As former treasurer Joe Hockey said in 2014, “the age of entitlement is over”, or at least it should be.
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Well it’s not and government hand-outs are common. They are also notoriously prone to misuse and exploitation.
Welfare recipients cop most of the flak. Why? Because they’re easy targets and individual circumstances are not readily apparent to the typical observer.
It’s inevitable some will try to rort the system – a welfare system already broken and under increasing strain.
But this is not entitlement, this is supporting our fellow Australian who has fallen on hard times.
Our farmers sometimes suffer the same fate in the boom or burst world of agriculture dependent on the weather.
But few seek financial assistance.
Often it’s pride that holds them back but words from Mr Hockey that business can no longer look to government for help, certainly didn’t help either.
“The age of personal responsibility has begun,” he said in his 2014 entitlement speech.
Government should take on some of that responsibility themselves and stop rampant privatisation of public assets.
Shouldn’t we all be entitled to at least a little investment?
This week, in our own backyard, we saw a prime example of consequences when government assets are sold.
More than two decades after Graincorp was privatised, neglected infrastructure is holding up the local harvest.
Breeza grain grower Andrew Pursehouse said expenditure which should have been invested on more silos to cope with the huge yields, is instead being funnelled into shareholder returns.
The flow on effects are real and the impact on farmers, serious.
Truck queues are backing up, production has slowed and money lost.
It’s hard for enough for farmers running a regional business without government selling off the ground and infrastructure beneath them. We need more of it, not less.
Staff from the Murray-Darling Basin Authority said it this week during a heated meeting in town (but that’s another debate) – that agriculture underpins the Gunnedah economy.
Government can’t afford to short-change the industry which has and will continue to provide for this town for generations to come.
