Winter is coming. Here’s $75 to keep you warm at night.
By Lurline Hanna
I’ve just received the fantastic news that Mr Turnbull is going to pay me a bonus of a massive $75 to help pay for my heating costs this winter.
When I received my first gas bill in this property, before using my one gas appliance – a heater – it was a bit under $17, for 10 days. Admittedly almost $10 of that was for them reading the metre when I moved in, and $6.70 was the supply charge: the charge for merely having access to gas at this property.
I thought how nice it was of the LNP government to pay my gas supply charge over Winter and – being pretty smart – thought that I was on a winner. But turns out it will cover the charge for 111 days. Nothing to help pay for the gas I use on these cold nights (currently in Autumn) that regularly have a “feels like” of under 0 degrees. Nothing towards electricity or its supply charge for the heater in the bedroom so Spencer D (assistance dog) and I can sleep at night.
I know I should be grateful for all the “free money” I receive from the government for having medical conditions that make it impossible for me to hold down a job. And believe me, I’m incredibly grateful my DSP was approved in 1999 before it was decided that mental illness isn’t really an illness, and that everyone who is on, or attempting to get on the DSP is scamming the government. I’m even more grateful I’m not under 35, because then my pension could be reviewed and I could be kicked off it if I’m judged capable of working at least 8 hours most weeks of the year.
However at this stage of my life – I turn 50 next month – after my rent, regular bills, and moving costs are repaid, I have $70 a fortnight to buy food, medications, fuel, clothes, haircuts, entertainment (ha ha), plus food, vet bills and medication for my assistance dog – a medical essential.
Admittedly, in two fortnights that will increase by $110 a fortnight. If it wasn’t for a very understanding family member I would be looking for help from the charities.
So thank you so much, Mr Turnbull, I’m incredibly grateful for your largesse. I just hope $180 a fortnight is enough to pay for my above costs plus the gas and electricity bills. I’m sure it will be, because of course I can afford to lose weight and my mental health and osteoarthritis, and insulin dependent diabetes don’t need me to try and keep on a healthy diet, and an in-water exercise regimen in a heated hydrotherapy pool (which doesn’t come free either).
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21 comments
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RonaldR
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Michael Taylor
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babyjewels10
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Freetasman
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Freetasman
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Keyser Soze
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freefall852
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Sandra B
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seawork
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Freetasman
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diannaart
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helvityni
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stephengb2014
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Matters Not
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Peter F
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Michelle Hoyland
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paul walter
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jim
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derek scott
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diannaart
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Halfbreeder
Return to home pageBUT YOU FORGOT TO MENTION you will pay it back many times over with austerity measures he will impose on all Australians earning under $30,000pa. Not a very Good article.
RonaldR, not a very good comment.
Personally, I find it insulting, considering they’ve managed to, what is it. double? our power costs since they’ve been in power? As always, you can be sure when the LNP “give” with one hand, it will be taking with another.
I am in contact with a couple of friends in USA that moved from a rental property to an RV. One living in a van and the other in a small motorhome. Both of them are not staying in caravan parks because they cannot afford it, they live in BLM land or parking in Wallmart when they are in town.
For them is the only way that they can afford to live in a pension.
Looks like that Australia is heading in the same direction.
RonaldR your contribution is not very helpful, constructive or nice.
Unfortunatly this is the price we must pay to keep Australia safe from Terrorism. We must all go without, freeze, starve, go hungry and be robbed blind so that the fabricated war on terror can be fought! We must spend billions on our Military to keep our masters happy and their pockets full. it is essential to have sanctions against countries that wish us no harm and in the past bought our products, that’s because our true controllers tell us to. If we get too comfortable then we can expect a terror attack (false flag) from the usual suspects to keep us in line.
We must send our military overseas to assist the criminal cabal in their world hegemony plans and that’s not cheap to do.
Perhaps we could just blow the refugees out of the water so we do’n’t have to keep them locked up? That could save a few $ as well.
It shames me to see what this country has become and where these idiot/corrupt/bought/brainwashed politicians are taking us.
Perhaps they could remove the GST off candles? Blankets? Hot water bottles?
These politicians are there to represent the people. it’s been a long time since they did that!
To watch Turnbull in Washington grovelling perhaps we could all chip in and get him a kneeling pad. It could even be a tax deduction?
At the next election Mal, place head between legs and kiss your arse goodbye!
There being no such thing as “a free lunch”, I could safely say that there is not one healthy living soul would exchange their impoverished situation for the impaired or the disabled no matter how beneficial their pension…every person in The State, employed or not, able or dis-able has equal contribution to The State, be it by taxes on their work / wages, or by their situation enabling the creation of a multitude of industries and people assisting that section of society in need of assistance to become incorporated into the social network.
Dammit!..there are no “outsiders” in our country, only fellow travelers.
Yes, I always love those pics (above) of Malcolm, in his designer tracksuit and designer sleeping bag, when he is sleeping “out” in support of the homeless. As if he has any idea.
And it has just been made clear that power bills will be going up 40% in a months time.
The “hand out ” will go a long way towards that.
Now who DID vote for these people?
Now who DID vote for these people?
The selfish and the ignorant and I think that the current government is preparing the ground to buy votes in the next election.
Already are thinking in coming with a trick to look like that they protect Medicare and care for the people that would like to have their own home.
$75 off the winter gas bill? Tell ’em they’re dreamin’.
We have plenty of sun and wind and natural gas, yet our electricity and gas bills go up…
We must stop choosing leaders who are a bit dumb dumb as the little girl described Abbott…(she said she heard her mum using those naughty words…)
They lack judgment, and are hardly progressive,,,,
Looks to me like this budget could mean an early election.
Meanwhile I agree the measly one off payment is bloody insulting, thank you Xenophon.
I wonder if this lot know we are a signatory to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
Ooh look Article 25
1. Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.
Certainly there are signs that they are engaged in political ‘image repair’ – with ‘budget repair’ now confined to a mere, minor supporting role. The Gonski agenda as verbalised by Labor is being appropriated. The draconian threats re University funding cuts now have a softer edge. Infrastructure spending is back in vogue, What with a new government funded airport, inland rail and the like.
Yes it sounds like an election is in the air. But I don’t think they are that desperate. Yet.
Lots of ‘opposition’ to quell. Some of it coming via the Labor Party. But most coming from within via the forces of Abbott and the Joyce led Nationals. Not a great time to be Turnbull at the moment. No corners in which to hide politically, unlike the financial haven provided by the Cayman Islands..
Perhaps another DD – that should fix things
The powers that be never ever read articles like this. Ever. If they did, how could they justify what they do? As a Forgotten Australian who has been ruined from childhood by my own government, court ordered to protect me, I’m also now on DSP. I’m also getting that ‘one off ‘ 75 bucks, and considering i already pay money out of my precious DSP to Centrepay to help cover the cost of essential items like gas, rent and power, I’ll be using that whole 75 bucks to stock up on tinned food for when the unexpected things in life happen. U know, for when i have to eat tinned food for weeks on end ’cause i had to pay something extra my pension budget doesn’t allow for. At least my 8 yr old son likes 2 minute noodles. Can’t take that to school, but hey, here’s a vegemite sandwich and an old apple. Consider yourself lucky kid. The Liberal Party says we are, so we must be.
No, they will never read articles like this. Ever. How could they?
It makes Rudd’s fiscal stimulus thousand bucks look stingy by comparison doesn’t it?
No-one short of an irony faculty need reply, btw.
The great gas rip off ,2007……MARK COLVIN: A single business deal signed today speaks volumes about the economic clout that Beijing now wields in Australia – a $35-billion agreement to supply China with liquefied natural gas.
After his day with the US President yesterday, Prime Minister John Howard spent today spreading the message that China’s growth was good for the world.
JOHN HOWARD: The President and I this morning witnessed the signing of an agreement for the supply of LNG by an Australian consortium to China worth $35-billion.
CHRIS UHLMANN: The $35-billion gas deal was one of two resource agreements signed today, along with two legal treaties covering extradition and prisoner exchange.
But the issue the Howard Government was keen to push to the top of APEC’s agenda, climate change, isn’t so straightforward.
On one level, China is happy to be seen as going along with the Howard Government. It shares the belief that reforestation, clean coal technology and nuclear energy will all play a role in combating global warming, and has signed a joint statement with Australia covering areas of broad agreement.
HU JINTAO (translated): The Chinese Government takes the tackling of climate change very seriously. As a matter of fact, just days ago, when I had a conversation with Prime Minister Howard on the telephone, I made it very clear to him that the Chinese side is supportive of discussing this matter at the APEC meeting and we also support the issuance of the Sydney declaration at the APEC meeting focusing on climate change. Abbott,”climate change is crap”
CHRIS UHLMANN: But the President made it perfectly clear that there was only one place where climate change deals would be struck: within the United Nations framework, which spawned the Kyoto Protocol.
The key phrase here is “common but differentiated responsibilities”. Kyoto imposed legally binding carbon targets on developed countries, and not on developing ones like China.
Australia and the US are adamant Kyoto is a failure because it doesn’t bind huge polluters like China. For its part, China believes the developed world should pay for the problems caused by industrialisation.
The Prime Minister was talking up areas of agreement.
JOHN HOWARD: Some $20-million will be directed towards “clean coal technology”? projects under the umbrella of the agreement signed between Australia and China concerning clean coal cooperation earlier this year.
In this example of critically counter-productive management, the first iteration occurred in the 1990s when Victorian Coalition Premier Jeff Kennett and Treasurer Alan Stockdale decided that looking after the State Electricity Commission of Victoria (SECV) and the Gas and Fuel Corporation (G&FC) was too hard for them. So they sold off these productive public-owned utilities.
Note that Victoria’s brown coal power stations had been acknowledged since the early 1970s as the most polluting and inefficient power generators in the developed world.
Concurrent with the sell-off of the SECV, Kennett and Co deemed it necessary to sell the Gas and Fuel Corporation. Natural gas discoveries in Bass Strait in the 1960s were welcomed as a source of cheap clean gas estimated to last for more than 400 years. This was a good thing for Australians. It represented a guarantee of an essential resource, a “common wealth” for the whole population.
But a few years after Jeff Kennett and Alan Stockdale contrived this sell-off, Coalition Prime Minister John Howard stepped in and locked us into an…… open-ended contract….. or No end date..to supply our gas to China at the unconscionably low rate of $US3.80 per MMBtu (AUD 0.176 cents per litre), coupled with the stunningly naive.. omission to specify NO renegotiation of the price in the future.
Deregulation and privatisation haven’t distributed wealth; most is in the pockets of the elites, writes John Quiggin.
We were selling our resource to a foreign power at a permanently fixed – and much lower – price to what domestic consumers pay. And now, little more than a decade later, we are being warned that domestic gas supply cannot be guaranteed and we may pursue the highly contentious practice of “fracking” to exploit coal seam gas, taking us full circle to the dirty days of brown coal gasification.
The privatised profit from the misguided sale of Victoria’s utilities by the LNP has created the socialisation of inestimable financial loss upon the disenfranchised majority. geez what else can they F’up?.
http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2007/s2026329.htm
recently we had a huge rise in our pension,after the smoke cleared and various services went up I found I was $3 less in my pension compare to before the huge? rise !!!
@derek scott
AKA Political Sleight of hand – giving whilst taking away.
jim. ‘what else can they fck up?’ how about the joint strike fighter? each plane now estimated to cost $240 mill. Aust has ordered 72 so far. that doesn’t include battle ready adjustments or weapons…there extras…just the basic plane. further usa wont give over security codes for the plane so can only fly with active weapons with usa permission and is only useful as reconissance plane without the codes. this is yet anothet example of the LNP’s incompentence. $500 bill worth. now its clear where the ‘bad’ debt is. thanks abbott u scum.