A few Lines Of Blake

A Few Famous Lines from William Blake's Auguries of Innocence: That nothing is "little" or unimportant.

To see a world in a Grain of Sand

And a Heaven in a Wild Flower

Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand

And Eternity in an hour

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Australian Politics: Could the "Fair Go" Be Gone?

The Turning Point

The name of an old ballet movie, "The Turning Point" sums up where we are right now in Australia. Our Liberal National Party Government has ambushed us with its recent budget and taken us pirouetting off to the right....into unknown territory. Is our sunny, lucky country to be changed forever; to no longer be the land of the "fair go" for all? And what can we do about it?

With this budget, our leaders have shed their pre-election sheep's clothing and bared their wolf teeth at us, the people of Oz! We are to blame...we who are being miserably selfish in getting in the way of the super-profiteers, mostly foreign investors. "The age of entitlement is over"snarl Abbott and Hockey, as they tear into our universal health care system, our support for single parent and other low-income families, the disabled, aged pensions and childcare. Not to mention $80 billion worth of cuts to State Government funding of health and education, scientific research, measures to combat climate change. There are even cuts to disaster recovery funding, essential to repair the effects of the climate change we are already experiencing!

So much worthwhile legislation is about to be savaged, without care or consultation. However, the most rabid attack of all has been on our youth, our future! Anyone under thirty will face conditions for unemployment benefits that could see them without income for up to eleven months. Given that youth unemployment is conservatively at 13.1%, (and much higher in some areas) the young are being blamed for a situation not of their making. If they choose, or are forced into, study or training, sky-rocketing University and TAFE fees will mean they are burdened with a huge debt. Whatever happened to the philosophy that an educated population was a resource for our country, an investment? 

It's hard not to see this budget as an attempt to create a subservient labour force, permanently in debt and afraid! No-one, not even most members of the LNP Party, believe this is how Australia should be. The land of the user pays, every person for himself, survival of the richest? No-one believes the excuse that we are in a "fiscal crisis"( not when we have a AAA credit rating). We know our relatively low level of debt could have been seriously tackled by cuts to "the  big end of town": superannuation tax concessions, property and family tax rorts; Abbott's absurdly inequitable Parental Leave Scheme.

Whether this feral, incompetent pack succeed in getting their budget through the Senate, or not, their cover is blown. They will never be trusted again! But they have shown Australians that the turning point is now, and for us! We have to take back our country. No more "she'll be right"shrugging off of responsibility. We need to write letters, make phone calls, use the media, march in the streets, join a political party, raise our democratic voice. We can no longer take our precious, fair, free way of life for granted!

Lucinda Sharpe

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