Lee-Anne Walker 🌸🦋🍃

In May, the federal budget did something Australian budgets almost never do. It touched the tax concessions that protect wealth. The response was predictable and it had nothing to do with salaried Australians. Like these two…and the vast majority of Australians. A registered nurse, 34, in Melbourne’s outer north. Under $90k, an essential job, still paying off the degree that got her there. Her rent is up more than a third in three years. Her pay isn’t. She did everything her generation was told to do, and she’s going backwards. A maintenance supervisor, 51, keeping a regional NSW town’s biggest employer running. Fixed his mortgage at 2% in 2021 and felt secure for the first time. Rolled onto a rate three times higher. Repayments up more than $1,000 a month, on a wage that didn’t move. Neither owns an investment property. Neither has a lobby, a peak body, or a meme campaign. Between them they are most of the country and in the week the budget tried, however modestly, to shift the balance back towards them, the airwaves belonged to the people they’ll never become. The salaried majority has been getting poorer for years while the national conversation was about someone else. Those with asset power. New piece, link below

I don't understand this whole growing thing in Oz politics, about being "patriots" & embracing "freedom". Far from being patriotic, it feels like warmed over MAGA nonsense that wont pull in anyone who isn't already there? The quote is from Tony Abbott who's just become Lib Prez.