WELL Christopher Pyne on Monday night’s Q & A may quote Franklin Roosevelt’s dictum: “The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much. It is whether we provide enough for those who have least”.
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It seems to me our federal government, driven by right-wing ideology, fails miserably on this test.
It certainly is so if you judge the huge profits made by the big end of town, especially the big four banks and mining companies.
Unless the budget provides enough for those who have least in our nation we, as a society, will have failed this progress test.
That includes welcoming the traumatised stranger to our shores as well as adequate provision for the infirm, the unemployed and the aged.
It also includes, in my belief, preserving our endangered bio-diversity and national parks against the big developers and taking the science of climate change seriously.
It is debateable whether we have an economic crisis but unless we pass the Roosevelt test, we sure as hell have a moral crisis.
— DAVID SLOANE,
Corowa
