Image courtesy of smh.com.au
The Abbott Government have celebrated their first 100 days and awarded themselves a tick in every box. Everything they have done has been handled efficiently, smoothly, swiftly and professionally. That is, of course, if you listen to the Government’s own glowing but exaggerated assessment.
Thanks to Michael Trembath, here is a link to the articles that provide us with the real story of the Abbott Government’s first 100 days. Satirically sub-titled ‘Delivering on our Plan‘ it delivers an absolute mockery of the claim that the Government has done just that. Our thanks go to Michael for giving The AIMN permission to reproduce his compelling list.
Here is Michael’s fact-finding assessment and evidence of the first real 100 days of the Abbott Government:
Delivering on Our Plan
Commitments and Action Taken
Stop the boats
Operation Sovereign Borders
Offshore detention
Rules and funding of offshore detention
Conditions
Asylum seekers in detention
Immigration
Indonesia
Relations with the Indonesian Government
Relations with Indonesian Media and Social Media
Indonesia and asylum seekers
Animal Cruelty/Live Cattle Trade
Sri Lanka
China
East Timor
Other
Fix the Budget
Commission of Audit
Debt
Privatisation
Foreign Ownership etc.
Business
Other
Repeal the carbon and mining taxes
Boost productivity, reduce regulation and create jobs
Reduce cost-of-living pressures for families
Reducing access to superannuation and other entitlements
Reducing pay rates
Increasing costs
Paid Parental Leave scheme
Deliver better services and a better society
NBN and internet
Infrastructure
ABC
Education
Other
Deliver stronger and better communities
Indigenous Australians
Social Services and other organisations
Same-sex Marriage
Other
Deliver a cleaner environment
Climate change
Bushfires and climate change
Removal of carbon pricing and emissions policy
Removal of environmental funding and protections
Approval of projects etc.
Other
Deliver strong, sustainable and accountable government
Secrecy and control
Ministries
Parliamentary entitlements
Conduct in Parliament
Other
Commitments and Action Taken
Stop the boats
Operation Sovereign Borders
The Department of Immigration and Citizenship has now been renamed The Department of Immigration and Border Protection
When asked about a boat arrival the day before, Acting Commander of Operation Sovereign Borders claimed “if I haven’t reported it, it didn’t happen”
Angus Campbell reveals no boats have been purchased under the Government’s controversial boat ‘buy-back’ policy because Indonesia does not support the idea.
Aiming to ‘hide the boats’ with changes to announcements about asylum seeker boat arrivals (they later backed down, the government now will brief journalists each Monday) Christmas Island residents will ‘do everything they can to announce boats arriving’ One people smuggler ridicules their silence on boat arrivals
Operation Sovereign Borders Commander General Angus Campbell will no longer be present for the entire weekly briefing, giving his weekly report on the number of boat arrivals and take a few questions before leaving after previously repeatedly refusing to give details about questions he said related to “on-water matters”..
Immigration Minister accuses media of ‘misrepresentation’ and claims that they “never had a policy of towing boats back to Indonesia” despite on occasions, the then Opposition Leader suggested he would bring the policy back
An Australian Customs patrol boat had to rescue about 40 asylum-seekers at the weekend after accidentally ripping the bow of the boat away and causing it to start sinking.
Unwinding parts of Labor’s crackdown on cheaper foreign ships operating on Australia’s coast
Australia and Indonesia were involved in a mid-ocean stand-off in the early hours of Friday morning as a customs vessel tried unsuccessfully to return a boatload of rescued asylum seekers to a reluctant Indonesia
The Immigration Minister said that for the sake of correcting the public record … two (boats) were accepted and two were not. The Jakarta Post reported on Saturday that Agus Barnas, spokesman for the Indonesian co-ordinating minister for Legal, Political and Security Affairs, said his country had declined to receive three out of six Australian requests for transfers since September.
The Australian Greens’ Order for Production of Documents passes the Senate and forces the Coalition to table reports about on-water incidents under Operation Sovereign Borders.
Immigration Minister defies Senate order to release information about Operation Sovereign Borders
Immigration Minister refuses to tell Parliament whether any asylum-seeker boats have been turned back to Indonesia – a Coalition election policy – prompting ridicule from Labor He acknowledges a Senate motion calling him to release reports on asylum-seeker arrival
Offshore detention
Rules and funding of offshore detention
Immigration Minister has instructed departmental and detention centre staff to publicly refer to asylum seekers as ‘illegal’ arrivals and as ‘detainees’, rather than as clients: a leading asylum seeker agency describes this as designed to dehumanise people. A spokesman for the Immigration Minister said he would not comment on internal government communication.
Customs officials confirm they were directed by the immigration minister, Scott Morrison, to describe asylum seekers arriving by boat as “illegal”.
Immigration Minister imposes information blackout on self-harm in detention centres as it could encourage copycat behaviour among detainees
The birth of children and clinical depression are no longer being formally reported as incidents in Australian detention centres, while self-harm events have been downgraded from critical to major
Abbott raises the prospect of Australia leaving the United Nations refugee convention, risking damage to Australia’s regional and international reputation, especially as it is currently a member of the UN Security Council and is hosting the G20 summit in 2014.
AusAID (Australian Agency for International Development) responsible for administering the $5 billion official aid program will be “integrated” back into the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, potentially putting the 1300 Canberra-based staff members out of work
600 staff members of the Australian Customs and Border Protection Service would have to be sacked in the next four years due to budget cuts of $733 million
Immigration Minister Scott Morrison has announced the creation of a new taskforce to stamp out corruption in the Customs and Border Protection Service: which will identify officers or groups who pose a risk to the service, as well as their outside criminal associations
Withdrawing funding to The Welcome Centre, which provided support to asylum seekers, refugees & new arrivals through English classes, volunteer & work experience opportunities, emergency relief and friendship.
Dumping the Salvation Army as a long-term partner in providing services in offshore processing centres, Immigration Minister Scott Morrison refusing the confirm the details
Formally disbanding the Immigration Health Advisory Group, which provided independent advice on the health needs of asylum seekers, sacking all the groups members except the current chair who will set up its own advisory panel despite having little mental health experience
Conditions
Asylum seekers in Darwin complained that only two toilets were available for 500 people in one section of the Christmas Island detention facility. The Immigration Minister said these complaints “unsubstantiated” – two asylum seekers who spoke to the ABC were sent to offshore detention
First ever images leaked from within the Australian asylum seeker detention centre on Nauru, including pictures of children playing in the dirt and asylum seekers being forced to hang their clothes on fences due as building work is incomplete.
Amnesty International details a report, describing Manus Island’s detention centre as ‘cruel, inhuman, degrading and violating prohibitions against torture’. They also highlight that gay asylum seekers on Manus island are being told they will be reported to the PNG police if they engage in homosexual relations while in detention
Immigration Minister Scott Morrison has played down the United Nations’ Refugee Agency’s scathing assessment of Australia’s offshore detention centres, describing the report’s criticism as ‘‘overstated’’.
The former high court chief justice Gerard Brennan has prepared a damning assessment of a “whatever it takes” approach to politics, questioning the asylum-seeker policies of both parties.
Asylum seekers in detention
Labor calls on the Coalition to reconsider a decision that will deny a Somali woman facial reconstruction surgery for gunshot wounds.
Two unaccompanied minors on Manus Island may not have a legal guardian after federal legislation in 2012 changed the minister’s role for asylum seeker children sent offshore.
An asylum seeker who was moved off Nauru to give birth is being locked up for 18 hours a day in a detention centre in Brisbane while her week-old baby remains in hospital with respiratory problems A spokesman for Mr Morrison yesterday said doctors at the hospital had advised that it is common for mothers not to stay overnight because of bed restrictions, but the Mater Hospital suggested the mother should have been allowed to visit her child whenever she wanted. Abbott: “deeply regrets” that “they’ve happened because people have come to Australia illegally by boat”
Immigration Minister Scott Morrison on a profoundly disabled four-year-old Tamil asylum seeker in a Brisbane detention facility who will be transferred offshore along with her father: “It doesn’t matter whether you’re a child, it doesn’t matter whether you’re pregnant, it doesn’t matter whether you’re a woman, it doesn’t matter if you’re an unaccompanied minor, it doesn’t matter if you’ve got a health condition – if you are fit enough to get on a boat, then you can expect you’re fit enough to end up in offshore processing.”
An unaccompanied teenage girl has been sent to Australia’s immigration detention centre on Nauru.
A group of unaccompanied child asylum seekers have been transferred from Nauru to Brisbane amid concerns about their mental health and fears they may try to self harm.
Lawyers sought a court order to stop the removal of a two-week-old baby and his asylum-seeker family from Brisbane to Nauru
Group of 70 asylum seekers, including many children, arrive on Christmas Island
Undetected asylum seekers on Christmas Island shows Sovereign Borders is failing, Labor and Greens say
Immigration
About 20 Hungarian riggers brought in on 457 visas to work on the construction of a warehouse at Eastern Creek in Sydney’s west were sent home after complaining that they were being paid less than the award wage (less than $15 an hour.)
Immigration Minister Scott Morrison limits the number of Permanent Protection Visas to 1,650 – meaning that no more further protection visas can be provided to onshore applicants until June 30 2014 Guardian article
The Immigration Minister will not try to prevent a convicted double killer from appearing at the Sydney Opera House, despite US rapper Snoop Dogg being refused a visa to visit Australia
Indonesia
Relations with the Indonesian Government
The president of Indonesia has lashed out at Tony Abbott in a series of angry tweets, accusing the Australian Prime Minister of taking the spying scandal too lightly.
Abbott: ‘We don’t comment on operational matters’…’all governments gather information’…’we use the information that we gather, for good, including to build a stronger relationship with Indonesia’
Indonesia will call back its ambassador to Australia and “review” Australian diplomatic positions in Jakarta as anger rises in Indonesia over revelations that Australia tapped the phone of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and his wife
Abbott refuses to apologise over revelations that Australia tried to tap president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s phone: “I sincerely regret any embarrassment that recent media reports have caused him.”
Abbott’s election adviser Mark Textor has sparked a diplomatic storm after apparently comparing Indonesia’s foreign minister to “a 1970s Filipino porn star” on Twitter. An Indonesian responds directly on Twitter
A delegation of Russian politicians was in Indonesia to discuss the Australian phone tapping revelations, while giving “permission” from Moscow to Indonesian MPs to meet with former US National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden, who lives under temporary protection there.
Tony Abbott says he has no evidence Australia’s spy agencies have acted outside the law and argues current “stringent” safeguards work to prevent overreach by the intelligence services.
Abbott proposes security round table with Indonesia SBY says cooperation won’t resume until Australia signs code of ethics Which Abbott has declined to immediately commit to, but suggests a security round table be established so both nations could be more open with each other and build greater mutual trust In a significant departure from the normal government formulation, which is declining to comment on intelligence matters, Trade Minister Andrew Robb spoke of the surveillance of Indonesia in 2009 as a matter of fact.
Australia’s handover of an old C-130 Hercules to Indonesia will go ahead, despite cooperation being suspended between the two countries.
Two Indonesian nationals have been questioned by Customs for allegedly trying to smuggle birds on a C-130 Hercules being handed over to Indonesia.
Relations with Indonesian Media and Social Media
Abbott shut out the local press while meeting business and government delegates in Indonesia *which is considered commiting an offence in that country
Demonstrators in the Indonesian city of Yogyakarta have burnt an Australian flag in protest over the alleged tapping as anti-Australian sentiment continues to escalate.
Indonesians express Aussie hatred with hashtag #GanyangAustralia which means ‘Crush Australia’
The publication of a sexually lurid cartoon of Tony Abbott on the front page of Indonesia’s Rakyat Merdeka newspaper on Saturday is the second time in seven years that the same newspaper has courted the outrage of Australians by inking an offensive image of the Prime Minister.
Indonesia and asylum seekers
The Indonesian government is being urged to relax its preventive measures against boat people using Indonesia as a stepping stone in their onward journeys to Australia.
Abbott capitulates to Indonesia, ordering a Customs boat with up to 63 refugees on board to go to Christmas Island
The Immigration Minister describes Indonesia’s refusal to accept asylum boats ‘very frustrating’ and that there is “no real rhyme or reason” why Indonesian authorities had not taken stricken asylum seekers back to their shores after a three-day impasse
Immigration Minister Scott Morrison refuses to reveal what anti-people smuggling activities have been shelved in Indonesia as a result of the spying scandal
Immigration Minister Scott Morrison says boats can be stopped without Indonesia’s co-operation
Abbott says ‘high time’ Indonesia resumes cooperation on smuggling, describing their decision to suspend military cooperation as “singularly unhelpful”
Abbott says Indonesia’s suspension of co-operation on asylum seeker boats is one of the reasons behind an increase in boat arrivals.
Indonesia’s cooperation with Australia on people smuggling, trade, police and military exercises will stay on hold until after Tony Abbott has agreed to a “code of ethics” for the use of intelligence.
Animal Cruelty/Live Cattle Trade
Abbott over-rules his Agriculture Minister Barnaby Joyce on the subject of foreign land ownership, while encouraging the live cattle trade from Australia to Indonesia
Increase in live cattle exports to Indonesia from 75,000 cattle this year on top of the 260,000 quota
Despite a new video mishandled in Mauritius alarming animal cruelty activists and renewing calls for tougher penalties on exporters, Abbott says ‘the government was unmoved on its stance on live exports’
Agriculture Minister says he will not shut down the exports of live sheep to Jordan, despite the latest revelations of animal cruelty where sheep were being dragged along the ground to the place of slaughter, where they are killed next to the bodies of other sheep, thrown into car boots and carved open at the throat. Other animals have stones thrown at them and some are sat on by children. He also scrapped the position of Independent Inspector General of Animal Welfare, announced by Labor to oversee the live export industry, amid fresh evidence of cruelty towards Australian animals overseas. The Agriculture minister has ‘full confidence that my department is currently seeing how this leakage (of the footage) occurred
The Abbott government was rebuked by Japan and New Zealand for ditching Australia’s commitment to monitor closely its catch (the lion’s share of a global catch split between nine nations) of the critically endangered southern bluefin tuna. Parliamentary secretary to the Agriculture Minister Richard Colbeck has shelved the proposal, claiming its $600,000 cost was unwarranted in an industry worth $150 million a year in exports.
The latest threat from Indonesia to freeze Australia’s live cattle trade takes the fallout from the spying scandal to a disturbing new level.
Barnaby Joyce postpones trip to Indonesia, state-owned cattle firm halts talks amid spying allegations
Indonesian Trade Minister Gita Wirjawan has confirmed that the dispute with Australia over spying allegations has accelerated his country’s desire to source beef from other countries.
Sri Lanka
Abbott is being pressured by the Greens to boycott CHOGM in Sri Lanka because of human rights abuses.
Abbott distances himself from concerns over Sri Lanka’s human rights record, suggesting the country should be judged by a different standard to others
Abbott on Sri Lankan human rights abuse: “Obviously the Australian Government deplores any use of torture. We deplore that, wherever it might take place, we deplore that. But we accept that sometimes in difficult circumstances, difficult things happen.” Scribd: Tony Abbott on Sri Lanka
Prime Minister Tony Abbott has praised Sri Lanka for its efforts to address human rights issues and allegations of war crimes at the opening of the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting.
Australia will donate two navy ships to Sri Lanka to promote enhanced collaboration on people smuggling, despite its human rights record The former Customs boats will be given a $2 million facelift and handed over by mid-2014
China
Beijing has delivered an angry rebuke over what it says are “irresponsible remarks” made by Foreign Minister Julie Bishop regarding Chinese territorial claims in the East China Sea.
Tony Abbott has refused to take a backward step in a deepening diplomatic spat with Beijing, declaring “China trades with us because it is in China’s interest to trade with us”.
Foreign Minister Julie Bishop has refused to back down over comments to China regarding its newly declared air defence zone in the East China Sea, despite an angry response from the Chinese government. Treasurer Joe Hockey: she is doing exactly the right thing.
Australia faces strained diplomatic ties on a new front after China lashed out at comments from Foreign Minister Julie Bishop and called for an immediate correction. But Abbott says Australia will speak its mind on China’s territorial dispute with Japan
The Chinese foreign minister has launched an unprecedented public attack on the Australian Government, accusing it of “jeopardising bilateral mutual trust” as the row over the East China Sea escalates
East Timor
The government of Timor Leste – East Timor – believes Australia’s overseas spy agency covertly recorded Timorese ministers and officials in Dili in 2004. They say it happened during negotiations over a treaty that governs billions of dollars in gas revenue between the two countries.
A lawyer representing East Timor in its spying case against Australia says his office has been raided by the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO). East Timor’s prime minister says he is shocked by the Australian Government’s decision to authorise raids on a lawyer and whistleblower who were set to provide evidence against Australia in The Hague.
Other
PM Abbott told Aung San Suu Kyi (house arrest roughly 15 years), “I was an Opposition Leader myself for 4 years.”
Abbott arrived noticeably late to the first session of the APEC leaders meeting in Bali. Mr Putin being less than pleased and ignored Mr Abbott’s presence when he finally turned up to be seated next to him
New Zealand Opposition Leader David Cunliffe has used a high-level meeting in Sydney to lobby for New Zealanders to be treated the same as Australians living in New Zealand: i.e. student allowances and loans, public disability insurance
Fix the Budget
Commission of Audit
The National Commision of Audit will report to the Prime Minister, Treasurer and Minister for Finance with the first phase due by the end of January 2014; and the second phase due by no later than the end of March 2014
Members of the team hand-picked by the Abbott government to lead the commission of audit will be paid $1500 a day: more than what a family received through the scrapped Schoolkids Bonus each year.
Tony Abbott’s hand-picked auditor charged with assessing government spending and advising on outsourcing runs a company that has won contracts from the federal government worth more than half a billion dollars.
The NDIS will not be exempt from its commission of audit and may allow the National Disability Insurance Agency (NDIA) to contract out some administrative functions to the private and not-for-profit sectors
Debt
Treasurer Joe Hockey wants to cut waste by hiring expert external consultants to repeat an audit of Treasury forecasts which was done 10 months ago by expert external consultants
Treasurer considers delaying mid-year budget to “avoid hurting confidence”
The Abbott Government has borrowed $8.7billion in 26 days, or $335 million a day – despite campaigning that there was a ‘budget emergency’
They are expecting to confirm a deficit of just under $50 billion in its Mid Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook (MYEFO), $20 billion more than the deficit forecast by Labor in its last economic statement before the election
The Abbott Government has now abandoned its target of returning the budget to surplus in four years, blaming the “profligacy” of its Labor predecessor.
However, Australia had just recorded the most contractionary year for fiscal policy ever seen, a different outcome to the ‘budget emergency’
Concedes that it will have to boost its own spending (and debt levels) if it is to get a rapid injection of funds into infrastructure projects, overlooking spending on programs such as welfare and education
The Treasurer announces increasing the Commonwealth debt limit to $500 billion while announcing a five-person Commission of Audit including former Liberal minister Amanda Vanstone and Tony Shepard from the Business Council of Australia
Abbott is accused of dishonesty over his plans to increase the government’s credit limit to $500 billion.
The Treasurer denies the federal government is bailing out the Reserve Bank with a $8.8 billion contribution (analysis by Michael Pascoe) 2nd analysis
Treasurer Joe Hockey will seek an agreement with the Greens to abolish the debt ceiling this week as he faces new projections showing 13 more years of continuous budget deficits – enough to last the life of this government and the next four. Despite Abbott saying in August 2013, that the Greens have ‘fringe economic policies… no one has that kind of economic policy’ Video of Abbott confirming and committing to never to do a deal with a minor party ever Christine Milne article on the debt ceiling debate
Treasurer Joe Hockey denies being “married to the Greens” after the Federal Government brokered a new deal with the minor party to scrap the debt ceiling
Privatisation
Treasurer is seriously considering a proposal for states to receive a share of company tax revenue in lieu of revenue they would forfeit when assets were privatised – effectively paying the states to privatise public assets
Planning to sell Medibank Private despite sales growth of 7% and health fund membership growth of 145,000 lifted total group revenue to $5.4 billion
Foreign Ownership etc.
Treasurer Joe Hockey says the country needs to accept that keeping Qantas in regulatory handcuffs, which limit foreign ownership in the national flag carrier, will come at a high cost to taxpayers.
Transport unions warn thousands of Qantas maintenance, catering and other support staff could be sacked and their jobs sent offshore if restrictions on the foreign ownership of the national carrier are lifted
Treasurer Joe Hockey has scrapped a set of foreign ownership conditions stopping the Chinese company Yanzhou from taking full ownership of an Australian coal miner, less than two weeks after rejecting a US firm’s $3.4 billion takeover bid for GrainCorp
The Attorney-General reinforces NBN ban on Huawei, a blow to the world’s biggest manufacturer of telco equipment and could strain ties between Australia and the Chinese government, which are negotiating a free-trade agreement that Abbott wants signed within a year
Business
The Federal Government negotiated with Holden in November 2013 over a new round of funding. If the funds do not materialise, Holden has said it will pack up shop and leave. The Treasurer declares the Government will “not negotiate with a gun to our heads”
Holden makes the decision to pull out of Australia as early as 2016 Toyota insists it will stay in Australia after posting a $149 million profit, making it the only local car maker to be in the black.
Treasurer Joe Hockey said in Parliament that Holden managing director Mr Devereux should “come clean with the Australian people” and be “honest”, “Either you’re here or you’re not,” A company insider sends the text message: Are you seeing this question time attack on Holden? during Parliamentary Question Time. Taunting (Holden) to leave. It’s extraordinary.
Holden confirms decision to cease manufacturing operations in Australia by 2017
The fleet of high-security Holdens used by the Prime Minister will be replaced with bomb-proof BMWs.
Minister for Industry Ian Macfarlane says Toyota employees must adjust to changed working conditions (including shorter holidays, ‘time off to give blood, ‘three week shut down over Christmas on top of their annual leave’) in the wake of Holden’s decision to cease manufacturing in Australia.
Abbott rules out more money for Toyota: providing additional money is “not the right way to go”
A monthly private survey has found business confidence has fallen back towards its pre-election levels as optimism fades and conditions remain weak
Other
The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) is on track to run out of money within months and Treasurer Joe Hockey is pointing the finger of blame at the previous Labor government, despite the financial position of the ACCC has been made public every year in its annual report and there is no crisis
Shares fell for the sixth day in a row as offshore investors trimmed their Australian equity portfolios ahead of expectations a depreciating local currency will eat into their profits, the longest losing streak in 17 months for shares
Its promise to axe 12,000 federal public service jobs is on hold as not enough funding has been allocated for redundancies
The Treasurer is determined that his senior public servants spend more time in the ‘real world’, with executives, bankers, bond traders and corporate investors by decentralising Treasury. Shifting parts of Treasury out of Canberra – last done in the early 1990s but reversed in the late 1990s to save money
Setting up a Royal Commission into the former government’s home insulation scheme Despite data showing far from increasing the rates of fire occurring from installing insulation – as it actually reduced the rate of fires and likely reduced the rate in a quite substantial manner.
Repeal the carbon and mining taxes
Abbott will be unable to abolish the fixed price on carbon pollution before 2015 unless he goes to a double-dissolution election, before July 2014
Clive Palmer is threatening to block all the Abbott government’s legislation – even measures he supports such as scrapping the carbon price – unless his party gets more staff and resources
Early repeal of carbon price scheme could cost $2 billion
Boost productivity, reduce regulation and create jobs
Redirected millions of dollars in taxpayer-funded research grants to fund research in dementia and other diseases Guardian article: ‘Politicians shouldn’t have a say on the worth of research grants’
A razor taken to the CSIRO with almost a quarter of scientists, researchers and workers at Australia’s premier science institution will lose their jobs under the federal government’s present public service jobs freeze
AusAID (Australian Agency for International Development) responsible for administering the $5 billion official aid program will be “integrated” back into the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, potentially putting the 1300 Canberra-based staff members out of work
600 staff members of the Australian Customs and Border Protection Service would have to be sacked in the next four years due to budget cuts of $733 million
Reduce cost-of-living pressures for families
Reducing access to superannuation and other entitlements
Keeping 18 of 92 unlegislated tax proposals, remainder will be either dumped, amended or reviewed, a cost of $3.1b to budget. The $2000 cap on self-education expenses dumped, low-income superannuation tax offset linked to mining tax scrapped but rolling back the proposed 15 per cent tax on superannuation earnings over $100,000 a year., fringe benefits changes for car industry dumped, but keeping Labor’s tobacco excise increase, raising $5.3b for budget
Axing the $820/yr Schoolkids Bonus and removing the low income superannuation offset
Industry superannuation funds are warning plans to axe a rebate for low-income workers will affect half of all working women and will disproportionately hit rural workers.
Australians would be denied access to both superannuation and the age pension until they turn 70 under a radical plan that goes far beyond the one proposed by the Productivity Commission
Providing relief payments of up to $1,000 to help people in the aftermath of the New South Wales bushfires but does not include people who have been cut off from their homes or who have no electricity have not been deemed eligible in the first round of disaster payments
Reducing pay rates
The chairman of the Prime Minister’s Business Advisory Council declares that ‘we cannot hide the fact that Australian wage rates are very high by international standards’ The government is distancing itself from these controversial comments John Howard’s former “fair pay” umpire, Ian Harper, has poured cold water on suggestions that the minimum wage affects Australia’s economic competitiveness.
Already facing pressure to get rid of penalty rates
Intending to abandon $1.5 billion of union-linked wage increases for up to 350,000 workers in aged and child care while suspending payments from the $300 million Early Years Quality Fund established by the Gillard government to cover wage increases for childcare workers
The child-care wage increases would have increased certificate III childcare workers by $3 an hour and early-childhood teachers by $6 an hour.
Thousands of aged care workers will miss out on an expected pay rise after the Federal Government dumped a $1.2 billion fund set up by Labor.
Abbott is asking childcare providers to “do the right thing” and hand back $62.5 million given to them to improve wages in the poorly paid sector
Increasing costs
The Education Minister floats the possibility of privatising $23 billion of HECS student debt <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/h