True!

Just listen to David Littleproud on “Insliders” telling us about all those “mum and dad” pharmacies that’ll be in trouble thanks to Labor’s changes allowing 60 days worth of prescriptions to be dispensed. I mean, what have the Coalition got against pharmacists who aren’t mums and/or dads?

And when they talk about landlords and negative gearing changes, they always mention that heaps of property investors are low income “mums and dads” just trying to put something away for their retirement.

I fully expect them to say that many of the people involved in the PwC leaks were also mums and dads who were just trying to help out other mums and dads in companies that felt that they were paying too much tax if they were asked to pay more than their fair share which – after careful calculation – is none at all.

To be fair, there’s a lot of politics of envy in this country and some people who make sacrifices to send their kids to private schools have the sort of income that means that they have even less taxable income than a multinational company but with careful budgeting they manage to afford the $100k in schools from their meagre income of $38 for the financial year.

Anyway, they’re the sort of mums and dads that are having a go and getting a go because if there’s one thing that the Liberals admire it’s people who have a go unless they’re workers demanding the sort of living wage that’ll add to inflation because if a worker can’t make ends meet then they’ll just have to cut their cloth to meet their suit or whatever the saying is, but if an employer can’t make ends meet they’ll go out of business and we’ll all be in trouble so price rises are just the fault of those greedy workers wanting to eat and heat…

Unless, of course, we’re talking about a landlord who has used negative gearing to ensure that they don’t make a profit because if their property starts to be profitable they need to buy another one to ensure that they aren’t paying tax and that they are still making a loss because that’s the way that some of these mums and dads have a go…

So I’d like some interviewer to ask the Coalition frontbencher – after they talk about mum and dad pharmacists/landlords/investors/meth lab syndicates – why they hate the childless people so much.

Ok, yes, all right, I know. The phrase “mum and dad” is emotive and it makes one think of nice, middle-class people struggling in a way that words like “father and mother” or “sire and dam” don’t. It doesn’t make one think of King Charles and the mother of his children, Princess Di. Neither does it make one think of Tony and Carmela Soprano and their mum and dad waste management business.

And, before someone points out the lack of inclusion here, what about the “mum and mum” or “dad and dad” parents that can now marry and have children…

On a side note here, but did anyone else think that it was strange that one of the arguments people made against same sex marriage was that children should have a mother and a father and same sex relationships denied them this. What I find most confusing about that is the fact that same sex relationships where the couple have children already existed and denying them the right to marry didn’t solve the alleged problem of children not having a parent of both sexes. It just took away the legal security that a marriage can provide. Reminds of me of some of those people against the Voice who simultaneously argue that it’s a risk because Parliament will decide its form and we don’t need it in the Constitution because Parliament could set one up tomorrow without the need for Constitutional change…

Now let me make it clear that I have nothing against people being in business and making a buck. After all, this is a capitalist system and I’m not going to suggest that those benevolent employers who only exist to give people jobs should be the first to be lined up against the wall and shot when the revolution comes. However, it does strike me as a little inconsistent when businesses argue that they’re the ones taking the risks and so they should be entitled to great rewards, only to turn around and say that the risk didn’t work out so someone should do something because life shouldn’t be this unfair when they’ve taken the risk and started/taken over/inherited a business. We all remember how some businesses took the JobKeeper money and kept it, even though they made a profit and there was no obligation on them to establish that they lost revenue during the pandemic. They didn’t even have to prove their parental status.