Tony Abbott has been brooding!
His budget plan’s been dissed! He can’t see why!
He’d billed it as a Magic Pudding!
Claims it’s better than Labor’s flat square pie!
“I’ll safely manage Oz finances.
My team Catholic, church-going, good!
With atheist Gillard you’re taking chances.
Where’s her faith in a magic pud?
Childless herself, she’ll never learn,
Like we dads have, as parents would,
When bedtime story pages turn,
To love our Aussie magic pud.
How could a single woman know,
As married fathers surely would,
What pregnant professionals undergo
Without a wage from the magic pud?
That’s why too I’ll pay for nannies
To nurse at home through babyhood
Infants whose ever-loving grannies
Will get to share in this magic pud.
The Liberal Party faces facts.
Business and miners never should
Have to pay Resource or Carbon Tax!
It’s they who bake our magic pud!
Gillard’s been captive to the Greens
Who see only trees, not the wood!
Now Bob Brown’s gone, they’re just has-beens
Who are sure to want a magic pud.
Don’t believe Julia’s last big lie,
Listing all the good things she’s putting
In each slice of her ‘fair share’ pie.
Trust me! Have faith in my Magic Pudding!”
NOTES: First I must acknowledge the artwork of my grandson Daniel who, luckily for me, was on school holidays and had time to Photoshop Norman Lindsay’s famous illustration to his timeless Australian children’s story, The Magic Pudding. I think he, with input from brother Jacob, did a great job.
They have exactly caught my sense of how Tony Abbott, in his penguin fitting red budgie smugglers, seems to think there are endless dollars to spend on his brain waves. I don’t think Shadow Finance Minister, Andrew Robb (Barnacle Bill), is keen on the Liberal Party being tied to a Magic Pudding budget plan. Nor is tubby Shadow Treasurer, Joe Hockey (Koala), though he doesn’t see eye to eye with Robb either on how to proceed with Coalition budget proposals. I’m not sure how relevant their all being Catholic really is, even to their Assistant Shadow Treasurer, Matthias Corman, but they surely need to have faith and believe in the power of prayer if they hope to balance a Budget while cutting taxes and retaining all current services and introducing expensive new ones.
More than one commentator has referred to Abbott’s apparent belief in a magic pudding which amused me and set me rhyming. There’s plenty of other MSM speculation on both Government and Opposition budget proposals and I won’t add to it here except to marvel at the near miracle of Tony Abbott’s sudden concern for the wealthier working woman to the point of levying a tax on business for his highly expensive paid parental leave scheme which is likely to be an impost on many more companies than the Carbon Tax which he claims will ruin the country’s economy. Samantha Maiden says “Abbott’s tax levy would hit an estimated 3300 businesses with a 1.5 per cent levy. Isn’t that a great, big, new tax coincidence, to deploy Abbott’s favourite mantra ?”
Easy to understand the disquiet of Coalition senior figures, particularly Shadow Treasurer Hockey and Finance Minister Robb. Though with or without Abbott’s grand policy proposals designed to win over women voters even Hockey sometimes seems to believe in a magic pudding sort of budget plan. Last month he said, “a Coalition government will deliver surpluses while reducing the tax burden on Australians and businesses………..We will run a surplus in our first term and every term after that, based on the information available at the moment.” However, his very latest Lateline comments about cutting welfare benefits to offset income tax cuts are more specific, particularly the one about the end of the the age of entitlement in our western world. He seems to want to reduce most working Australians to the living standards of Asia! No magic pudding faith there.
Andrew Robb is less sanguine and probably more practical than either Hockey or Abbott about a Coalition government being able to deliver a surplus budget, or at least he was just over a month ago. “Bear in mind that if we have an election in October 2013 we’re still two budgets away, and who knows what the state of the books will be at that stage.” Although often confused and confusing, Robb was right about predictions.
No one can predict with any certainty about how the economy will be travelling in future, though I should think Treasury are being assisted by the best advice and up to date information available. I prefer therefore to rely on their recommendations to the Prime Minister and our current Treasurer, Wayne Swann, who is after all the world’s best!
I also trust Julia Gillard and her government, judging by the reformist legislation they have passed to date, the policies they have published and the programs they have planned, to produce a budget which endeavours to share our national wealth with some fairness and an eye to the national well-being. Abbott won’t accept that of course, and will do his best to attack Julia Gillard’s credibility and that of Wayne Swann, as he did today, decrying Australia’s economic record in the face of praise from the International Monetary Fund.
COMMENTS:
Jane, 19/04/12, Good post patricia and as always excellent pome…..I love your grandsons’ photoshopping. Can I borrow them?
Janice, 19/04/12, Ten stars for Daniel’s effort, Patricia – A boy of whom you can be most proud…………………………..the pome can now be placed in your usual brilliant category. Well done.
Gravel, 19/04/12, Your grandsons did great work. If only a lot of adults in Australia could use their brains like your grandchildren. Again a brilliant pome Patricia, now I can’t wait to see what you come up with after Hockey’s latest stunt to cut pensions and give tax cut to his mining mates.
Pip, 19/04/12, Excellent pome patricia and well done to your grandsons. 
Miglo, 19/04/12, Patricia, have you noticed that your post has already notched up 51 Facebook Shares? In simple terms, that’s phenonamal and indicates that the pome/post is reaching an incredibly wide audience. Well done!
Talk Turkey, 19/04/12, The Magic Pudding theme, cut-and-come-again-from-nothing, is a compelling image and a splendid taunt to the NOposition…………………and your grandson done real good with the caricaturization in Pollipomes. Well done, young man.
Nasking, 19/04/12, Patricia, Excellent work by you…and your grandson Daniel.
Michael, 19/04/12, Min put a link up to your pome on a couple of Facebook pages. From there a heap of people copied it to their own Facebook pages. It went crazy. One group that really took a liking to it was http://www.facebook.com/pages/Tony-Abbott-will-never-be-prime-minister/274330505796 Great stuff.
Nasking, 19/04/12, Glad Daniel will have an opportunity to read the comments. The young need useful motivators…be given credit where credit is due. A top job on his part…working as part of a team/duo.
George, 20/04/12, Patriciawa, great job by Daniel! Tell him he has a talent worth developing. 
polliepomes 