The flood levy...why would anyone have a problem with it?

[Violet_Crumble]

Well, apart from Tony Abbot, who's a complete wanker who doesn't stop to before inserting his foot firmly in his mouth. I can't think of a reason why any middle-to-high income earner would have any problem with the levy. Yet the media has been going on about all the opposition to the levy. I'm just not seeing it as I've yet to meet a single person who has any objection to it....

[canetoad]

1. My impression

Is that the whingeing is coming mainly out of NSW, which didn't suffer the magnitude of damage that Q'land and Vic did.

I haven't heard any complaints either. A nice socialist tax that makes the rich pay more!

[Matilda]

2. The Business Council of Australia, that's who.

Tony Abbott's staunchest supporters.

They are today proposing that disability pensions should be cut as an alternative to the levy. These people are the top 100 employers in the country - the people who could afford to pay the levy as easily as most of us drop a few coins into the Guide Dogs box.

From council president, Graham Bradley:

"Being a long-term unemployed person is not good for people's psychology - it is not good for their health, it is not good for their recovery," he said.

"We need to be doing everything we can to reduce the incentives, including the tax disincentives for people to go back to work."

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/02/14/3137847.htm

Of course, we all know that the ranks of the disabled are full of people who are faking it; who'd rather live on the pittance they get from the government than have a purpose in life and a decent wage. Some people just love the humiliation of going along to Centrelink every few months to prove why they're unable to work, and they're really happy just eking out an existence.

The Business Council and people like them make me sick, and they're a major reason why I could never, ever vote conservative.

And I hate that Tony Abbott is my local member.

[nostromo_au]

3. Flood levy

Abbot has not once failed to try to turn any situation, however dire, to his own political advantage. The man is shameless. Of course we all as Australians would be only too willing to pay to rectify this disaster, if only the right wing of politics and their media enablers would stop putting the idea out there that there's something wrong with us doing so. It always puzzles me that the very people in the political sphere who claim the moral high ground on so many social issues show absolutely no compunction whatsoever in cynically turning every catastrophe into a political football.