totally agree with the sentiment on the afternoon thread regarding being penalised for hard work.
Remember when Bob Carr abolished the land tax threshold? I got hit with a $17,000 tax bill, up from $10,000 the year before.
A person came into my office last week. He has been in the country for 3 months as a refugee. He needed help filling in a centrelink claim form. I said I was under the assumption centrelink only paid you if you had been here for more than 2 years. In his broken (non-existent English), he said, "No, you government very stupid. Pay me, my wife and babies for nothing, brother sister too. God Bless Australia. They pay me to come here". That iritated me. My uncle has been working as a bus driver for the past 42 years. He decided to finally retire and go on a pension. He was treated like a criminal. The staff at Centrelink treated him with disdain, whilst new arrivals were being treated with dignity. Where is the fairness? My uncle had his pension cut back by $74 a fortnight, because he had a bank account with $15,000 in it and some super (not a lot considering it only started in 1991 and bus drivers earn overtime which does not attract super).
