Bill F.
Australians
have been shocked and angered by the federal government’s vicious budget. In
only a few days thousands poured onto the streets to demonstrate their determination
to tear down this budget and the government that lied its way to power in order
to implement austerity attacks on the people.
On
behalf of the “Big Business” Council of Australia, the foreign and local corporate
monopolies, the banks and mining corporations, the government stepped up its
brutal ‘class war’ attacks on the working class, the poor, the aged, the youth,
the sick, people with disabilities, Indigenous Australians, in fact anyone
except a handful of parasitic corporations and banks bloated with the stolen
mega profits created by the labour power of workers.
Cut
to the bone
Public
anger and disgust are spreading as more hidden details of the budget are
exposed.
The
people are incensed at the blatant lies they were fed prior to and during the
election campaign.
The
Australian people are appalled by the extent and savagery of the cuts to
health, education, social welfare benefits and government jobs, by the attack
on young people already struggling to find jobs, by the plan to increase the
retirement age, by cuts to Indigenous services and environmental programs, by
the brazen attack on people with disabilities and the outrageous medical
co-payment scheme and increases in the cost of medicines and medical tests; all
measures that will inflict more hardship, poverty and suffering.
These
attacks are only a prelude to more coming from the Commission of Audit:
extending the GST, abolishing the minimum wage, individual workplace
agreements, pushing down wages and conditions, scrapping penalties, eliminating
job security, crushing unions, deregulating the labour market and financial
institutions even further, more privatisation.
This
is an attack by international monopoly capital that is beset by a major
economic crisis not seen on a global scale since the Great Depression of the
1930s.
The
winners in the budget
This
budget unashamedly declares its complete service to interests of the big end of
town. The Abbott government has taken its cue from the big business Commission
of Audit to move more public funds from public health, education, and people’s
services and spend more on infrastructure that facilitates the profiteering by
mining and construction corporations – roads, ports and railways, for the
transport of freight.
Simultaneously,
preparations are made to crush the people’s resistance to the savage austerity.
Hard won democratic and workers’ rights are systematically taken away.
What next?
These attacks, together with the lies
and deception that preceded them, will not be forgotten or forgiven by the
Australian people. The Coalition government will pay, and there is some chance
that their budget measures will be bogged down in parliament and that they may
even be kicked out if a double dissolution election is held later in the year.
While Labor and the Greens may hope
things go this way, it will not prevent further attacks on the people.
This is because the unelected
architects of Abbott’s budget will still be there – the corporate monopolies in
the “Big Business” Council of Australia who fashioned the razor-gang Commission
of Audit, the big business apologists in the Productivity Commission, and the
mass media barons who beat the drum of globalisation, de-regulation,
privatisation and union-bashing.
This gang want further attacks on wages,
penalties and working conditions. They endorse the US-sponsored TPP trade deal
that will destroy any vestige of economic independence and further increase the
cost of living for the people, destroy jobs and public services.
They support the US military ‘pivot’
that threatens to drag Australia into a disastrous war with China.
They pull the strings while Abbott and
Hockey are their puppets.
No choice but struggle
For
the people’s movement to grow and be really effective, ultimately it will need
to take on the puppet-masters, it needs to be broad-based and capable of
drawing in all sections of the people.
It
must not be claimed or dominated by any particular group but must embrace as
many as possible around the common goal of smashing this evil budget and take
the next step of demanding and fighting for a decent life for the working
people.
As Vanguard
stated in back in February, “Waiting for a Labor government is no good. Working people will have to
make a stand. They will have to find ways to get conversations going in their
workplaces and communities, to get people organised to protest and to put
demands on the government and the big business bosses. Demands not just to
“back off”, but to “get out of our way”.
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