"Pensioners reject forced reverse mortgages" - Pensioners & Superannuants Assoc (CPSA)

The "economic growth" model, one that's continued for over two decades, is not true to it's name! Our economy, in absolute terms, no doubt IS increasing in size, with regards to the amounts of currency and transactions in circulation, but it's not increasing our wealth but creating more poverty and cost cutting. A recently released Committee for Economic Development of Australia report titled "More than a million Aussies living in poverty a disgrace" reveals that as many as 1.5 million Australians are living in poverty". Up to 6 per cent of the population, are "classed as being in entrenched disadvantage, with little to no hope of getting out of that situation," reported commission chief executive Stephen Martin. http://www.theage.com.au/comment/the-age-editorial/an-obligation-to-act-... Governments can't simply ignore the poverty as "bad luck" or distance themselves from it! "The past 20 years had essentially been a massive failure by successive governments to address entrenched disadvantage and policies have been economically short-sighted," Professor Martin said. It's assumed, in the advancement of The Economy and business interests, that some people will fall off the bandwagon and into poverty. It's pure and evil neo-liberalism and focus on monetary values at the detriment of the public. Human welfare can't just be igmored and discarded because of budget cuts that the public have no control over. Mr Abbott and MrHockey are now afforded the chance to reverse 20 years of social and political mismanagement. There needs to be an assessment of the costs and benefits of this "economic growth" model. If it's failing the majority, and only feeding the wealthy, it needs to be dropped! A group of scientists, known collectively as the Club of Rome, constructed a detailed mathematical model to test whether population growth and economic development could continue indefinitely and if not, what the limits to growth and its manifestations would be. The standard future scenario in their computer projections showed positive growth in both the population and the economy until the mid-21st century - and then a decline. People are now expected to assume that social welfare benefits, plus health care and education, are not basics any more that they are entitled to. We are seeing degenerative symptoms on our society, of dis-eases of drugs, unemployment, domestic violence, crime and homelessness. If houses must be liquidified to pay for pensions, and their main assets - their own homes - can't be passed onto future generations, we've come to the brick wall of ecomomic growth's limits! Who really benefits from continuing with our failing "economic growth" model? Banks, corporations, multinational companies, and the capital owners are all using people are commodities, and while we accept our increasing poverty it will continue "business as usual"!

Family Trusts are a reasonable way for families to unite and support each other. This is the bedrock of society. But when a wealthy individual distributes income to reduce tax liability that individual should also accept social responsibility for his children. Consider a bloke with $20+million who on the one hand uses a Family Trust to reduce tax liability. But then when his well heeled children move out of home or are unemployed after years of tertiary education, they can claim student benefits and unemployment benefits as if they are not part of the Family Trust that allowed their parents to shelter from tax over many of the previous years. And then you have pensioners who might want to leave the family home to children who are far less fortunate than the heirs to Family Trust fortunes. These pensioners are to be stripped of an asset that effectively also belongs to their offspring. These are families who have struggled to support each other through good times and bad. The poor get stripped of their assets and the rich kids collect the dole and other student benefits despite being heirs to large fortunes? Only politicians could construct the foundations for such idiotic inequity.