There are few things more upsetting than over-paid politicians (who claim a special empathy with the poor), giving themselves a substantial pay rise in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis.
You can’t afford your power bill thanks to Chris Bowen’s ‘cheap’ renewables, but you can bet the Prime Minister will make an argument for his $14,500 pay rise (from $607,471 per year to $622,050) because it’s ‘below inflation’ and not as much as 3.4 per cent wage rise for the minimum wage.
Remember, it makes sense to compare the economic plight of politicians earning more than six times the average wage to those poor saps who earn 13 times less than he does on the minimum wage.
It was lower than the Fair Work Commission’s Annual Wage Review.
That is little comfort to the taxpayer.
Even Opposition Leader Sussan Ley gets a raise of $10,374 to $442,643.
The Treasurer, who thinks ‘Kinder Capitalism’ can be achieved by raiding people’s super, gets to take home $448,625. (If the Treasury is strapped for cash, perhaps he could consider taking it off his peers, especially the ones whose retirement we are paying for even if they did a horrible job.)
Backbenchers will now be on $239,267.
Is this what they mean by ‘re-distributing the wealth’? Labor are reverse Robin Hoods, taking from the working class and giving it to the upper-political class.
We also have to put up with the Unions weaponising public transport against the workforce, creating chaos to squeeze ever-more absurd pay rises out of pathetic Labor Premiers. (And don’t forget, if you have the misfortune of a CFMEU construction site, you can expect it to come in several years late and cripplingly over-budget.)
The people who don’t get pay rises are small business owners.
Over five years, they have seen the doors of their shops forcibly closed thanks to unreasonable pandemic lockdowns. They were demonised by the Left for taking JobKeeper handouts which covered a fraction of the wage bill and none of the rent, power, water, or dead stock costs. They have been fed to the wolves thanks to complete indifference from the government when it comes to the market saturation of cheap Chinese goods that are produced at slave labour rates, with toxic materials, no red tape regulations, and dubious safety requirements. And now they are told to absorb rises in rent, power, and staff costs handed out by the ‘generous’ government and condemned as ‘evil capitalists’ if they close down in exhaustion.
It cannot go on like this.
Labor cannot keep taking money from the decreasing productive economy and handing it to a flourishing State and public service.
Working on the public payroll must never be so lucrative that it competes against the private business economy. The reason for this should be obvious to any passably competent economist (even if it escapes the Treasurer).
It’s no wonder people are saying, ‘F- it, I’ll live off the State and go for a surf.’
If there is no reward for sacrifice, then those sacrifices will not be made.
And forget being a pensioner.
If you’re a pensioner with financial stability and investment … Labor are making plans to take that. If you’re a pensioner living day-to-day on scraps from the government, Albo threw a few extra cents your way. You are not important to Labor. You probably vote Liberal. You might tell your kids to vote Liberal. Better for Labor to make an example out of you by painting you as poor so they can demonstrate that being young and voting Left provides financial security (until the money runs out).
This is the reality of Jim Chalmers’ version of capitalism infested with socialism.
The economy becomes a political weapon to punish people with the wrong political opinion and subvert the democratic process by forgiving private (student) debt with public money.
Oh, and politicians give themselves a pay rise as a reward for mismanaging our detransition from a first world country to a third world country without a UN-worthy victimhood status.
