Fiona Katauskas' work has also appeared in ABC's The Drum, New Matilda, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, The Australian, The Financial Review and Scribe's Best Australian political cartoon anthologies.
Topic tags: fiona katauskas, Eureka Street, cartoon, 'Wealthy welfare'
If there's one thing that the recent election campaign and its outcome demonstrated, it's the depth of the divisions that exist in our Australian community.
Our politics is focused on point-scoring, personalities, and name-calling across party lines. The media, for the most part, don't help, driven by the 24-hour news cycle and the pursuit of advertising dollars into a frenzy of click-bait and shallow sensationalism.
What does it mean to be an Australian in times like these? What are the values that unite us?
Eureka Street offers an alternative. It's less a magazine than a wide ranging conversation about the issues that matter in our country and our world; a conversation marked by respect for the dignity of ALL human beings.
Importantly, it's a conversation that takes place in the open, unhindered by paywalls or excessive advertising. And it's through the support of people like you that it is able to do so.
Wonderful, incisive cartoon!
When I see welfare being distibuted among those earning up to $150,000 while I get nothing even though earning $22,000, my first reaction is one of anger. However, after a while, rational thinking sets in and I actually consider the problem more carefully. Due to the tax free threshold and various other factors, I pay about 2000 per year in taxes. Someone on $150,000 pays around 50,000 per year in taxes. Then I get to thinking further. A nation is formed by its members. If a nation did not have any members then it wouldn't really be a nation. A man (or woman if I amto be inclusive to the point of losing my train of thought) who has a dependent spouse and several children if literally looking after members of the nation. Furthermore, the nation provides by law that this person must look after his or her children or face severe penalties and the wrath of social disaproval. Why then should this person be subjected to paying the same tax as someone who is not providing for members of the state. Instead of making tax payments complex, the state allows for this scenario by refunding some of the tax this person has payed. Thus we can see that they are not really receiving wellfare, but rather a form of tax break to counteract the unfairness of making a person with dependant pay as much tax as a person with no dependants.
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Fiona Katauskas' work has also appeared in ABC's The Drum, New Matilda, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, The Australian, The Financial Review and Scribe's Best Australian political cartoon anthologies.