This piece clearly articulates what is wrong with the Abbott - TopicsExpress

This piece clearly articulates what is wrong with the Abbott governments policies and approach. Where we see a society, they see a market. They dont believe in community, and no matter the weasel words they use to justify their decisions, they support a wealthy elite to the detriment of the rest of the electorate. This is not the egalitarian, inclusive government Australia needs. As Mr Abbott himself has said, in the end, we have to be a productive and competitive society and greater inequality might be inevitable. Well, bugger that. A society with greater inequality isnt a society. Its a market. And a market isnt driven by values of burden sharing or a fair go. It is driven by power and wealth; it is a place where the strong prosper and the weak are blamed for not being strong enough. Why would any national leader just shrug and say greater inequality might be inevitable? Inevitable? We dont even have to imagine what happens when countries shred the social contract in this way; we only need to look overseas. Mr Abbotts approach is the same one that underpinned Margaret Thatchers view that there is no such thing as society, and that has allowed her current successors to instigate austerity measures that have kept Britain in recession for years. It is the same approach that has seen the United States become the most unequal developed nation on earth to the endless detriment of the national economy and the majority of people in it.