With more than a tinge of cynicism, John Howard recently announced that under the Commonwealth-State Housing Agreement, funding for public housing will be slashed by only $50 million in 1997-98, not $200 million as recommended by the Treasury. Another $50 million is to be cut in the 1998-99 financial year.
What he did not announce is that, at the same time, his mates in the big business sector are not expected to bear even a share of the cuts in the new budget. Massive public subsidies of private profit and corporate tax breaks will continue to bleed the public purse.
The establishment's newspapers tell us that the funding cuts to public housing are a victory because they could have been worse. Like telling a worker who has just lost a finger in an industrial accident that “It could have been worse, it could have been your arm”, the logic is that we should be relieved because the poorest section of society has to suffer only a little bit more.
But the Howard government cuts in public health housing, child-care and education services have already caused a marked increase in suffering by the majority of Australians.
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