Peter Boyle
We received this note from a reader last week: "My beloved won $100 cash and asked me to donate it to the Green Left Weekly fighting fund. That's when I noticed that there is no direct deposit details given in the terrific page two articles. I think it would be good to include the BSB account details in addition to the other methods of depositing."
That's the kind of fan mail that is really appreciated.
The aforementioned beloved won the $100 on the pokies, and was moved to donate it to a very good cause. Double good luck, thank you.
But some even luckier people last week were the federal politicians. As the September 8 Australian reported: "Prime Minister John Howard has defended the latest pay rise for politicians, saying Treasurer Peter Costello is paid less than his Treasury department head.
"The Government has accepted a recommendation from the Remuneration Tribunal to increase MPs' wages by 7 per cent — an increase of $20,000 for Mr Howard, $14,000 for Opposition Leader Kim Beazley and $7800 for backbenchers.
"It takes the parliamentary base salary to $118,950 a year, and coincides with Mr Howard's decision to restore the generous taxpayer-funded superannuation scheme for all new parliamentarians."
While Howard is doing his best to lower the minimum wage, he believes politicians deserve more pay. Nice for them, hey?
"I want a parliament comprised of the talents of the entire nation and therefore you've got to get a cross-section of men and women", Howard said. "And you can only do that if the remuneration has some relationship to the remuneration that those people could earn if they did not enter politics."
Like the shooting-off-the-chart corporate CEO remuneration rises, the pollies' pay rises are justified as what the market decrees.
"Luck" is not the right word for this: it's a racket!
The Green Left Weekly reader with the lucky beloved also made a very good suggestion: that we list an account so — in case you have a spot of luck on the pokies, or get a bigger than expected tax refund — you can make a donation to the Green Left Weekly Fighting Fund by directly depositing it into: Greenleft, Commonwealth Bank, BSB 062-006, Account No. 901992.
Our supporters raised $1798 for the Green Left Weekly Fighting Fund last week. This brings the total we have raised so far this year to $120,687.
If you can help make our fighting fund target of $250,000 (we are only 48% of the way there!) please deposit your donation to the above account, send your cheque or money order to PO Box 515, Broadway NSW 2007, phone it through on the toll-free line 1800 634 206 (calls within Australia) or donate online at <http://www.greenleft.org.au/fogl.htm>.