A BILLION DOLLARS

8) that makes me feel better about it, but a bill' is a lot to commit to something without having to get approval from those who fund it, sorta like selling the farm without asking the residents.
ah, but i don't understand politics.
like the telstra sale
why sell a monopoly business,
which gets trimmed of staff by the new owners, so the gov. has to then carry the unemployed in benifits [sure some get a super super payout]
wern't they better off [and the taxpayer]working and contributing to the company's income and the country's coffers thru tax they paid?

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Originally posted by disco95
I can't believe you lot are winging about this. I'm proud to be Australian and it makes me feel great to know that we can do so much to help those in need. This is a tragedy beyond our comprehension, you go there and see what's left of their lives, imagine that happening to you. These people have nothing left :!:
So far Little Johnny has done a far better job with this country than the previous labour governments did, this is evident in the fact that we can give this sort of aid at all. I don't think he and Costello would destroy out economy on purpose. I mean it could be worse, we could be paying 17% on our mortgages again :!:
What's China doing :?: They're a massive population, What about the churches :?: Has the pope put his hand up to help out this way :?: Surely they'd only have to sell three or four paintings out of the Vatican to make up the cost.
And while we're on it, where's all the Muslims :?: How many of them are victims of this, why aren't they doing all they can to help their own :?:

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I dont have a problem with it and if i cant go over and help in person, i would like to think i have done something to help those in need, by letting our government donate some of my taxes, at least its getting used now, its not like Johnny spends anything on education, nursing or roads, it might as well go to a good cause, my worry is the amount, as harry said a billion dollars is one helluva sum of money. Matt

Quote:

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Originally posted by disco95
I can't believe you lot are winging about this. I'm proud to be Australian and it makes me feel great to know that we can do so much to help those in need. This is a tragedy beyond our comprehension, you go there and see what's left of their lives, imagine that happening to you. These people have nothing left :!:
So far Little Johnny has done a far better job with this country than the previous labour governments did, this is evident in the fact that we can give this sort of aid at all. I don't think he and Costello would destroy out economy on purpose. I mean it could be worse, we could be paying 17% on our mortgages again :!:
What's China doing :?: They're a massive population, What about the churches :?: Has the pope put his hand up to help out this way :?: Surely they'd only have to sell three or four paintings out of the Vatican to make up the cost.
And while we're on it, where's all the Muslims :?: How many of them are victims of this, why aren't they doing all they can to help their own :?:

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Not all of us were whinging 8)

I gotta agree with some of you boyos, it makes me dead sick to the stomach to think that we have gone all out helping our ENEMY !

I know that for years i trained for military conflict with a pretend army called the musorians - based on the Indonesians.

WHILE I AM NOT taking away for the unimaginable loss to everyone involved in this terrible crisis, I say exactly what some of the others on this site have said, where is the Islamic faith now, where is the church money,

I have a mate who recently did some work on World Vsions standard Commodores , when i say work, mag wheels , skirts, window tinting all paid for by World Vision, why do they need hotties and where did that money come from to pay for it? Ill bet ya that little Black (my girlfirends sponsor child - dont get me started there either!) didnt see the whole dollers donated to keep him or his villiage. Does anyone know how many cents in the donated dollar actually get overseas.

WHAT about look after your own first, things like farmers going broke bush fire victims losing all, homeless , medical treatment, hospitals etc, police and law enforcement, public transport and infrastructure if he can donate 1billion dollars of anything whther it be aid or cash, he should be able to spend that here.

AND now they say that terrorist groups are feeding and recruiting over there. BY all means send the Defence forces, and the police and medical, help them but PUT EQUAL INVESTMENT BACK INTO AUSTRALIA.

Ill bet we end up with a shirt load of reffo's now too

thanks for listeneing on and heres the soap box back ....

[img]style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/biggrin.gif[/img] mick

Well, even though I am all for helping out innocent people, I am somewhat disturbed that we can pull together so much money, and what is so apauling is that we could give every man woman and child a million dollars and still send a absolute sh*tload overseas 8O

I understand that we need to help those in need, as Australians thats what we do. However being a teacher and hearing all the crap schools have to go through to get funding for simple things, this amount of money seems alot. This is getting of the topic a bit, but whilst we are on the topic of the Govnmt giving hand outs, i feel i need to get this of my chest. What ****es me off the most is that Little Johnny sees Private Schools as a better place to send the tax payers dollars, not really fair when parents get charged an arm and a leg for the years their child attends the school. Christ the private schools in Bathurst have busses, we cant even get a Toyota Coaster or something similar to take kids on excursions. It costs $800 for us to hire a bus for the day to take the kids in excursions, we only have 100 kids in the highschool, that totals alot of money, and when you dont take the whole school, say just year 11, its to expensive for the kids to afford.

I am happy to see my tax paying dollars going overseas to a good cause as i cant imagine what those people are going through, but it just peaves me to see Johnny pledging that much money, when we have to wait 18 months to get an upgraded network hub, because the one they sent doenst handle the amount of computer we have. Matt

I think you should be directing your anger toward the state government on the issue of hospitals and state school funding. The federal government gives plenty to the states to take care of these things, it's the labour governments in the states that don't know how to run an economy. They've been stuffing it up on a state and federal level for years, I don't know why you all can't see that, you just keep blaming this federal government for everything. As stated in my previous post, the federal government has done a great job with our economy to this point, there's no way they'd wreck all their hard work by destroying our economy with too much foreign aid. As for refugees, well this goverment is always criticised for not letting enough refugees into the country, now they going to be criticised for letting too many in 8O :!:

I'll leave politics way out of it - that got done to death at election time.

There is no doubt these victims need the aid and I have no problem wih them getting that much.

I do wonder, though, why we Australians haven't in the past had such overwhelming responses to cries for funds for local disasters:
eg bushfires, floods, etc. Could it be that the "better" the TV pictures, the more money people give? I hope not.

On another aside, my mate (yep, plenty of sarcasm there) Ray Martin has been copping some well-deserved flack over his reporting from Aceh for the telethon the other night. As if the poor buggers haven't been through enough, Ray kept a bunch of trhem standing in the rain for 15 minutes vefore having them all sing a chrous of "Cmon Aussie Cmon" or some such. Pathetic. :roll: Sack the ***** Kerry.

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Originally posted by disco95

What's China doing :?: They're a massive population.
What about the churches :?: Has the pope put his hand up to help out this way :?: Surely they'd only have to sell three or four paintings out of the Vatican to make up the cost.
And while we're on it, where's all the Muslims :?: How many of them are victims of this, why aren't they doing all they can to help their own :?:

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The Chinese ? They are sitting back watching the rest of the world tear itself apart so they can move in and pick up the pieces for themselves.

The churches? No offence to anyone here, but as institutions they are very attached to "wordsly goods' like art etc etc rather than helping people more than they do (and they do) in such situations. A bit different to what's in the book, eh ?!

The Muslims ? Yeah, an interesting one. Are they doing nothing, or is it just our western-centric media are only reporting the contributions of Western countries :?: I would like to know, because you'd think that they'd be in there with a high-profile to help their Islamic brothers.
Sadly the Islamic rebel movement is probably taking advantage of a lot of orphaned children in Aceh and will turn in into good little Al-Qaeda's by the time they grow up. :twisted:

What's that ? You want the soapbox back ? Oh, alright then....

Anyone noticed how we havent heard much from "THE LEADER OF THE FREE WORLD" aka George W Bush.

Is it:
a) That he doesnt have much to say on the matter.
[img]style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/cool.gif[/img] Asian's in this region dont use much nor have access to any oil
c) Osama can not be blamed for the Tsunami
d) all the above

Lock in D Eddie! 8O 8)

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Originally posted by jason
Anyone noticed how we havent heard much from "THE LEADER OF THE FREE WORLD" aka George W Bush.

Is it:
a) That he doesnt have much to say on the matter.
[img]style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/cool.gif[/img] Asian's in this region dont use much nor have access to any oil
c) Osama can not be blamed for the Tsunami
d) all the above

Lock in D Eddie! 8O 8)

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He has to read up on what a tsunami is, and an earth quake, that has really stuffed him. A reporter once commented that the W in George W Bush stood for Wrong. His reply was my middle intial isnt R. [img]style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/laugh.gif[/img] [img]style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/laugh.gif[/img] Matt