En Passant

What this Budget does for: (a) the environment – nothing (b) jobs – nothing (c) falling real wages – nothing (d) job insecurity – nothing (e) homelessness – nothing (f) housing affordability – nothing (g) poverty – nothing

James Supple writes in Solidarity magazine that the National Centre for Social and Economic Modelling at the University of Canberra (NATSEM) released modelling that did the sums [on Hockey’s 2015 Budget]. As Ben Phillips from NATSEM explained, “the overall picture is one where low income families do the heavy lifting.

Solidarity magazine argues that Tony Abbott is desperately praying that this year’s budget will save his skin. But the budget cuts from last year remain in place, and even his new spending on childcare relies on taking money allocated elsewhere for families and new mothers.

The next time Abbott or Hockey tell us to ‘have a go’, our response should be ‘you have to go, ya mugs.’

This is the link to my interview on 3 CR this morning on the fake Budget emergency. We discuss among other things the fake Budget emergency, the class divide between spending cuts and not taxing the rich, and some of the leaked proposals for the Budget tonight.

In framing its 12 May Budget the Abbott government is torn between its desire to slash and burn and the realisation, in light of the massive backlash against its 2014 austerity Budget, that to do so would guarantee its political death. What it will do among other things is cloak some of its cuts in the rhetoric of fairness or look for back door ways to introduce their cuts. A wounded government is a dangerous government.

Where does all this income – profits, rents, dividends, interest, wages etc – and the taxes imposed on it, come from? It is the wealth (or more precisely, in Marxist terms, the surplus value) we workers create that we are talking about. It is ours. We should decide where it goes, not the parliamentary popinjays of profit.

In the circumstances of reformism’s despair and degeneration, abuse becomes a substitute for politics. To win laughter back we on the left need to help organise the fight, fight, fight against the neoliberalism of both parties which renders so many on the soft left, in their passivity, humourless and without hope.