[shuttertalk]

Funny...

THE ORIGINAL STORY OF THE ANT AND THE GRASSHOPPER

The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter.

The grasshopper thinks he's a fool, and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.

Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed. The shivering grasshopper has no food or shelter, so he dies out in the cold.


THE MODERN AUSTRALIAN VERSION

The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter.

The grasshopper thinks he's a fool, and laughs and dances and plays the summer away.

Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed.

The shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while others less fortunate like him are cold and starving.

The ABC and Channel 9 show up to provide live coverage of the shivering grasshopper, with cuts to a video of the ant in his comfortable warm home with a table filled with food.

Australians are stunned that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so while others have plenty.

The Democrats, the Greens and the Coalition Against Poverty demonstrate in front of the ant's house.

The ABC, interrupting an Aboriginal cultural festival special from North Queensland with breaking news, broadcasts them singing "We Shall Overcome."

Bob Brown rants in an interview with Ray Martin that the ant has gotten rich off the backs of grasshoppers, and calls for an immediate tax hike on the ant to make him pay his "fair share."

In response to polls, the Liberal Government drafts the Economic Equity and Grasshopper Anti-Discrimination Act, retrospective to the beginning of the summer.

It is quickly passed through the Senate.

The ant's taxes are reassessed and he is also fined for failing to hire grass hoppers as helpers.

Without enough money to pay both the fine and his newly imposed retrospective taxes, his home is confiscated by the government.

The ant moves to Asia, and starts a successful agribiz company.

The TV stations later show the now fat grasshopper finishing up the last of the ant's food though Spring is still months away, while the government owned house he is in, which just happens to be the ant's old house crumbles around him because he hadn't maintained it. Inadequate government funding is blamed, Kim Beasley now is appointed to head a commission of inquiry that will cost $10,000,000.

The grasshopper is soon dead of a drug overdose, the Sydney Morning Herald blames it on obvious failure of government to address the root causes of despair arising from social inequity.

[StudioJ]

LOL.. no comment

[de_axeman]

Heheheh... very apt...

[Cailean]

Not amusing, nor a valid analogy... This just perpetuates the myth that poverty is caused by laziness... simply not the case. In many countries, in fact, the social welfare systems encourage the poor not to work by clawing back benefits for every dollar earned!

Not to mention those whose employability as an adult is limited because of poverty as a child. Surely, starving children aren't grasshoppers!

If you look at the most recent Poverty Line numbers for Australia, even couples who are on welfare live below the poverty line. Even more important is the growing number of 'working poor'. As of 2000, one in five (20%) poor Australians were working.

[de_axeman]

Hmmm.. didn't realise that there were so many "poor" people in Australia. It's the age old vicious cycle where the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.

On one hand, I feel bad that a country like Australia has a significant number of people who are classed as living in poverty (although compared to someone living in poverty in China, the Australian version probably live like kings).

I accept that most Australians are hardworking and honest, and only a few are genuinely lazy (and have gotten the media attention).

However, I do feel more than a little ticked off that I get taxed even more heavily the more I earn, and the harder I work. And it's because the progressive tax system pays for the welfare and medical benefits (which ALL Australians have access too, both rich and poor) that support those in poverty. I'm not ticked off at the poor, but rather the tax system.

While I do complain, things are indeed great by any standard. I live well, eat well, sleep well, work well, and if I part of my wages will help out those in poverty while I enjoy the blessings of the Lord, then it's all good!