25. Government Welfare Cuts

With around 11,000 teenage mothers in receipt of parenting payment, that's a heck of a lot of money for the taxpayer to be paying to support teenagers who have a child. Do the math - multiply $625.90 which is the government payment by 11,000... about $6.39741684 million dollars a fortnight!

The Prime Minister's tough love budget gets the seal of approval from me.

Teenage mums' welfare payments will be suspended six months after the birth if they do not follow Centrelink orders under Julia Gillard's "tough love" Budget.
Once their child reaches 12 months, teenage parents must attend school to finish year 12. If they skip class, they will lose their parenting payment of up to $625.90 a fortnight.


This should have been done years ago and not just to balance the budget - many young people accept little or no responsibility. There will of course be people who disagree with getting teen mums back to school for an education or working see here.


HOWEVER, there are other things that need to be taken into consideration and further planning and action must be done for this to be workable -

1. I disagree with enforcing this when the baby is at such a young age - it is better by far to wait until the baby is 12 months old.

2. Another problem I can see is where does the baby go while the mum is at school? There aren't enough childcare centres and placements as it is - does the government also have a plan to build enough childcare centres to accommodate these babies?

3. And when the mother has completed year 12, what then?

4. Changes made to single parent pensions (now called parenting payment) - at present, single parents must work a minimum of 15 hours per week when their youngest child turns 6 or they lose the pension.

5. With the government's new tough love budget, when the teen has completed year 12 will they be expected to work even though their child is under the age of 6 years?

Cuts to Disability Pensions
Is Julia Gillard and her razor gang going to slash disability pensions? The Australian Human Rights Commission's disability discrimination commissioner has backed calls to get people off the disability pension and back into work. And is that fair? Pensioners are already living below the poverty line - are they going to go in a downward spiral of further poverty to pay for the Queensland floods? Don't get me wrong, there is a huge damage bill to not only Queensland but Victoria as well, and we as taxpayers will all share the cost, but cutting pensions? Seems to me Ms Gillard is targeting the wrong people - why not start with cutting the wages of our Members of Parliament? Cut the freebies and perks and taxpayer-funded travel in the name of "on government service" - let them drive their own cars to and from work and pay for their own petrol out of their own pockets. I do - I pay for mine, nobody pays me petrol money.

And pensions for former Prime Ministers are way above the ordinary pensioner.
Kevin Rudd will get $600,000 a year for life when he leaves politics.
John Howard gets a multi-million dollar pension. Mr Howard will retire on a pension worth up to $330,000 a year or he could take a $1.5 million lump sum payout and an annual pension of about $165,000 a year.

And what about all the other former prime ministers, how much would they be getting I wonder?

We've all heard the old saying, there's one law for the rich and another for the poor.