Victorian MPs have awarded themselves increases in their electoral allowances of up to $35,000. This is about 3 times the sum allocated to Aged Pensioners each year, and doubtless will be used to produce glossy pamphlets to be mailed to pensioners assuring them that their needs are being heard. This announcement, hidden in an unpublicized section of the State budget, followed the release of a damning report on public hospital waiting lists.
Aged Pensioners yesterday staged a demonstration in Melbourne, stripping down to their underwear (some wearing their underwear on the outside), to highlight the failure to assist them in any way in the recent Federal budget.
Tony Mokbel was returned to Australia today after 2 years on the run. He flew home in comfort in a private jet, then traveled by helicopter to a Geelong gaol to await trail. Last night on the laughingly-named current affairs programs, the ex-wife of a notorious Melbourne gangster was driven around Melbourne in a stretch limousine, to some of the haunts where her former husband and his cronies terrified Victorians in their gangland behaviour.
What do these apparently unrelated events have in common? Well, nothing really. But as pensioners stripped off their clothes in emulation of the taxi-drivers’ demonstration a week or so ago, a lone voice in the crowd was heard.
“Stop treating criminals like celebrities, and pensioners like criminals!”
I’ll drink to that.
Aged Pensioners yesterday staged a demonstration in Melbourne, stripping down to their underwear (some wearing their underwear on the outside), to highlight the failure to assist them in any way in the recent Federal budget.
Tony Mokbel was returned to Australia today after 2 years on the run. He flew home in comfort in a private jet, then traveled by helicopter to a Geelong gaol to await trail. Last night on the laughingly-named current affairs programs, the ex-wife of a notorious Melbourne gangster was driven around Melbourne in a stretch limousine, to some of the haunts where her former husband and his cronies terrified Victorians in their gangland behaviour.
What do these apparently unrelated events have in common? Well, nothing really. But as pensioners stripped off their clothes in emulation of the taxi-drivers’ demonstration a week or so ago, a lone voice in the crowd was heard.
“Stop treating criminals like celebrities, and pensioners like criminals!”
I’ll drink to that.
Ana Thema
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