PETER Wellington is dead right. A 41% pay hike for Queensland politicians equating to an extra $57,000 a year is obscene.
The pay rise is obscene on so many fronts but none more than that the average household income on the Sunshine Coast is only $1010 a week, or $52,520 a year.
That's $4480 less than the extra our representatives believe they deserve.
Given the lack of jobs, opportunity and services that have resulted from their representation, the silence of the LNP members this community has stuck by is shameful.
The $52,520 average household income their constituent households earn provides for around 2.5 people, who pay on average either $16,640 a year in rent or a mortgage of $22,356.
The gap between the haves and have nots in Australia is broadening by the year.
It is also becoming increasing clear which camp our politicians want to inhabit and who ultimately they will choose to represent.
Vanishing incomes
WHILE this inequity grows unchecked, the household incomes of the have nots are being further eroded by energy costs that are rising at 13% a year for gas and 22.4% for electricity this past financial year.
Our politicians shy away from the tough decisions that will have to come with the inevitable shift to renewables, but can't even deliver a tangible benefit through cheap energy for Australians who ultimately own as a birth right the fossil fuels being shipped overseas.
Bubble and squeak
ONLY the ballot box has the power to punish and reward the performance of our elected representatives. Yet many of us wouldn't step near one without the threat of a fine and many of the rest have been easily seduced by thought bubbles that have no meaning beyond the meaningless and ceaseless promises of jobs, jobs, jobs and stopping the boats.
Share the load
MORE than a decade on from when John Howard first played the race card using refugees as the patsy, it is disheartening to say the least that boat people remain an issue at the upcoming federal election.
Australia's intake represents 3% of total asylum claims in industrialised nations globally.
Some 2.7 million refugees have poured out of Afghanistan, which we helped invade and which remains in a state of war. They have flowed into 71 countries including our own.
What makes us so special, apart from our splendid isolation, that Australia should not bear part of the load?
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