on Priorities
Let's celebrate our economy ...but let's get the priorities right!
Australia's fresh new Liberal Coalition government this week produced its first budget and, despite our lowest government debt standing in the western world & firm AAA rating, went straight to work on a budget deficit ...gutsy stuff featuring:
- getting more young unemployed people trained to work
- creating a massive plan for infrastructure building to offset our peaking mining boom
- opening a firm funding discussion for what can be afforded over time in health & education spend
- hitting 3% highest income earners to address immediate fiscal debt (3 years only)
- involving middle class to share in longer term budget savings
- opening a new medical research global centre of excellence as a centrepiece for new markets
All sounds good despite some frenzied discussions about broken election promises here or there but...
The buck stops at pensioners. Mr Abbott's insistence that ALL Australians share the weight of this recovery is commendable but amending the indexation base for pensioners and removing standing bonuses is just not fair. These people have paid their taxes ...leave them alone.
And despite the firm view of the Government that they have really considered lower income earners; let's keep a close eye on this end of the spectrum ...many of these people have NO tolerance for adjustments to their income AT ALL. Let's not presume anything!!!
SOLSTICE
Enter the darkest of seasons
As a draft cuts cold
'neath the door
Winter
brings a need for reflection
...just like others gone before
But how does one
fathom the years?
Let alone
make sense of it?
The lethargy builds
as the months go by...
not helping one little bit
Beyond ....to the window
my meanderings drift
People rush along through sleet
Covering their heads
as best they can
A spray fizzing up from their feet
I see a weathered gent
with much slower steps
His greatcoat hides his all
He stops to sit
for reasons all his own
beside an unwelcoming wall
Below me the leaves have all fallen
They await a day in the yard
There they will stay
till spring comes again
Right now
it seems far too hard
Forwarded from my I phone - Grahame J Flynn
