{"id":619,"date":"2011-02-02T15:33:19","date_gmt":"2011-02-02T05:33:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.murraygunn.id.au\/blog\/?p=619"},"modified":"2017-11-05T08:03:48","modified_gmt":"2017-11-05T08:03:48","slug":"aussie-attitude-about-face","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/murraygunn.id.au\/blog\/countries\/australasia\/australia\/619","title":{"rendered":"Aussie Attitude About-Face"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"JuliaAfter my recent post<\/a> about loving the Aussie attitude to adversity, it seems that we’re in the middle of a major turn-around. Prime Minister Julia Gillard is driving a change in the culture in a way that may not be so small.<\/p>\n

Last year she promised to turn her government’s spending habits around and to get the budget back into a surplus by 2012-13<\/a>. That caused a bit of concern as we all wondered who would pay for it, but I think everyone felt that it was better not to be in debt.<\/p>\n

Last week, when it became clear how badly the floods were affecting us, Gillard pledged $5 billion<\/a> to help with the clean up. Despite this, she maintained her government’s ability to meet the surplus<\/a> target. Shortly after, she announced a levy<\/a> of $74 per person on average to cover the extra costs.<\/p>\n

\"floodOn hearing this I immediately reconsidered my plans to donate money to assist those affected by the floods. If the government was going to take the money anyway, why should I donate? I’m not the only one to express these concerns<\/a>. People have started saying that insurance companies should be covering the damage and that anyone who didn’t take out flood insurance deserves what they got.<\/p>\n

I want to help, but I no longer feel good about helping. What does this mean for our culture? Can we claim to face adversity with courage if we snivel at having to put up money? I think the real issue here is that we’ve had the choice taken away. How can we feel that we’re standing up to the challenge if someone’s taking that money while our back is turned? Should the government have risked a change in culture to save face?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After my recent post about loving the Aussie attitude to adversity, it seems that we’re in the middle of a major turn-around. Prime Minister Julia Gillard is driving a change in the culture in a way that may not be so small. Last year she promised to turn her government’s spending habits around and to… Continue reading Aussie Attitude About-Face<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[46,57],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/murraygunn.id.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/619"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/murraygunn.id.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/murraygunn.id.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/murraygunn.id.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/murraygunn.id.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=619"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/murraygunn.id.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/619\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1738,"href":"https:\/\/murraygunn.id.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/619\/revisions\/1738"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/murraygunn.id.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=619"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/murraygunn.id.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=619"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/murraygunn.id.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=619"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}