Welfare and the working family: someone do something
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The elevation of Simon and Sonya Dorries of Brisbane to national fame by Dennis Shanahan today is an elegant example of how colossally f-cked up our support payments system is and how utterly skewed political debate has become. The Dorries, bless em, have 7 kids and one on the way. This it is well beyond even Peter Costello’s urging that couples have “one for the country”, and presumably no one pointed a gun at them and forced them to have so many kids. Mr Dorries earns “a bit above $100,000”, but they see themselves as “the quintessential ‘working family’. To which the only sane response is WTF? Eight kids and a six figure income? The only thing that’s quintessential of is a gated community of Catholics. According to Shanahan, Dorries “isn’t complaining” but goes on to lament that they will lose their Family Tax Benefit A due to changes in how his income is assessed. Which should beg the question of why someone earning over $100,000 a year receives any welfare. Instead, it’s apparently evidence of how out of touch the Government is. If the Dorries were so quintessential, they’d do what most families do – find a job for the non-employed partner. In an economy where firms are begging for more workers, Mrs Dorries would find a job, and a lot more money than their lost Family Tax Benefit, quick smart. However, the sense of entitlement implicit in Shanahan’s piece doesn’t distinguish the Dorries. It’s pretty widespread across a lot of households, even if this family is unusual in its tendency to procreate (there’s already 7 billion people on the planet – a few more won’t hurt, surely). This is the one element of Mark Latham’s ongoing fulminations against “aspirationals” that is actually on the mark. In a new era of inflation caused by fuel and food costs and the skills shortage, political debate in Australia is mired in a mindset that insists Government can and must do something. In the absence of a miraculous capacity to wish away the populations of India and China (while, somehow, preserving high levels of demand for our mineral exports), Governments can do nothing except ensure the economy is operating at its most efficient. To the extent that the Government is focussed on addressing infrastructure and skills issues, it is doing the right thing, even if Wayne Swan isn’t the best Government Minister to explain that story. The demand that Governments do something isn’t peculiar to Australia, of course, as riots in Europe and SE Asia, and John McCain’s petrol stunt demonstrate. But it is exacerbated here by the previous Government’s deliberate tax-and-spend policies, which encouraged a sense of entitlement to government support that now drives the debate over petrol, groceries, child care – wherever prices are going up. The economic model advocated by the Hawke-Keating Government – an efficient market economy with minimal intervention and a strong but means-tested safety net, has been transformed by the Coalition into a Government-dominated model in which high taxes are churned into untested income support and handouts, and that can’t be changed without screams from the likes of the Dorries family. There is, of course, one long-term solution to that mentality. A massive, and permanent, cut in taxes that would significantly reduce the size of government in Australia, and force any politician wanting to give handouts to voters to jack up taxes in order to pay for it. But the last time I checked, no one except a few thinktanks and The AFR were still pushing the case for small government in Australia. We’ll be hearing a lot more from the Dorries of the country for years to come. |
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14 Comments
Nigel Pope is correct but we must qualify his statement-under Howard it is exactly these people who saw it as their entitlement to receive every handout going whilst those at the bottom end should be punished for being there-Tony Abbott’s “dole bludgers” etc. That was Howard’s mantra-reward the “rich” with even more and take away from those who are poor and about the extent of his and Costello’s so-called brilliant managent of the economy when we are all actually riding on the back of what happens to be in the ground mainly in west Australia.
Good for you Marilyn. We raised three kids in the 80s and 90s with zero government handouts on an income I’d guess was roughly equivalent to the Dorries after allowing for inflation. In those days the (much smaller) family payments cut out at much lower income levels. We were not exactly wealthy and at times it was tough - this was the period of 17% interest rates and a recession - but we thought we were doing OK compared to a lot of other people at the time.
So we’re just a bit bemused to see this new generation of bleeding hearts going to the ramparts to defend middle class welfare. The Dorries chose to have seven kids. Note no-one’s asking them how many the’d have had if the benefits weren’t there. Or which they’re going to give back now.
We’re actually quite proud that, through good luck, hard work and the superannuation system, we’ll probably go through our entire lives without a single suck off the public income support teat. Not everyone’s so fortunate, but I’d rather my taxes be used to give a better deal for Marilyn and all her fellow pensioners than go to people who can well afford to look after themselves.
Right, I am so very sick of hearing about these poor battlers on $100k+ who are doing it tough because the government refuses to subsidise their lifestyle choice - which, incidentally, is what having seven kids and a stay-at-home mum is. But a lot of people really do seem to feel entitled - post-Budget coverage was peppered with stories like “what about me? I earn $150000 and I don’t feel rich!” Well, guess what, toots? Not being rich doesn’t automatically entitle you to a tax break, and anyway you’re a helluva lot richer than most of us, so how about you just suck it up and pay your taxes?
Bernard Keane is right. One of the great catastrophes of the Howard years is that even more people have an entitlement mentality and have become addicted to government handouts. The only solution is, as proposed, a massive reduction in taxation to force a reduction in the size of government.
As for the Dorries, they have to understand that their -choice- to have a family of eight is one that should not be subsidised by the rest of us. However, no doubt the Howard years (and the tabloid TV trash of A Current Affair and Today Tonight) have indoctrinated them to believe in their inalienable right to be financially supported by the government’s redistribution of our money.
Reminds one of a Sunday Tele spread a couple of years ago complaining that increased NSW govt car rego charges were hurting struggling families. The struggling family they used in the story comprised ma and pa and three kids and FOUR cars including two four wheel drives. Tell ‘em they’re dreaming!
This article sums up my frustration with a system so overloaded with people who can well afford to support themselves but expect the rest of us to carry them. Meanwhile those who really need our help like the seriously mentally ill, aged parents trying to support disabled children etc etc are constantly told there is not enough money to really make a difference for them. We also forget the huge cost of the bureaucracy required to keep on churning tax back to these parasites in the form of welfare payments. I had two children, not 8, because I knew that was the number I could fully support and educate. There is no merit in breeding beyond your means to provide fully for your own children. The Dorries of this world seem to think we should be grateful to them, so grateful we want to chip in with our hard earned money but here’s one tax payer that really resents freeloaders.
Delusional Dennis Shanahan is definitely living in a parallel universe, a trait he shares with most who write for The Australian. He and the others there will do anything to try and shape the world to their bizarre American driven ideology. The Australian, like the other outlets in the News Ltd stable, is completely out of touch with Australian values. The Australian is so obsessively doctrinaire it should be renamed Pravda.
Bernard: I would suggest that Mrs Dorrie already has a job… seven+ kids will keep her flat out and on call 24/7 for many years to come.
”..find a job for the non-employed partner..” Bernard, I’m not sure who is “f***ed up” here but it sure isn’t the Dorries. Doesn’t this article present the quintessential ‘latte-liberal’ understanding or MISunderstanding of family life and the economics and benefits to the community of raising, educating and preparing children for adulthood!
And look at all those Left-wing Thatcherites in comment. Happy to spend tax payers money killing unborn children and protecting homosexual whales but not a crumb, not a morsel for this family and their “life choice”.
So Sonya is unemployed. Bernard, mate, get your dear wife to proof read this nonsense before you publish and then offer to do a job swap with Sonya for a week. She can sit in the press gallery rubbing shoulders with the social progressives and you can run the family. Only, hands off Simon. We don’t want to take this ‘social progressiveness’ too far
Looks like the Dorries read six Glenn Milne articles with Costello sprouting have one for the country, so they did. Dorries really shouldn’t have put his head up on this because it implies he thinks parenthood is a fully-funded government service. And Dennis Shanahan did him no favours by hedging readers would get side-tracked on the warm, fuzzy and uplifting thrust of a couple engrossed in being serial Mums and Dads. Although, let’s take a positive on the Dorrie principle. In this era of spin we’ve got an ideal argument to resolve the nation’s housing shortage/affordability crisis. Instead of having babies the rest of us could go and buy five investment properties and ask the government to pay the mortgages. NO!!! Did I hear the Dorrie’s are planning to adopt?
Don’t forget they qualify for $5,000 for some or all of their kids, that their welfare payment for the existing kids per annum is more than the entire pension for people on aged or disability benefit and that they are still whining.
What the hell is wrong with the media that they have to find all these a holes and pretend that they are hard up because of that naughty Kevin Rudd who thinks that welfare benefits are for those who cannot get any other income.
How many billions are wasted of the $102 billion per annum welfare bill by poor people propping up the relatively wealthy.
I have suggested over and over again that some of these whinging turkeys roll a $2 coin around their hands and realise that 2 billion human beings on this planet live on this or less every day while we whine about saving that much per week on our petrol bills.
I will state that I live on disability and while sometimes the bills are a bit late I have everything I need to be comfortable and can still manage to see the occasional political film - like Hope which I am seeing tomorrow.
WTF - $100k+ income, 7 kids and 1 one the way is “the quintessential ‘working family”? Australia’s welfare dependency is a very real and important issue that needs to be addressed by professional research and journalism not left to Dennis Shanahan.
We need more intelligent analysis like this right across the media spectrum. Enough of these weepy tales of the poor mummies and daddies who cant drive the kiddies to the Portsea holiday house in the 4 wheel drive because Kevin Rudd wont fix petrol prices! Australians used to disparage whingers and whingeing. Have we lost our self respect? Here we are the priveleged of the earth with plenty to eat and entertain us- whingeing and snivelling about life’s minor irritations.
Of course the gutter press (and some not so gutter) are in there encouraging this enormous sense of entitlement leaving off only to denigrate and criticise those who really are missing out on Australia’s largesse. Their numbers are not high but they sure are doing it hard- Indigenous Australians with no running water, crowded little hovels, refugees and asylum seekers with no income and no right to work- condemned to real poverty. Get a grip Australia- stop navel gazing and get out there and give a helping hand to those really in need.
I will get off my soapbox now. On ya Bernard Keane.
What kind of people does Dennis Shanahan mix with? Mr Dorries’ income is more than twice the average, an average already exaggerated by including very high income earners. The fact is most workers earn $40,000 or less. Get out into the real world, Dennis.