Our political obsession with ‘working families’ has gone too far. All through the Howard years and now in the Age of Rudd, handouts like today’s stimulus package, have sought maximum political effect by focusing their blandishments on those voters most likely to switch electoral allegiances i.e. parents.
Parenthood is wildly expensive; to an extent that few non-parents can even imagine. Parenting is, of course, voluntary. Yet, we need parents or there will be no children to pay taxes to meet our health and other costs when we get old. There are good reasons to extend additional financial support to those who choose to produce and raise the next generation of workers and taxpayers.
Yet, again, ignoring non-parents including single people has gone so far that we are creating divisions, quite bitter ones, between parents and non-parents. That’s not good and it’s largely unnecessary. See the comments on the news.com.au site tonight to get a sense of the antagonism that is building up.
One Comment
I agree: more single and/or childless people are frustrated at seeing their taxes support people wealthier than they are. Most of us would be delighted to support maternity leave schemes and more assistance for those really in need and struggling, but unfortunately greed has led to resentment. The argument that children are expensive (and they are) does not cut it. Nor does the ‘taxpayer-of-the-future’ stuff. The have-it-all generation wants zero impact from having children and they want other people to pay for it, preferably “the guvment” or the selfish childless folk. The opponents of these handouts are not just young singles and childless people but also the boomers and older Gen-Y who got by without handouts. 40 percent of households now consist of single and childless workers – the group that pays the most tax and receives the least benefits – that’s a large proportion of disenfranchised voters for Mr Rudd to think about. The reality of what constitutes a ‘family’ has changed but policy is still back in the 1960s.