By Paul Dobbyn
DUTTON Park pensioner Mick Sullivan has criticised the latest Federal Budget as “one of the most disappointing” he’s seen.
“What disappoints me most is that it was put together by three well known Catholics – (Prime Minister) Tony Abbott, (Treasurer) Joe Hockey, (Finance Minister) Mathias Cormann,” Mr Sullivan, 74, said.
“They don’t seem to have taken any notice of what our Pope (Francis) has often said about the importance of an even distribution of wealth throughout the world.
“In this Budget, it seems the main people being hit are the young, the unemployed, the poor and the pensioners.
“That’s going to be devastating for Australia in the future. It will change the nation as we know it and it will finish up as the American system.”
Mr Sullivan is alarmed by the measures directed at unemployed youth.
“Fr Chris Riley (founder of Youth Off The Streets) on television during the week said he is alarmed about the way they’re treating the young unemployed,” he said.
“He is one of Australia’s experts on young unemployed and people should take notice of him.”
Mr Sullivan said it was concerning that “this is the first time in the history of Australia that a group of people – unemployed youth – will have no safety net”.
“They will be without this safety net for six months … that’s a long time,” he said.
“If you’re young and in a high-unemployment area, you’ll have to move away from your home which will cost you more for accommodation.
“Also all support networks will disappear as the young people move into areas where they know no one.
“If they get stressed and get depression, these young people could most likely be added to the huge number of young people, males especially, who suicide in Australia every year.”
As former national director of Australian Catholic Relief and later the executive director of the Australian Council for Overseas Aid, Mr Sullivan is also concerned by the Government’s planned $7.6 billion cut to foreign aid.
“The foreign aid budget was the worst hit – so the poorest people who live on less than $2 a day, they’ve been hit the most,” he said.
Mr Sullivan first became interested in the Federal Budget in 1959.
That Budget was handed down not long after he became a member of the St Vincent de Paul Society.
“For the first time, I realised the impact such government decision could have on the lives of struggling people needing the society’s support,” he said.
Spending many years in administration, Mr Sullivan expressed a certain amount of sympathy for the Government’s position.
“I know the Government has to be careful and make sure they have enough funding for the future,” he said. “But there is nothing in this Budget which looks at income, nothing about people who have huge tax deductions.
“It’s all been about expenditure; and the cuts were so uneven … it made it look as though the Government was trying to change Australian society.”
Mr Sullivan appealed to Catholics to “give as much as you can to the St Vincent de Paul Society because they’re really going to need it to support those impacted by the Budget”.
“My only hope is the Government realises it’s gone too far and pulls back on some of these draconian measures I’ve been talking about,” he said.
“Some of the others of course, they will have to keep. They’ve got to do something.”
