General

Industrial Relations

Budget offers little for families: ACTU

Already under pressure from the meanest industrial relations laws in 100 years, the handouts in this Budget will be quickly swallowed up by the rising cost of living for working families says the ACTU.

Commenting on the release of the Budget tonight, ACTU President Sharan Burrow said:

Interest rates are up $70 a month since the election, petrol is up $40 a month just this year, and childcare fees are up $100 a month in the last year. Likewise health, education and even food is getting more costly.

Working families are struggling to keep their heads above water and yet this Budget offers them very little. Almost all working people on incomes up to $70,000 a year receive tax cuts of only $7 to $10 a week.
This is on top of the miniscule tax cut of between $1.50 and $6 a week they received in total from the last two Budgets.

The tax cuts will mean little to the majority of low and middle income Australians. They mean even less to people that will see a big drop in their take home pay under the new IR laws and they will mean nothing to people that may lose their jobs.

But no amount of Government handouts will convince working families that their jobs and living standards are safe while these IR laws stand.

Workers at the Cowra abattoir have had to fight for their jobs and for decent wages while hundreds of maintenance workers are facing wage cuts of up to $160 a week and seventy Optus technicians are facing wage cuts of up to $400 a week from being 'contracted out'.

What working Australians need are secure jobs and the protection of their wages, penalty rates, overtime and other entitlements.

Instead, this Budget benefits the top end of town with a cut in the top tax rate for the highest income earners.

The richest Australians, high income earners on $200,000 a year get a
$93 a week tax cut in this Budget, on top of the $110 a week they gained from the last two Howard-Costello Budgets. Since 1996 the top 5% of taxpayers have gotten 25% of the Howard Government's tax cuts.

The Howard Government's economic management is all about keeping corporate profits and the share market at record highs while working families are squeezed between rising prices and downward pressure on their wages from the IR laws.

The big losers in this Budget are:

• Families with children who were promised so much but have been

• Education and training opportunities for young people with no plan

• People over 50 years old who have small superannuation accounts and

© 2001 Community & Public Sector Union - State Public Services Federation (CPSU-SPSF) - National Office

http://www.cpsu-spsf.asn.au/latest_news/general/20060510_budget.html
Last Modified: 10 May 2006