON has proved to be truly PHONy – how on earth they can have been allowed to have a second vote because 2 of them missed it is totally beyond me !! They should have been declared absent, and the vote should have failed. I cannot wait for this trick to be pulled next time Labor wants control of a vote – what’s the bet it will be thrown out.
Don’t worry Pauline, pretty sure next time you will be shown the door.
Frank,
Thank’s for the link to the Carlton article. He sums up the situation very well.
I love the John Kenneth Galbraith quote that “the modern conservative is engaged in one of man’s oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness”.
It’s becoming more obvious that Hanson simply doesn’t know what she’s doing.
Apart from broadcasting her own anger and prejudices and attracting like-minded supporters she simply wants to be seen as politically relevant and doesn’t care how she does it.
Now Abbott’s using her to capture back some of her voter base for his own purposes and she’s even too stupid or naive to realise.
Apart from pointing out as I do ad nauseam, that there is no budget problem, and that the federal deficit is too low, I want the nasty party gone. Evil mixed with ideological hatred for anyone who has not “made it” needs to be expunged. They need many years out of office to contemplate the depth and extent of their bastardly!
I hope Labor commits openly and loudly to reversing these disgraceful cuts to spending!
There are cheaper DIY alternatives for funerals. https://youtu.be/pjqr1seCl5w