IT’S a bit rich for Joanna Gash (according to her Gilmore report) to state on one hand that she can’t help but wonder how pensioners and the unemployed survive with the cost of living pressures, then on the other hand, ask for rates to go up.
The majority of pensioners and the unemployed in the Shoalhaven aren’t well off and are not in a financial position to be burdened any further. I hope she isn’t going to claim that a hike won’t add more pressure to their cost of living – come on!
What has added greater pressure on living costs is the savage bite of the GST on people’s pockets. Remember the GST promise by John Howard before the election, that there would be no GST under a Howard government, never ever? And what did we get? He also said after being elected and the GST came into force, that we wouldn’t be out of pocket. Wrong, John Howard, wrong.
Meg Lees, leader of the Democrats, gave Howard the numbers he needed to slap this tax on us and look what happened to them after that? They eventually became a non-event.
The carbon tax that Tony Abbott continuously harps on about and claims that electricity bills would soar are untrue. The carbon tax has very little effect on most cost of living, especially on electricity. I have gone through my accounts right back to July 2011 (prior to carbon tax) and my account was $382.80 ( GST was $34.77). My last account from October 2012 to January 2013 (since carbon tax) was $388.10 (GST was $35.27). Tony Abbott’s claims have no substance. The carbon tax is only 0.7 per cent, less than one cent in the dollar. GST is 10 per cent, a massive hike. I know which tax I’d rather pay.
A. Hutchison, Nowra.