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Droughted farmers says budget lets them down
Australia
- The Federal Government had failed drought-stricken farming communities
in the budget, Queensland farmers said today. Queensland
Fruit and Vegetable Growers (QFVG) chief advocate Mark Panitz said despite
drought assistance being urgently needed the government had foreshadowed a
significant reduction in its total allocation for drought assistance. "We
are pleased at the strong fundamentals behind the economic management of
the country but that means little to drought-stricken communities who are
struggling to access any assistance," Mr Panitz said. He
said the government needed to review its Exceptional Circumstances (EC)
program and undertake a long-term overhaul of drought and natural disaster
relief programs. "Rural
communities cannot wait until the drought is over for a review of EC to
occur, they need assistance now and the current mechanism is failing to
deliver," Mr Panitz said in a statement. Federal budget fails aged care and nursing: Iemma
NSW
Health Minister Morris Iemma today vowed to help elderly people
languishing in the state's hospitals who should be in federal
government-funded nursing home beds. Mr
Iemma said there was nothing in the federal budget for aged care and he
would take the matter into his own hands. "The
federal government continues to not fund enough nursing home beds,"
he said. "They
continue to want to have aged people warehoused in public hospital beds. "I'm
going to look at what options are open to the state government to help
these aged people ... there's about 1,000 of them in our public hospitals
and they've just been forgotten by Canberra." Mr
Iemma has directed the health department to examine ways to improve
facilities for aged care. The
federal budget funded an extra 570 places to train nurses nation-wide but
that meant only 50 more places a year for the next four years in NSW, he
said. "It's
a token effort and a failure on the federal government's part," Mr
Iemma said. "Charles
Sturt university had 2,500 applications from young people wanting to take
up nursing and they funded 200 positions." No paid maternity leave disappointing: Goward
The
government's decision not to fund paid maternity leave in the 2003/04
Budget was disappointing for working families, Sex Discrimination
Commissioner Pru Goward said today. Australian
women now had no choice but to join the ACTU's test case for paid
maternity leave, she said. "...
it should be appreciated that the absence of any announcement in this
Budget means Australian women now have no option but to pursue the IR
(industrial relations) solution - as at least an interim measure - by
joining the ACTU test-case," Ms Goward said in a statement today. Ms
Goward, who coordinated Australia's proposal to the government for a paid
maternity leave scheme, had said she hoped such a move would be funded in
this Budget. Today
she said the government's decision not to fund the scheme failed to take
into account the need for women to recover from child birth and nurture
their children without financial pressure. "Paid
maternity leave is a `must have' for countries determined to better
balance the work and family lives of their citizens," she said. Ms
Goward said paid maternity leave was still an issue for Australian
families and a responsibility of government. Smoke and mirrors to cut regions funding: ALP
The
government had used a smoke and mirrors trick to slash regional
development funding by $17 million, Labor said today. Opposition
regional development spokesman Martin Ferguson said the government had
used an overhaul of regional assistance programs to cut funding. Last
night the government used the Budget to amalgamate a range of regional
assistance programs into what will be called the Regional Partnerships
program. It
promised spending of $277.2 million over four years on the program, while
the Sustainable Regions program would be kept and funded separately. But
Mr Ferguson said the combined funding for amalgamated regional programs
was $17 million down on what had been promised last year. He
said the Sustainable Regions program had been pushed out from three to
four years, and its funding cut $2 million in total. "The
minister thought he could get away with re-jigging, but it will impact on
the ground," he said in a statement. "Regional
communities expectations have been short-changed through longer and leaner
programs. "They
built-up expectations of regional development assistance, now they chop
them down." Uni students to protest budget education changes
University
students will demonstrate in Brisbane next week against changes to higher
education in the federal Budget. At
the same time university staff could take industrial action over moves by
the federal government for universities to enter into individual contracts
for staff. Queensland
University of Technology (QUT) student guild president and representative
of the Queensland Tertiary Education Alliance Jodie Jansen said the budget
education package painted a hopeless future for students. She
said the extra 30 per cent universities would be allowed to charge on top
of HECS rates for popular courses would disadvantage poorer students. "Australia
already has some of the highest student contributions in the OECD (Organisation
for Economic Cooperation and Development)," Ms Jansen said. "The
government has admitted that these kind of fees are a disincentive to
people entering study, otherwise why would they have excluded the national
priorities of education and nursing," she said. National
Tertiary Education Union Queensland secretary Howard Guille said
industrial action was likely over what the union saw as interference in
the management of unions. Government
demands that universities enter into individual contracts with their staff
was an attempt to lessen the influence of unions, he said. "We
are just entering into enterprise bargaining rounds at all the public
universities. "I
can't rule out industrial action against the imposition of individual
contracts," Mr Guille said. Ms
Jansen said a national day of action by university students was planned
for Thursday of next week with a rally in Brisbane at QUT followed by a
march to the Goodwill Bridge. "We
will be releasing approximately 1,800 black balloons to mark the death of
higher education in Australia," Ms Jansen said. QUT
vice-chancellor Peter Coaldrake said the education budget was interesting
and challenging. Professor
Coaldrake welcomed the extra money for education in regional Queensland,
indigenous scholarships and the allocation of extra university places. He
said debate on fees would be a major one for the university council and
would centre on whether it would levy top-up fees, which it currently did
not do. "We
are concerned about students and the fee burden on them on one hand and
the pressures on the university to deliver high quality education with
well trained staff on the other," Prof Coaldrake said. Copyright
© 2002 Global Action on Aging |
