The 'compassionate' Coalition in action

Here is Tony Abbott at his hypocritical best .

"The Federal Opposition condemned any move by the Rudd Government to scrap bonus payments to seniors.
Opposition families and community services spokesman Tony Abbott today said the seniors' payments had helped more than two million pensioners last year and should be preserved.
"The Howard government thought this was an important way of allowing less well-off people to share in our economic prosperity. This was the social dividend of the economic boom,'' he said.
This year's budget surplus was predicted to be huge, he said, and it was only fair that Prime Minister Kevin Rudd give something back.
"This year, there's going to be an even bigger budget surplus - $20 billion - and yet the Rudd Government is not going to give carers bonuses and now it's not going to give seniors bonuses either,'' Mr Abbott said.
"Kevin Rudd criticised John Howard as being mean and tricky, but as soon as he gets his hands on the levers of power he starts taking things away from the most vulnerable people in society.
"Kevin Rudd has been parading his Christian virtue, yet he's taking away from the most vulnerable that little bit extra the government was giving as some way of sharing in the good times.'' 

Sounds good doesn't it. Tony wants the seniors bonus payment preserved.

Which begs the question as to why the former Howard Government only implemented this payment as a one-off bonus.

First grabbing the initial give-away money from the Dept. of Employment and Workplace Relations budget and then failing to confirm it in any forward estimates. 
As evidenced by the DEWR Supplementary Additional Estimates Statements 2006-07.

 

Tony also sounds quite good when he rails against the abolition of the carers bonus.

Which calls up a recollection of the May 2007 second reading of the Appropriation Bill (No. 1) 2007-08. This reading had former Treasurer Peter Costello admitting (of the now increased bonuses) that "Both the seniors and the carers bonuses will be paid by 30 June 2007."

So, in fact neither type of $500 bonus was included in the last Howard Government budget.

Ergo, it was never going to happen in 2008 for there was no budget allocation.

So much for the suddenly 'compassionate' Tony Abbott and friends.

 

Now the Coalition is howling about these bonuses and insisting that these remain even though they had apparently ceased to exist on the Howard Government books.

A "bonus" is never a payment on solid ground anyway and to repeatedly attack the Rudd Government, when it had signalled that it was considering translating these lapsed payments into permanent Centrelink benefits/allowances, was foolish in the extreme.

The resultant panic among the elderly in response to the Coalition's half-truths now means we have a situation where these bonuses continue as a one-off to be delivered at the whim of the government of the day, and who do we have to thank for this uncertainty.

Why, Tony Abbott and friends.

"Mean and tricky" - I think that appellation now applies to Mr. Abbott.