Welfare Bills now before the senate

This is it folks. Forget the Middle East. Forget the telly screaming TERROR! TERROR! Instead remember the Australia we have, and what these bills would do to our country if passed. It will no longer the the fair Australia that we've so often strived for through the decades. 

You can track the progress of the bill through the senate here: 
Social Services and Other Legislation Amendment (2014 Budget Measures No. 2) Bill 2014 

The bill, if passed:

- Making jobseekers under 30 go without income support for six months a year 
- Cuts to the indexation of pensions, including the aged and disability support pension, which will see people lose $80 per week in real terms within 10 years 
- Axing the Pensioner Education Supplement 
- Increasing the retirement age to 70 
- Cuts to FTB payments, including for single parents and low income families 
- Reassessing around 28,000 people with disability, with a view to dumping them onto Newstart  

You can ring your cross bench senator here.

Update:

Palmer reiterates, economy is in good shape and there will be no dasdardly welfare cuts.

Asked on Sunday whether he believed blocking a range of budget measures was stopping the government from delivering its promise to fix the budget, Mr Palmer said: “I’m reading the balance sheet and the fact of the matter is Australia’s got 12 per cent of its GDP as debt. The OECD average is 73 per cent. 

“We’re one of the 13 countries in the world with a AAA credit rating,” he told ABC News 24. 

“When Menzies was our PM, the ratio to debt was 40 per cent. We’ve never had is so good. Do we have to take $10 billion off the poorest people in society that can least afford it? I don’t think we do. We need to tell people the truth and we’re not in a budget crisis and this is a beat-up to get popular support for government, but it is not true.” 

“Certainly our position on budget issues have been very clear: we’re against the $7 Medicare co-payment; we’re against any change to education policy; and on the social security thing the government didn’t bring it on [in the Senate] because we wouldn’t vote for it. 

“We think the changes to the benefits for people under 30 [are] ­discriminatory and will lead to more crime or youth suicide and we won’t support them.” more