Friday, March 05, 2010

Time To Vote Politicians Out.... Not In!!

I heard one fo the most ridiculous things ever yesterday. Australia's politicians are asking for severance pay equal to five months pay when they are voted out of office. And the prime minister is trying to justify that by saying salaries were frozen when he took office. Only for 12 months, mate. The base rate for a federal pollie backbencher is $131,040 with $32,000 to $46,000 for electoral allowance. They also want this allowance to go to their salary if they don't use it. The prime minister of Australia is on a salary of $330,300 according to Wikipedia.

I've had enough of these greedy pricks and that's just bullshit. All of us have had to go through tough times and wage freezes but none of us have the ability to set our own wages and raises. How on earth can you justify being in office for 2-3 years and receiving a five month bonus when you're turfed out because you're not deemed good enough by your electorate? If it goes through the next thing they'll do is make it five months severance per term. Politicians are in touch with the most influential people and have one of the widest ranging networks of anybody in the country. [Did I just say that politicians are "in touch"? From this episode it appears that they are not] I hardly think that they would have difficulty in obtaining further employment in the real world when they have been determined to be inadequate as a politician.

It was George Orwell who said that "Some animals are more equal to others" in his classic - Animal Farm. Time to bring in a half-decent dictatorship methinks.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hammy you should be a politician!!! smiles

Hammy said...

I want to be a dictator, not a politician. I hate sucking up to people and behaving like a hypocrite. And perhaps I'm too much of a straight talker and speak my mind too much to survive in politics.

Tony Abbott, current opposition leader, had the perfect opportunity to win the next election. When he was asked what his thoughts were on the five months severance pay he said something like, "You're not getting me on that one." He should have said that he doesn't support it and that he wouldn't allow it. Just think of the votes that this would have brought him.

Iris Flavia said...

These are the few times politicians have one vote together: yes.

Here daily allowance is called "diet" and they all vote yes on advances :-(

Be 2-3 years in the job and get a lifetime pension. Oh, it´s ok to be very young, too.

I think politicians loose contact to the real world the moment the first paycheck comes in.

Hammy said...

There's only been a couple of politicians in this country who've voted against a pay rise and they have donated it to charity when it inevitably came their way. Talk about partisan support.