FARMERS know you cannot live beyond your means and often have to cut their cloth to suit the funds available, but Joe Hockey must be on whoopee weed when he asks us to trust politicians.
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Farmers were happy when the Australian Labor Party were thrown out of government in both NSW and federally because of corruption, and looked to the Coalition for a new direction, but as the sixth Coalition NSW parliamentarian hits the dust under the ICAC cloud of corruption, and one federal Minister stood aside, and two senior coalition staff resigned over their corporate interests, people are now asking just who can you trust?
Those among us who have partners know trust is a bloody hard commodity to get and very easily lost.
Tony Abbott rightly crucified former prime minister Julia Gillard as a liar over her statement there would be no carbon tax in her term of government.
Prime Minister Abbott now has a similar problem with a few pre-election commitments contrary to the budget position.
Hockey must be congratulated for tackling government expenditure, as each dollar spent by government is money taken from the private sector to generate wealth for the nation.
I am sure farmers who have to move their inputs and produce on clapped out roads will appreciate expenditure on infrastructure, and we will watch with interest how much of it is spent outside of the metropolitan cities.
The complaint from local government sounds like the dollars for roads may not land in regional areas.
Farmers need no reminding our cost of production is going through the roof and will not applaud the government for lifting the price of diesel now and indexing it so it happens each year.
I know the cost of fuel has become a major impediment to achieving profitability as all our inputs and goods produced must be transported on freight, not to mention the ever increasing amount of diesel our tractors and irrigators consume.
I well remember the angst when the GST was brought in and the heat put on then prime minister John Howard who cut the indexation - it is funny how the promises of the time now all seem forgotten.
The Australian government spends about 26 per cent of the nation's GDP - unfortunately it only collects about 23pc, so cost savings must be made.
However, I cannot help but feel Joe Hockey's budget has unfairly targeted the young.
Regional areas have as much as 30pc of young unemployed and rather than driving them into a life of crime, the government has missed an opportunity to commence some clever ways of getting them productive.