ACTU – Cruel Budget Targets Widows and Unemployed

Big corporations are the big winners from the Coalition’s latest Budget, as the Government wages war on the most vulnerable and those with very little.

Australians who rely on welfare and university students have been hit with more than $7 billion in cuts, while the plan to cut taxes for big corporations by $50 billion remains on track.

The war on the vulnerable includes a cruel three-strike system that will see families hit hardest when essential payments are cut off or cancelled for non-compliance.

The Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) sees this Budget as another attempt from this Government to bolster the coffers of big corporations and the bank balances of the wealthy while cutting payments to the young and vulnerable.

Worst of the Government’s Budget:

• $50 billion corporate tax cuts on track
• Cut at least $3 billion from welfare
• Cut almost $4 billion from higher education
• $22.3 billion cut from school education funding
• Slashed 1,200 jobs from the department of human services
• Tax cut for income earners on $180,000 or more

The following quotes are attributable to ACTU President Ged Kearney:

• “This is not an honest budget. It is an attack on the most vulnerable at a time when inequality is at a 70 year high in Australia.”
• “It does not deliver good, steady jobs. It does nothing to address high youth unemployment or the crisis of underemployment.”
• “It also makes wild assumptions about future wage growth at a time when low paid people’s penalty rates are set to be cut, wage theft is rife and jobs are increasingly insecure.”
• “What it in fact does is robs Peter to pay Paul; Big corporations will get their $50 billion tax cut at the expense of university students and our most vulnerable people.”
• “Attempts to convince Australians that this budget is fair because of tiny taxes on the banks is no more than a smoke and mirrors exercise.”
• “We needed a budget to boost living standards for working people. On that score this Budget has failed. In fact, inequality will grow.”