Abstract:
The Abbott/Hockey budget has been pulled apart and submitted to intensive commentary. In this article, I will not detail the unfairness or savagery of it. But I do want to oppose the view implicit in much of the commentary on the budget that there is no real problem, certainly no emergency that might justify it; as if, with a different budget, life could simply go on as it is; as if there are no basic social or economic problems we must face up to. While I do not support Abbott’s sense of emergency, surely completely and crudely class-based (related to what Galbraith called the horse and sparrow theory: ‘feed the horse enough oats, some will pass through to the road for the sparrows’), a deep level of crisis is something that must be taken seriously, as many people have since the Global Financial Crisis. While it can be argued that Abbott is fabricating fear, many people are also genuinely fearful about the future.
Details / PDF:
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