I paid good money for my pension and other benefits.

Just because the government borrowed that money, doesn’t make my benefits some kind of charity or hand-out.

Gold-plated MP pensions and public service benefits — free healthcare, outrageous retirement packages, 67 paid holidays, 20 weeks’ paid vacation, unlimited paid sick days — that’s welfare.

And they have the nerve to call me a “greedy pensioner” and my retirement, an “entitlement”.

What is wrong with us?

Wake up Australia. Someone tell me what motivates the people who run this country.

Australia is broke and we can’t help our own pensioners, veterans, orphans and homeless but we spend a fortune on G20 events.

In recent months we have provided aid to India, Greece, Turkey Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Our retirees are living on a “fixed income”. They receive no other aid nor do they get any perceivable breaks.

Politicians call the aged pension and healthcare an entitlement, even though most of us have been paying for it all our working lives.

Now when it’s time to collect, it is running out of money.

Why did the government borrow from it in the first place?

In this, our amazing abundant country, we have homeless without shelter, children going to bed hungry, hospitals being closed.

Average income families who can’t afford dental, elderly going without vital medication.

Imagine why the younger generation Xs and Ys look at what is happening in Australia and shake their collective heads in disbelief.

— ERROL R. DAVIS,

Albury