“…It now sounds like an accusation that Kev has been so careless with “our” money that some has splashed onto the ungrateful and impliedly undeserving rabble. What a waste to splash good money on bogans. Or as in, it’s just a splash of money (insignificant to real people of substance) that makes no real difference to those sorts of people …”

Totally agree. This idea (repeated often in the press and comments) that ‘poor’ people have less idea about how to spend unexpected largesse is so insulting. I have commented before about the insulting idea that much of the stimulus package went on ‘plasmas and pokies’. There are many people in this nation who have just been waiting for a decent lump sum to spend on their teeth, their cats’ teeth, some batts in the roof, repairs for the car, you name it. It is SO insulting to suggest that people with less than adequate resources (and this could be for many reasons, chronic ill health being one of the most frequent among the ‘deserving poor’ I’d suggest) for whom the recent payouts were a godsend and all went on stuff we needed and had needed for a long time.

Most of my “cash splash” actually went on employing local tradesmen to do things around the place I’d long needed but didn’t have the health/energy to do myself. So it was true employment-creating funding. Some of it went on health-promoting treatments not covered by Medicare or my health fund (but again, basically employing locals to do things they wouldn’t otherwise have got the chance to do). These things also benefited me but I think it was the wider benefit to the economy that the Government was aiming at.

It really pisses me off when anyone suggests that just because a person is not well-endowed financially they are also lacking in the basic sense to know what is value for money and what they need to improve their lives.

There are so many people for whom a $900 lump sum (or any lump sum) makes possible things that were totally out of the question before. No thinking person is likely to fritter away such an opportunity on frivolities. We are more likely to say to ourselves ‘thank god! at last I can xx or yy”. Even if it’s just visit the dentist, pay off the electricity bill or register the car for another year. There are MANY among us for whom these are major hurdles. And our lack of ability to do same does not just affect us but DOES have an effect on the economy so I can’t see how the stimulus packages have been wasted money for anyone but a very very few.

Q. What do you get if you cross a dyslexic insomniac with an agnostic?

A. Someone who wakes up in the night and asks “Is there a dog?”