Despite a nervous "backflip", Australian government plans deep welfare cuts

Last week, however, the government revealed, through well-placed media leaks, that it intended to target some of society’s poorest and most vulnerable members in a bid to satisfy the demands of the financial markets for sharp and painful spending cuts. Government sources said the May budget would scrap $1,600-a-year carers’ payments and $500 annual seniors’ bonuses. After renewed calls from the corporate and media elite for the government to show its “economic conservative” credentials, the sources indicated that the two payments were on the multi-billion list of budget cuts being drawn up by the cabinet “razor gang”. By abolishing the payments, the government would save about $1.7 billion a year.

Both measures were sops offered by the Howard government to the aged and those caring for ill or disabled family members as part of blatant vote-buying exercises before the 2004 and 2007 elections. The payments were not even included in the budget bottom line, but were kept as “one-off” handouts, to be paid as electoral sweeteners “if economic circumstances permit”

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