Meg Pickup, Ballina
The prime minister quickly backtracked on sensing community outrage about the decision to cut funding to Foodbank from $750,000 to $427,000 per year.
Foodbank, a charity that responds to crises including the current drought, feeds 710,000 Australians a month.
The PM added he would increase the government’s food-relief budget by $1.5 million over the next 4.5 years.
Let’s put the government’s treatment of the top and bottom ends of town into perspective. Using treasury data, ABS figures and the University of Melbourne’s Household, Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia Survey progressive think tank Per Capita calculated the cost to the budget of major tax concessions was $135 billion per year. This is more than the cost of the four main welfare payments – aged pension, family assistance payments, disability benefits and Newstart – combined. More evidence why this government is unfit to govern.
