idiot mantra.... he wasn't leader or PM then was he ....
dope.
Julia Gillard setting a record for betrayals
GOVERNMENTS of every hue have a nasty habit of breaking promises.
Paul Keating gave us the "L-A-W law" tax cuts. John Howard drew an absurd distinction between "core" and "non-core" promises.
Julia Gillard is setting something of a record for backflips and betrayals, and her rationalisations about the challenges of running a minority government will be seen by many voters as nothing more than an excuse for doing one thing and saying another.
The list has become lengthy and unimpressive. In the 2010 election campaign Ms Gillard promised families a $2000 rebate to trade in old cars manufactured before 1995 so they could buy new vehicles meeting emission standards.
"I want to help Australians update their motor vehicles," she pledged.
The following year the Government announced it was not proceeding with the scheme.
In 2010 Treasurer Wayne Swan declared that Australia would return to surplus in the 2012-13 Budget. "Come hell or high water," was his quote at the time. Emphatic stuff. In a couple of weeks Mr Swan will bring down a thumping multibillion- dollar deficit.
We were promised in 2010 that the guaranteed tax deduction would be increased from $500 to $1000 in 2013-14.
Ms Gillard's quote was clear.
"We will move this country to tick-and-flick tax returns for many taxpayers with the benefits of a guaranteed $500 tax deduction," she said.
"The guaranteed tax deduction will increase to $1000 in 2013-14." This did not happen.
Most infamously, after declaring in 2010 that
"There will be no carbon tax under the government that I lead", Ms Gillard introduced that very tax, in cahoots with the Greens who had helped deliver her a flimsy form of power after the deadlocked 2010 election.
This latest broken promise is a deeply disappointing one as it goes to the very core of Ms Gillard's being as a politician - education.
As education minister Ms Gillard was responsible for the introduction of some excellent and long-overdue reforms that went to the heart of transparency in terms of student and school performance.
But the adjunct to this was a recognition that public schools would continue to be held back if the best teachers were not rewarded for their great work.
To this end teachers were to be eligible for bonus payments of up to $10,000.
The $425 million program was slashed in half by the Gillard Government in 2011 and not a single bonus payment has been paid to teachers under the scheme.
Today, the Sunday Mail can reveal that the Commonwealth's new funding deal for the states confirms payments under the scheme
"will cease in 2014".
It is up to the states to pay the bonuses if they wish to do so but they will not be compelled to do so.
It will not happen. It really isn't good enough for political parties to meander their way around the countryside on election campaigns, making wild promises of rebates and bonuses and ruling out new taxes, only to turn around and do the opposite when they form power.
A
backflip such as this on the important question of teachers' bonus pay is a politically dangerous move by a Government that can ill afford any missteps as it heads towards judgment day in September.
YOU really have to wonder how it is that a hefty $109 million compensation fund can provide such an insulting morsel of cash to a young man who suffered the most heinous crime imaginable.
Christopher Rowe lost his mother, father and sister in the 2010 Kapunda triple murders. It was deemed that each of those lives was worth just $7666 through the Victims of Crime Fund.
It seems a pittance for the grief Mr Rowe continues to endure, and which kept him from earning an income as he stopped work to deal with the horror of what transpired.
This fund is supported by one of the few levies that most South Australians are happy to pay.
Aside from drawing on money from the ill-gotten gains of convicted criminals, we all contribute to the cash pool whenever we absent-mindedly exceed the speed limit or commit another low-level misdemeanour.
This is right and fair. But it is a cruel deceit, most gallingly for victims such as Christopher Rowe, to learn that the scheme is being so
poorly administered that people are not only failing to receive the maximum payouts, but that the amount of money on offer is so small as to be almost useless.
We expect the State Government to investigate and will be holding it to account, on behalf of crime victims, over the coming weeks.
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