The Budget is "back in the black"?

Really?

It isn't of course. There has been some very creative accounting done by the Federal Government in an attempt to make us believe that there is a (tiny) surplus. 

Now they will tell us how good they are at "managing the economy" and how dreadful the previous government was at doing the same thing. This happens at every change of government.

I was talking to the person who comes to clean the floors for me. (Middle Cat insists it is not safe for me to try doing this myself so P... helps for a short time once a fortnight.) P... was bemoaning the fact the child care allowance for single mothers had been raised up from children of eight years of age to children of fourteen years of age. We both agreed that there are mothers who need that help but her step-daughter-in-law is not one of them. Her step-DIL has been "working the system" for years. It will now be another eight years before she needs to start looking for work. By then it is likely she will never get paid employment. 

She has had five children by four different fathers. The children have somehow been nicely spaced out so that she has never had to look for work. Her children have been "too young" and she has no qualifications. 

Until this budget she was "doing a course" one day a week while her youngest child was at school. It was supposed to prepare her for work as a "carer". P...'s comment was, "She can't care for herself so how can she care for others?" But we are both concerned that here is someone who has managed to never obtain gainful employment.

P... lost a son several years ago. He had a major epileptic seizure at night. It was a genuine tragedy. He was a hard working young man who, despite the epilepsy, was holding down a full time job. Yes, it was a nuisance not being able to hold a licence to drive but it didn't stop him working. He had no time for his step-sister's behaviour. P...'s daughter works during school hours. 

Both the children saw their mother work, and work hard, after their father died. P...has no formal qualifications. She is a cleaner and she does the job well. She needs to do it well because she also cleans dental surgeries - where thoroughness is an absolute essential. P... tells me there is "plenty of work out there" and that she could, if she needed to do it, work even more hours a week. 

P...and her second husband are not in debt apart from their small mortgage. They have worked for this. "If we want something then we save for it", P... says.  If she was younger and they had school age children then she would do more cleaning to help pay for the cost of caring for them. They worry about his daughter, someone they almost never see because he won't simply give her money to lead an indolent lifestyle.

There are many low income families out there for whom the budget might bring some temporary relief but the measures are not going to solve the problems. They are likely to create more. The budget is not "back in the black" at all. It is heading deeper into the red and we are all going to pay for it in the end.