Senator Glenn Lazarus threatens to "shirtfront" the Prime Minister over the "human impact" of Coal Seam Gas mining.

http://media.smh.com.au/video-news/video-qld-news/lazarus-i-will-shirtfront-tony-abbott-6549424.html

Npte: one of Lazarus nicknames was the "brick with eye" as he played professional rugby league...

It’s sad to see the 2015 budget being measured against the 2014 budget instead of being measured by its impact on inequality and poverty.

Take, for example, the 2014 measure to force unemployed young people to survive on fresh air and sunshine for six months of every year. Such was the community outcry in the face of such viciousness that the 2015 budget has proposed Punishment Mark II, namely one month without income instead of six.

The change is a clear admission of the cruelty of this measure without actually abandoning it. This is like thanking someone for “only” cutting your fingers off after threatening to cut off your arm. And we are supposed to be grateful!

This year’s budget might be dull but it doesn’t dull the pain for people who struggle to make ends meet when a government presides over a growth in unemployment and inequality. It doesn’t dull the pain because it refuses to make the big end of town pay its share through progressive tax reform.

This budget can find the money to fund childcare and nannies for the rich but only at the expense of the poor. It refuses to lift the abysmally low unemployment benefit, resorting to income management instead of income adequacy. It refuses to reinstate and increase funding for social services, social housing, public health and public education slashed in last year’s budget.

If you wanted to prevent unemployment you wouldn’t rip the guts out of the Gonski education funding reforms or allow Tafe to be undermined or universities deregulated.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/may/21/are-the-unemployed-supposed-to-be-grateful-for-budget-2015-still-cruel

By keeping most of the last year's budget cuts, and introducing new ones in the May budget, the Abbott government is stripping more than $15 billion over four years from families and lower-income Australians, new analysis by the Australian Council of Social Service shows.

The report, obtained by Fairfax Media, says most of the $800 million revenue increases projected over the next five years come from income tax bracket creep and projected economic growth.

The combined impact of the two budgets for low and middle income people was "devastating", ACOSS chief executive Cassandra Goldie said, with almost two thirds of the family payments cuts hitting low to middle-income households.

"The overall budget fails the fairness test because it keeps more than $15 billion in spending cuts from last year's budget and delivers new cuts to child dental and community health programs," Dr Goldie said. "There is a fair alternative path to budget repair – including through structural tax reform – but unfortunately the best options have been ruled out by the government in advance of the taxation review."

The report is focused on measures which mainly affect lower and middle income households, and does not include Prime Minister Tony Abbott's paid parental leave backflip.

The May budget had a $3.5 billion child care package. But the money, to be delivered over five years, has been linked back to last year's controversial family payments cuts. If passed by the Senate, the cuts would "disproportionately and adversely impact on low income families, particularly single-parent families".

read more: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/budget-stripped-more-than-15b-from-families-lowincome-people-acoss-analysis-20150522-gh6z2z

See : "fair" game .....