Sunday, September 22, 2013

Hullo, sole parents back in vogue with Labor!

We sole parents have our uses it seems.

Brand differentiation from the Liberals for a start.

And it is rumoured that Labor raised more money from cutting the fingers off solo mothers clinging to pension lifelines, than they did from taxing miners.

DH is peeved having just worked herself into one hell of a Jeremiad on the topic of the Labor leadership candidates' massive hypocrisy about "The Vulnerable", when Albo took the wind out of her sails by accepting limited liability, (or was it "collective responsibility"?) for Slashing Sole Parents. By the afternoon, Bill Shorten had followed suit.

DH attended both candidates' Sydney launches. Both made much of being raised by "single mothers". Hoping no doubt to earn some Leftie brownie points, if there are any "lefties" left who still give a serious damn about the underclasses.  But neither candidate mentioned exactly what they did to single mothers while they were still in power. Don't mention Newstart or the words"$35 a day".

Bill Shorten did make a big to-do about ending domestic violence! Hullo? And when those mothers leave violent marriages, straight onto Newstart and homelessness?

So was this a cynical ploy at product differentiation and rehabilitating the Labor brand? Or was cognitive dissonance catching up with Shorten and Albanese and shaming them into acknowledging the recent past?

BTW, we solo mothers are not "vulnerable". As if vulnerability was some kind of individual personality flaw. We are made vulnerable by poor policy in housing, child care, and income support.

We are the strongest people we know who do it all: Work. Study. Child rearing. All with one hand tied behind our backs.

Just look at a selection of our achievements:

Note to self: next time, find list of female high-flyers raised by solo-flyer mothers. We can do better!

2 comments:

Adele Horin said...

Shorten, in particular, was instrumental in shifting sole parents from Parenting Payment to Newstart. Surely someone in his department told him that a high proportion were already working!

matilda said...

Hi, i'm a little confused: firstly you wrote " Albo took the wind out of her sails by accepting limited liability, (or was it "collective responsibility"?) for Slashing Sole Parents. By the afternoon, Bill Shorten had followed suit." Then, "But neither candidate mentioned exactly what they did to single mothers while they were still in power." So what did they actually admit to doing to single parents when in power?