“Super may well act as a shock absorber for various periods during peoples’ lives, because that is their savings that arguably they should be able to access.”
Joe Hockey.
A shock absorber, eh?
Let’s just think about that for a while.
One of the nifty little changes to welfare payments was the idea that you couldn’t receive dole payments while you had savings. Of course your superannuation doesn’t count, because… well, you can’t access it.
Perhaps I’m being a little too cynical here, by suggesting that if super becomes a “shock absorber for various periods during people’s lives”, then obviously finding oneself unemployed would be one of those shocks were you needed some assistance in absorbing. And well, you’ve just got all that super there – well, some anyway – doing nothing but compounding for your retirement at a time when you’d surely rather have it to assist you do such things as pay for your stamps and photocopying when you send off one of your 23 job applications per hour to ensure that you meet eligibility requirements so that you become eligible to receive that jackpot we call unemployment benefits. I know it’s a jackpot because that’s what the papers told me. And here I was wasting all that money at the pokies when all I have to do is lose my job…
Yes, I am being too cynical. As if anyone in Abbott’s front bench would be clever enough to think of something like that.
And anyway, it’s probably only the fact that people have been brainwashing me that makes me think that this government is not worthy of my trust. I know this because just the other day, I read an article from “The Courier Mail” entitled:
“Nation in the grip of hidden persuaders as activist groups destabilise coal, gas industries”
I read it online so while I was reading it an ad for Microsoft played suggesting that I buy some product or other, but, of course, I have no problem with that because that’s the sort of persuader that’s not hidden.
The article by Des Houghton began with something that really made me think:
“WHO owns you? By that I mean who controls you? Who shapes your opinions and helps you spend your money on worthy causes? Who tells you how to vote? Who runs your life for you?
“Nobody, I hear you cry: I’m an independent thinker. I shall make up my own mind, thank you very much …
“Not quite. I’m afraid our once fiercely independent nation is under siege in a clandestine propaganda war.
“You are being manipulated every day by a group of hidden persuaders who even attempt to hijack our elections.
“The national debate is in the grip of well-funded activists who practise their glib and oily art from inside Australia and beyond.
“There is money pouring in from the US for Leftist causes.”
It was that last bit that really shook me. Money coming from the US for Leftist causes! Gee, accepting money from a country like that. Lucky for Des that the paper he’s writing for is owned by an Australian who only became a US citizen for the opportunities it gave him, otherwise some people might suggest that by writing for “The Courier Mail” then he too is accepting money from the US, given that Murdoch’s newspaper empire is less profitable than I’d be if I sold my body as my only means of support. (Don’t anybody write “Blogger for Sale” or I’ll sue and it’ll make my family cry.)
Of course, some of you are probably thinking that it’s strange that this paper would be concerned about people trying to influence your decisions when most of the Murdoch Press have been so concerned about 18C restricting our freedom of speech. But that’s because you haven’t read the rest of the article.
As Mr Houghton argued: “Urgent action is needed to put the brakes on activists determined to harm businesses,” but he wasn’t very specific about how one fits activists with brakes. Perhaps, they could be fitted at the same time as Joe Hockey is fitting us with our super shock absorbers. Or perhaps we could just use the anti-terror laws and let ASIO take them in for questioning.
He gave an example of how these people could hijack the democratic process, when he described how a questioner asked Campbell Newman a question. In this outrageous example of activism:
“Newman seemed flummoxed when asked to “commit to the following principles of accountability and good governance put forward by The Honourable Tony Fitzgerald QC”.
He agreed, but not before he looked as though he had something to hide.”
But of course this idea of “accountability and good governance” is part of the Left conspiracy. As Mr Houghton put it:
“The accountability accord was in fact the work of the Left-leaning Australia Institute, which won’t tell us where it gets its money from. So much for accountability.”
Yes, we have a right to know where the Australia Institute gets its money from; it’s the IPA that have the right to keep their sources secret. And of course, the “mysterious” GetUp! was also there:
“I wonder if any of these young people know who is pulling their strings? How many of those well-meaning young people recruited on social media know GetUp! received $1.1 million from the discredited CFMEU?”
Is the discredited CFMEU different from the other one? Ah well, everyone’s entitled to their opinion, even if it is someone taking money from a newspaper propped up by money from the US, which apparently means that someone is pulling your strings if they’re from the Left, but if they’re Right, we’ll it’s always good to be right!
As for the “accountability and good governance accord”, I must say that I’m pleased that so far the Abbott Government has managed to resist it. I’d single out Joe Hockey, but he seems a bit sensitive at the moment.
Once I wasn’t very sure about demanding people drink more beer, but now I’m très surer, force ale.
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