Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Tony Abbotts "Parental Leave Scheme"

Tony Abbott's latest scheme is for expecting parents, which everyone is calling it the "Parental Leave Scheme". Essentially, this is for new mothers who take maternity leave. Those new mothers will be getting 6 months leave, fully-paid up to $150, 000. Tony Abbott insists that taxes won't go up to fund the scheme.

However Tony Abbott plans to pay for this by having increased tax on 3000+ large companies. Umm, Tony, didn’t you say that taxes wouldn’t go up? Or just because large organisations are wealthy, that you don’t consider them people, and they have the right to be taxed? Why should they pay more because they’re successful. They probably worked really hard.

This scheme has been bashed by the Business Council of Australia, the Australian Industry Group, and the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry. Obviously, they aren’t going to like it because its going to affect them. Their taxes will rise because of Tony Abbott scheme.

I seriously think that this scheme is going to have a bad impact on Australian economy. Considering the extent of the GFC, organisations are already having a hard time trying to make a profit, and now this is just going to make it worse. Organisation are going to have to cut costs dramatically in order to survive, and this will inevitably lead to them making some of their employees redundant.

Tony Abbott had said that this is helping the economy, but I don’t see how. Australian jobs are fragile enough as it is, and putting more people at the risk of having their jobs become redundant is never good. Those redundant people will have to look for new jobs, and with a rising unemployment rate, that’s a bad thing because people won't be able to support their families.

Then that will lead to financial difficulty or even homelessness. How is this helping, Tony? I understand that having and raising a child is VERY expensive, however it was the parent’s choice to raise a child. And if you’re saying that accidents happen, you can either get an abortion or put the child up for adoption. It's not like they are totally alone; parents still get the baby bonus.

This scheme is unnecessary. Parents survived before, and I’m sure they would do the same now, without this new "parental leave scheme" being implemented. Why should large organisations have to pay for other people, because they choose to have a child? I'm not a CEO or anything, but I’m just trying to see where these large organisations are coming from.

Not only that, but ex-treasurer Peter Costello has released an article slamming Tony Abbott's scheme titled "Leaders jostle in the race to rock bottom" which has a go at Rudd wanting to claim 30% of the GST to help "fix" the hospital system. On top of Peter Costello's criticisms, former Prime Minister Paul Keating called Tony Abbott an "intellectual nobody" with "no policy ambition".

The only reason I think that Tony Abbott is even pushing this scheme is to try and get back into the good books with the female voters. By offering something desirable to women, he is hoping to secure their vote after he lost the majority of female populations respect during the ironing incident. Tony Abbott was talking about raising prices and that it will affect the "housewives" when they are ironing.

That comment was extremely sexist, and totally ignorant of reality. Due to his conservative views, Tony Abbott wants to push the ideology of the women staying home to cook, clean and take care of the family while the male is the breadwinner. However, that isn’t relevant to 21st century society. Those type of family still exist, but it's offensive to women.

Tony Abbott was essentially saying that women are supposed to domestic and maternal. Lots of men to occupations now that were considered "feminine" by conservative standards, like cooking? Hello Tony Abbott, ever heard of Gordon Ramsay, Jamie Oliver or Matt Preston?? There are lots of females who have careers and not just have domestic roles, like Julia Gillard. Deputy PM!!!

I'm totally against Tony Abbott’s scheme, because it just seems to good to be true. There are SO many negative consequences that Tony Abbott isn't mentioning, and he is only emphasising the positives. Tony Abbott could do something more worthwhile, like figuring out a way to help health care, or to try and improve the state of the GFC, or helping the elderly with their pensions etc. The list of problems are endless...even getting rid of Myki or something would be more productive.

My new blog...

I run a Twilight blog, however i wanted to start another when due to the fact i wanted to blog about non-Twilight issues on my Twilight site. So, this is my place to do it. I'm Australian, so i'm going to be blogging about australian issues, that US people may not care about, but whatever. Enjoy!! Oh, and if you don't agree with me on anything, this is just my opinion, so feel free to say whatever you want...its a free world! I didnt know what picture to put, so i just took one of those stupid default pictures from Windows...the doggie is SO cute tho ;)