NOT BORN YESTERDAY

Stop the presses. Hang on a flash. This is getting out of control. I’m not sure how something as dry as a State Budget can get so emotional. Maybe the newspaper editors decided that they needed to juice things up a bit to get your attention. And scare the hell out of you. Take the Herald Sun’s screamer today across 11 columns: ‘Huge Debt to Haunt Our Young.’ And ‘Time to pay up $6000, baby’.

And, to make sure you get the point, they run a picture of a little girl born yesterday with the (cue the violins) accompanying text ‘Little Tiziana Perez was born yesterday with a $6000 debt. She will be an adult before the State Government pays off $31 billion it owes.’

Scary stuff. Wonder she didn’t take one look and crawl back to the safety of the womb. And the paper’s State Political Editor, Stephen McMahon, picks up the theme.

“Budget baby Tiziana Perez was welcomed into the world yesterday with a $6000 debt, courtesy of the State Government.’ Then he refers to the Brumby Government’s $8 billion ‘spending splurge’ on hospitals, roads, railway lines and schools’.

Since when was spending money on hospitals and public transport a splurge? Which the dictionary describes as a ‘boisterous and extravagant display’.

But the bigger issue is what do these geniuses want governments to do? Stop spending on hospitals? Stop spending on ramshackle public transport systems –which the papers attack, and rightly so -- on a weekly basis?

Stop spending on anything? Let this state and country grind to a halt? Sure, little Budget Baby Perez could then grow up supposedly debt-free  but trapped in an antiquated world of Third World health services and decrepit trains and trams. And wouldn’t she then blame her ancestors for being so short-sighted and stupid?

And what of the current inhabitants of this state. Especially the older ones? The ones who paid taxes for decades so we could have the services we have now –such as they are?

Should we tell them: Sorry. You’ll just have to rough it. We’re saving all the good stuff for your grandchildren and their children’s children.

Now  that would be Noddyland.

Wednesday, May 6, 2009

© Copyright Derryn Hinch 2009