Peter Symonds — Australian budget ends “Age of Entitlement”

This week’s Australian budget is a stark warning to workers internationally of the sweeping social reversal being demanded by international financial capital in every country. In what has been depicted as the “lucky country,” which seemed to escape the 2008–2009 global financial crisis, the framework has been set for dismantling every aspect of the welfare state established following World War II.
The Abbott Coalition government’s first budget will have an immediate impact on the lives of every section of the working class, especially the most impoverished. The screws have been tightened on welfare payments across the board to ensure that the unemployed, the disabled and the elderly wait longer, receive fewer benefits or get nothing at all. Working-class families are being stripped of tax concessions. The principle of “user pays” has been extended to visits to the local doctor and other medical services, as well as to giving universities free rein to make massive increases in student fees.

The budget sets a number of new benchmarks that will be exploited to impose similar measures internationally....

The budget has a far broader significance, however. In his speech to parliament, Treasurer Joe Hockey declared that the “Age of Entitlement” was over. In other words, no one should any longer expect governments to provide essential social services, such as education and health care, or assist the most vulnerable layers of society. Instead, the onus is on individuals to provide for themselves. This is nothing but the law of the capitalist jungle, which ensures wealth and opportunity for the few and consigns the majority of society to a desperate struggle for survival....

Budget outlays must be reduced to make way for lower taxes on business and high-income recipients. Insofar as government spending is necessary, it should be paid for from regressive taxes, such as the Goods and Services Tax that hit those on low incomes the hardest....

In his budget speech, Hockey declared that the Australian economy had to meet the challenges of “the emerging competition in Asia.” Above all, for Sydney and Melbourne to compete with international financial centres such as Hong Kong, all social entitlements have to be slashed to make way for huge reductions in taxes for corporations and the super-rich. This is not just the program of the Abbott government, but of the whole political establishment. The foundations for the present budget were laid by the previous Greens-backed Labor government, which had already begun to lift the pension age and axe welfare benefits....

The program of austerity is intimately related to the drive to war. One of the few budget items to increase was defence, in line with the bipartisan goal of lifting military spending to 2 percent of gross domestic product. The increase is part of Canberra’s commitment to the Obama administration’s “pivot to Asia” and US preparations throughout the region for war against China. The interests of Australian financial elites are completely bound up with Wall Street and continued US hegemony in Asia and internationally....

The working class in Australia and around the world should begin drawing its own conclusions. If capitalism has nothing in store but war and the Dickensian world of 19th century Britain, then it must be abolished and replaced by a society structured on socialist principles to provide for the needs of the majority, not the super-profits of a wealthy few.

World Socialist Web Site
Australian budget ends “Age of Entitlement”
Peter Symond, National Editor, WSWS