From commenter SteveB at the Sydney Morning Herald Just before Christmas the government: (1) Informed a range of welfare support groups that their funding had been abolished. Organisations losing funding include Blind Citizens Australia, the Australian Federation of Disability Organisations and homeless bodies such as National Shelter and the Community Housing Federation. (2) Removed funding from Highlands Community Centers in the NSW southern highlands, which has 450 families on its books and has been serving people in distress for 20 years. That organisation will no longer receive federal funding and does not know how it can continue. (3) Stripped funding from National Shelter, a peak advocacy group. National shelter will lose its funding and its three-year contract [will be] torn up a year early. People need to understand the motivation behind the governments removal of funding from disability organisations: Abbott has chosen to force people on disability benefits to look for work or lose their pension. If they cannot find work then they end up on Newstart, which pays less than the pension. The fact that many people with mental or physical disabilities are unable to find jobs is of no consequence to Abbotts ideologues, determined to remove people who are perceived as a financial burden from the governments ledgers. It is difficult to describe the cruelty behind these decisions - on one day Abbott is happy to be seen in a welfare center showing compassion for the inmates and on the next day presides over the slashing of funding for such places evidently regarding the same people as numbers on a balance sheet that have to be eliminated. Does the government believe that stripping funding from disability support groups like Blind Citizens Australia will be a better sell job for disaffected voters? Commenter SteveB Location Sydney Date and time December 27, 2014, 10:05AM smh.au/comment/women-expect-a-better-half-from-team-abbott-20141226-12d2rp.html#comments
Posted on: Sat, 27 Dec 2014 02:53:46 +0000
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