Tuesday, May 13th, 2008...2:54 pm
Keepin’ it real
You know what I’m not looking forward to tomorrow morning? Stories like this one from this morning’s Daily Telegraph:
Tony and Avril Melhem, who earn a combined income in excess of $150,000 from their Gloria Jeans coffee franchise, spent the bulk of the baby bonus they received five months ago after the birth of their daughter Sage on medical fees.
You just know it’s going to be good when they own a Gloria Jeans and have called their daughter your son’s name.
Under proposed means testing they may have missed out. Mr Melhem said: “It was really helpful as Avril had an emergency caesarean and we used it for our obstetrician and anaesthetist fees, and setting up Sage’s room with a cot, change table and stroller.”
While he understands the “spirit” of means testing, he said a combined family income of $150,000 does not go very far.
Not very far COMPARED TO WHAT?
“The baby bonus should be maintained as it provides parents with an important head start,” he said. “Means testing has a place in certain aspects of life, but in regard to bringing a new life into this world, I think that it should not be subjected to means testing.
Because that would not be Thinking Of The Children, would it?
Or try out the next colour couple:
Northmead parents-of-three, Lyndal and Thomas Spooner, who earn a combined income of about $120,000 per year, spent their baby bonus money on their mortgage.
“It is probably a fairer system if only lower-income families get the baby bonus, but people who are on a combined income of $150,000 are not necessarily well-off,” Mrs Spooner said.
COMPARED TO WHAT, Mrs Spooner?
And this is the the Tele, not the SMH. Perhaps they’re just confecting some pre-budget outrage? It will be interesting to see if any different types of stereotype representing people appear in those budget wraparound “will you be better off? fillers this time ’round. Not bloody likely.
22 Comments
May 13th, 2008 at 3:06 pm
Presented without comment.
May 13th, 2008 at 5:06 pm
Agreement. I has it.
May 13th, 2008 at 5:53 pm
Maybe living in a big plastic bubble is just rooly, rooly expensive.
May 13th, 2008 at 8:55 pm
I thought exactly the same thing when I read that article this morning. Do.Not.Know.They’re.Born.
Plus, you can have a baby in the public health system, have less chance of having a c-section, statistically better outcomes, and NOT PAY A CENT.
May 14th, 2008 at 12:23 am
I feel sorry for those $150K p.a. people who are struggling.
I live on a disability pension ($250 per week)
and I am grateful and not struggling.
I don’t
buy wine,
see movies,
own a car or pet,
have holidays,
eat out,
smoke or gamble.
When I open my purse, I am always in an opshop or a foodstore.
May 14th, 2008 at 1:01 am
I can’t remember where I read it – letter to some paper or other – describing the evolutionary disadvantage of giving the baby bonus to lower income parents (encouraging a weak gene pool you see). The suggestion of giving the bonus only to those capable of $200k plus was then proposed. I’m pretty sure it was of ironic intent, I’m also sure that others would see no irony whatsoever. Creepy.
May 14th, 2008 at 9:30 am
Argh. I guess it is just the same mentality that justifies subsidising private education and health care while the public system struggles for funding…
The rich are just more deserving – after-all they have nicer clothes.
May 14th, 2008 at 10:51 am
Dear People Who Earn 4-5x What I Do,
if you pay for a nice house, nice clothes, nice new shiny baby furniture, health insurance and private schools, and then don’t have much left over for a holiday O.S., that doesn’t mean you aren’t “that well off really”. Having all that stuff isn’t some sort of entitlement.
But what would I know, I spent the baby bonus on my rent and got the pram etc second hand. Paying for parking at the maternity hospital did add up though.
Cheers,
Kate
May 15th, 2008 at 8:23 pm
I am going to break my blog commenting hiatus because today I read a very similar piece in AdelaideNow and got so incensed I wasted half an hour banging out an angry letter to the editor. Which I didn’t email because I had deadlines to meet etc for my very nice paying middle class job which I do not tax breaks to .
But geez this shit makes me angry… it’s an incredible culture of entitlement.
The Adelaide Now piece was even more smugly self pitying (woe is us we have to pay more tax on our $57k car but we’re only making ends meet…)
http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,23701464-5006301,00.html
These, my friends, are battlers. With the flat screen telly behind them.
Oh and this comment was just too perfect:
“Mr Tanner [smugly self-pitying dad] says the Budget takes away an important Australian ethic – the incentive to work. The couple works a combined 80 hours a week.”
May 15th, 2008 at 8:24 pm
Gah, I even mangled a sentence. I was going to say something like ‘my nice middle class job which allows me to buy shit without tax breaks’ but even that was a bit lame.
May 16th, 2008 at 9:11 am
Bruce lives!!!
May 16th, 2008 at 11:39 am
Like Jesus. Only better.
May 16th, 2008 at 11:52 am
Well, I dunno ’bout that, Haiku. Was Jesus totally rootable?
May 16th, 2008 at 11:56 am
If that movie with Willem Dafoe doesn’t lie, probably yes. If you’re into that kind of thing. Yeah.
But that’s a side issue—yay Kate!
May 16th, 2008 at 12:26 pm
True. That Jesus was blond, too, IIRC. NTTAWWT.
May 16th, 2008 at 4:50 pm
Yay Kate! I shall attempt to outrage you further to provoke more comments …
May 16th, 2008 at 5:38 pm
oh THANK GOD someone else is as incensed as I.
This has really been burning a hole in my blanket.
“Please don’t tax my luxury car and take away my play money, Iz so poor!”
Shaddap.
May 18th, 2008 at 10:35 am
There’s was a beautiful comment in teh SMH from one of the soon to be starved over $150 000s saying that he “knew” his lifestyle was average & just like everyone else’s. Oh I love middle class privileged myopia
May 18th, 2008 at 7:35 pm
Yep, Bernice, a guy whose business employed 12 people and paid him $180K a year. Good on him and all, but he should really get a grip.
I hope he read the next section of the paper:
May 20th, 2008 at 7:59 pm
It was a quite instructive morning at the hairdressers on Saturday when they were chatting about their hourly rate: $16.20 per hour on weekdays and $20.50 on Saturdays. I get more than that at my crappy admin job, and I’m not responsible for anyone’s bad hair day but my own. We live on less that $150000 a year but I don’t feel like we are struggling at all. Probably because we aren’t. Some people need to remember that there are a lot more people living on a lot less. It is interesting to see all these people crying poor, with the flat screen TV, new lounge, etc in the background. Don’t cry about school fees, send them to public school for practically free ($50 for the year, should we chose to pay, which we do).
May 21st, 2008 at 7:58 pm
ahyup.
what everyone else says.
I has total agreement.
I struggle on my current income with a wee one but that is also because I try to afford some things which are in essence, luxuries. things that make you feel like you’re not shit-poor. things that make you feel like you’re living a life, instead of merely existing.
I remember about a decade ago having a total ding-dong of a barney with Darling Friend X who has no clue. he comes from an upper-working/lower-middle class background but is now very, very much the upper-middle class professional. Darling Friend X was having a whinge about something or other and saying that he was only earning the Australian average – $60K/year. I pointed out that the average wage was actually about $26K (can’t remember exactly but it was $26-28K max) but in Lawyerly fashion he wouldn’t believe a word, as I didn’t have the proof in front of me.
so a few days later, Darling Friend Y shoved a photocopy of the Australian Bureau of Statistics findings of the average wage in front of him and told him, with a kiss on the cheek, to shut the fuck up.
worked a treat for a few years. until I had to do it again, when he was in denial about his Philipino maid having to flee her home country to escape an arranged marriage, and the conditions of many of the native population of the country he was living in. a total barney nearly happened in the 5-star restaurant in an exotic location where he was treating me to dinner. I felt guilty about having a go at him while he was unbelievably generous towards me – which he has *always* been, to a fault – but how do you not get angry about these things? especially when the other person has, in fact, been through some hardship (not as drastic, but still) themselves.
probably ranted too much.
anyways.
back to general instead of specific indignation…!
May 24th, 2008 at 9:39 am
hey, me and Harley have managed on less than $25K a year for the past four years, and rarely feel that deprived. god, every time you come home from the supermarket and stock your fridge and pantry, you feel rich. particularly when you’re watching refugees with didley squat on the news every night. sure, there’s things you sacrifice, like say the forty-dollar lipsticks you bought when you were on $60K, but when you’re living close to the bone, you soon realise how unimportant those things really are.
people who can’t make ends meet on $150K astound me.
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