John Green: Freedom of Speech?

6 June 2014

The Editor
The Mercury
Level 1, 2 Salamanca Square
HOBART TAS 7000
mercury.news@dbl.newsltd.com.au

Dear Sir

RE: FREEDOM OF SPEECH?

I have now discovered another nasty little trick in Abbott’s budget.

All community legal centres have been forbidden from taking part in any law reform activities or any kind of policy activities upon threat of their funding being cut.

They have been explicitly banned from criticism on the Commonwealth government or any of its agencies.

One of the major purposes of community legal centres is to develop a policy to improve the law and make proposals for law reform.

It is clear the Abbott government opposes freedom of speech and is determined to stop all voluntary bodies from criticising it if at all possible. No doubt they will try to do the same to ACOSS particularly since they exhibit a dislike of pensioners as shown by the fact they expect persons under 30 who become unemployed to live on fresh air for 6 months.

That is definitely a cruel and unjustified proposal especially since the Newstart allowance is only $250.75 a week.

It is impossible to rent any decent accommodation even in Hobart for much less than $200.00 a week, making it almost impossible to live on Newstart unless you can find a lot of people in a similar situation who rent a house and you get a room or find a room in a cheap boarding house.

Even that pittance would be taken away from you if you are under 30.

The government proposes that the unemployed work for the dole or study but it is not making any money available to assist unemployed persons to get jobs.

People with no income cannot afford to have their resumes photocopied and they cannot afford to pay the bus fare to attend job interviews, so how can they possibly get jobs?

There is no money for courses which will help people get jobs.

There is no attempt at community development in areas with high employment.

The government refuses to acknowledge that people are unemployed because of government policy.

I am old enough to remember in the 1970’s when governments implemented a policy of full employment and the unemployment rate was 2% and everybody had a job.

With the election of the Fraser Liberal government and the Howard Liberal government, we have now got relatively high unemployment about 20% to 30% in poor areas.

The attitude of this government shows a punitive approach to poor people.

If you are a billionaire the government says you can have an incentive to invest your money and they give you money.

If your unemployed and broke they say you should starve to death.

The poor will only respond to punishment, the wealthy will only respond if given more wealth.

This is the peculiar perverted sense of morality of the Abbott government.

Yours faithfully,

JOHN GREEN LLB
John Green LLB