People don’t believe in budgets
WE SHOULD ALL FEEL PROUD THAT WE LIVE IN A COUNTRY WHERE WE DON’T BANKRUPT PEOPLE WHO NEED DRUGS TO SAVE OR EXTEND THEIR LIVES
THE problems with budgets aren’t that they don’t promise enough handouts, but most people just don’t believe them.
Both sides promise huge amounts of money for health, education and while we’ll all line up to take the tax cut, we don’t expect much to change.
This isn’t because they are lying to us, but because at the end of the day the big numbers are lost on us when no matter the promise, we still have to pay to park at a hospital and parents are asked to donate things like tissues for their kids to use at schools.
The ugly truth of budget politics is it’s an arms race, ‘my promise is bigger than yours’ stuff.
This means governments don’t use the good times to build a few big things a year, because the party on the other side will say ‘normal’ people are being ignored.
The same game was played for all to see in Canberra this week, especially on tax cuts but there was a very bright spot the government deserves credit for.
There’s a drug called Besponsa, it helps people with acute leukaemia and the government has decided to put it on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS).
This means a drug that normally costs a staggering $120,000 for a course will now be subsidised for Aussies so people who need it will only pay between $6.50 and $40 per script.
It’s one of two thousand drugs this government have added to the PBS making life genuinely easier for people when they really need it.
We should all feel proud that we live in a country where we don’t bankrupt people who need drugs to save or extend their lives.
Now, we can always do better and there are plenty more drugs we need to add to the list. But it comes at a cost of billions I’m sure political advisers would prefer is spend on the promise arms race.
Thankfully they don’t run the show, the people we elect do and they have done something very special this week.
BIG CITY SNOBS DON’T UNDERSTAND WHAT HAPPENS WHEN SHOPS CLOSE IN THE REGIONS
Big W’s decision to close 30 stores across the country is going to have a huge impact. Not just on the hundreds of jobs that will go, but on the fringes of our cities and especially in our regions these kinds of shops are vital to keeping local shopping centres going.
Often Big W, Kmart or Target are the biggest shops in these smaller centres and when they go, it’s virtually impossible to replace them.
It means fewer people visit these centres and the shops that have decided to stay suffer and maybe in the end a community loses their local shopping centre because the landlord just sells it off. I know buying things on the internet is easy and I don’t want you to stop, but I do think we all need to understand why we need to turn up and shop in person too. We need the jobs to stay in our communities and shops to be a buzzing place to visit.