Joe Hockey is living in a dream world if he thinks his budget is acceptable. It's not. And now he's made things worse for himself by saying stupid things like increasing the petrol tax won't hurt the poor. He told ABC Radio is Brisbane "the poorest people either don't have cars or actually don't drive very far in many cases."
He said he was "sorry" if his comments sounded callous but he was just pointing out the facts. "I can only get the facts out there and how people interpret them is up to them" he said. To back up his statement he said that the Bureau of Statistics show higher income households pay more in fuel tax but Parlimentary Library research shows lower income households pay a higher proportion of their income on fuel tax compared to those who are better off.
And Mr Hockey is definitely in the "better off" category, he and his millionaire wife Melissa Babbage own a property port folio worth millions. He once said the money really belongs to his wife who until 2011, worked as head of the foreign exchange and global finance division of Deutsche Bank.
Mr Hockey thought it was a good idea to reintroduce twice-yearly indexation of the fuel excise and blind Freddy knows if he gets his way, low income families and the rural sector will be hit hard.
And it's not only Labor throwing stones at Mr Hockey's budget, members of his own party are still reeling from the measures he and Tony Abbott cooked up and the general public is left wondering what on earth were they thinking.
They need to regroup and start again because this budget stinks to high heaven and just won't fly.
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