My guide to the 2013 Australian election PART TWO

Hello my little dumplings!

As promised, here is part two of my political blogs. Today I am focussing on:

The Labor Party

All my info is from HERE because they don't send me tonnes of crap lol.

Unlike the liberals, Labor don't seem to have a handful of key policies. Which to be honest was better because I knew which ones to write about. So here are the ones I thought were worth writing about.

In regard to education, Labour says they will give eligible families $410 for each primary school child and $820 a year for high school kids. They also want to give $15 billion to the better schools plan. (See HERE). Or basically, "schools with students who need extra support to lift their results will be entitled to extra funding based on six categories: kids from low income families, Indigenous students, students with disability, kids with limited English skills, the size of the school, and those who attend rural and remote schools. "
Also, they have increased the childcare rebate from 30 percent to 50 percent out of pocket costs. Have no idea what that means like me? See HERE.

In regard to maternity/paternity leave:
"New mums can get up to 18 weeks' pay at the national minimum wage while getting to know their baby under Labor's Paid Parental Leave Scheme. Under Labor’s Dad and Partner Pay, eligible dads and same-sex partners can receive an additional two weeks' of government paid leave at the minimum wage to spend time more time at home with their partner and baby."

"Labor introduced compulsory superannuation under Paul Keating, and now Australians will have more money for their retirement with superannuation going from 9 per cent to 12 per cent. 1 July 2013 marks the first increase, when super contributions will increase to 9.25 per cent. Moving to 12 per cent super means a 30 year old on the average wage will retire with $118,000 more in their retirement savings."

Students: "Students on Youth Allowance, Austudy or ABSTUDY will get an upfront extra payment of $1025 in July to help with the costs of going back to university. And from January this year Labor has given students a permanent boost to their fortnightly student payment."

Labor will also invest $14.3 billion in the next four years towards skills and training. ie, TAFE.

Environment:

Labors first act after coming into government was 'ratifying' the Kyoto protocol.

"Under Labor, Australia will cut at least 150 million tonnes of pollution in 2020 and see at least 20 per cent of energy come from a renewable source."

"The Great Barrier Reef is one of Australia's greatest national icons. But it's under increasing pressure from climate change, catchment runoff and outbreaks of the crown-of-thorns starfish. That's why Labor is investing in the Reef Rescue program to improve the Reef’s overall health, working with communities along the length of the Reef to improve water quality and increase its resilience."

The indigenous people:

"One of the Closing the Gap targets is to halve the gap in unemployment between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians by 2018. The employment target is one of the most ambitious and challenging of the Closing the Gap targets and achieving real change in employment will be the culmination of long term investments in early childhood, education, skills and training."

And yeh...then they go on a whole lot of information about their new internet scheme. See HERE. 

I am going to be brutally honest here. I don't give a flying fart in space about most of these... WHERE ARE THE BIG ISSUES?! Yes they talked about carbon emissions...but that was the biggest one they mentioned! And the whole time they talked about all of the 'amazing' things they have done in the past. Hardly any information on what they have in hold for our future. I am really disappointed. Those are their main points. I skipped some of the smaller policies, so once again you can see their list HERE. 

Tomorrow if the final blog of the series. Where I will be reviewing some of the larger fringe parties. Once again I encourage you to comment on anything I may have missed. I sure hope I missed a lot. Keep in mind, the information I got on these policies are based solely on the general information they give on their website. So no 'thorough' research was put into this. I want to provide all of the basic information they have decided to share with the public in order to win the election.

Bye guys. xx