Budget 2015: The Tradies v the Ladies? Really

Extract from ABC The Drum

Opinion

By ABC's Annabel Crabb

Updated about an hour ago

Photo: "Can we please just never say the phrase 'Tony's Tradies' again? There is something oddly testicular about it."

There are about a bajillion infuriating elements to what amounts to a Tradies v Ladies smackdown in the 2015 Budget. Some of them make me so mad I could spit, writes Annabel Crabb. So you'll need to read some of this in a shouty voice, please.

It's a funny old day in Australia when a fight to the death between Barnaby Joyce and Johnny Depp over two Yorkshire terriers isn't even the stupidest clash on offer. There is a title fight brewing that is far, far stupider; it's one arising from the budget, and it's gathering heat by the day. Let's call it: "Tradies Versus Ladies".
A febrile combination of Government rhetoric, Opposition outrage, and media typecasting has created this epic clash between good and evil.
In the Red Corner (also the Naughty Corner): Rorting Mum.
Rorting Mum is a shameless bit of baggage who up until Sunday brazenly accepted, or at least evilly planned to accept, paid parental leave both from her employer and from the Government scheme. Entitlements to which she was legally entitled. Rorting Mum only realised she was a rorter on Sunday - Mothers Day - when the Treasurer announced that the budget would outlaw this "double dipping", which he agreed amounted to a "fraud".
"We are getting rid of what is an inequity and frankly in many cases I think is a rort," confirmed Social Services Minister Scott Morrison the following day. On Tuesday, it became clear that cracking down on Rorting Mum would be worth $1 billion over four years - one of the budget's biggest savings measures. Public money that might otherwise have gone straight to the pockets of Big Rusk or - worse - The Wiggles will now be gathered back into the national sporran for worthier projects.
Speaking of which. In the Blue Corner: Have-A-Go Tradie.
The budget's new champion, on whose burly shoulders rest the hopes of the nation, is expected to spend the scant weeks before the end of the tax year panic-buying tax deductible angle-grinders thanks to the new provision allowing small businesses to depreciate, instantly, any equipment worth up to $20,000. The Prime Minister, who coined the term "Tony's Tradies" early yesterday and repaired to Lonsdale Auto Electrics to celebrate the policy, could not have been more enthusiastic about encouraging small business owners to fill their boots with tax-deductible goodies:

I hope there'll be lots of small business people thinking now: "What have I always wanted to buy?" Well, you can go out and buy it now and write it off straight away against your tax.

In other words, please do everything you can to make the most of this taxpayer assistance to your private enterprise. The more, the merrier.
There are about a bajillion infuriating elements to the above-outlined Tradies v Ladies smackdown. Starting with the fact that both pugilists are fictitious. Some of them make me so mad I could spit. So read these following points in a shouty voice, please:

Not All Parents Are Mums

For the love of God. The policies we are talking about here are paid parental leave entitlements. They are available to mothers and to fathers. When they are claimed by a female parent, in many cases they benefit a household which has a woman and a man and - if all goes well - a baby. So all those headlines and remarks about mums are ignoring fully half of the orthodox baby-making equation. Why do so few men avail themselves of parental leave? Because we keep talking about it like you need to be wearing a skirt to be eligible. You don't.

This Is Not A Rort

Since when is it fraudulent to accept payments to which you are entitled under the law of the land? There are many examples of sharp practices by which Australian citizens use cunning and subterfuge to maximize their entitlements and minimise their contributions, but this ain't one of them.

Double Dipping? Join The Queue

Australia is a free market economy with a rich tradition of instances in which the Government and private enterprise go Dutch. Is it double dipping when you choose to send your child to private school and still benefit from Commonwealth funding for that child? Is it double dipping when you decide you'd prefer to be in the private health system and the taxpayer picks up a third of your premiums and also doesn't mind when you go to a public hospital? Is it double dipping when you use your car to get to your job, for which you're already being paid, and the Commonwealth gives you a tax deduction of 66 cents per kilometre? We don't tend to see it that way, because we take the view, collectively, that choice in education is good, and so is a private health system that takes the heat off the public one, and that work is good. We have a long history, too, of thinking babies are good. To the point where John Howard once enjoined Australians to have one for Dad, one for Mum, and one for Peter Costello (an exhortation that has kept sex therapists in work ever since). He said that when launching the Baby Bonus, a payment that happily and uncontroversially went to everyone, regardless of whether they had paid parental leave. People called it extravagant, and criticised the Government for giving it, but no-one ever was called a rorter for accepting it.

Tradies Can Be Ladies

As the Government hacks its way into this battleground on women, so much of the bloodshed is unnecessary. It's not just the silly and accusatory language about rorting. There is actually a great story here for women in the instant asset write-off; it would be nice to see the Prime Minister and the Treasurer telling it. There are 406,400 women in Australia running businesses, at last count. And 93 per cent of those are small businesses. What do mothers of small children who have left their jobs commonly do? They set up a consultancy, or a home-based business. Ask any single Mum; there are lots of them in this boat. But the PM zaps straight off to a blokey blue-collar business to spruik the instant asset write-off policy, and all the entrepreneurial success stories listed admiringly by Joe Hockey in his Press Club speech yesterday were about men. Kudos to Small Business Minister Bruce Billson, who has been talking about women in small business a lot. Let's see a few more prime ministerial photo-ops that don't just involve chaps in hard hats. Also, can we please just never say the phrase "Tony's Tradies" again? There is something oddly testicular about it. As in, "I gave that Bill Shorten one right in the tradies this week."

Women Are Not Greedy

One of the most scorching aspects of this week's set-to has been its underlying theme of female opportunism. Actually, the experience of the last couple of years, which Tony Abbott has spent defending his former paid parental leave scheme against internal critics amid a lukewarm response from women themselves, tells you exactly the opposite. One of the PM's great frustrations is that women didn't go to the barricades for him in defence of the parental leave scheme. And why is that? Well, the conspiracy theorists will tell you that the "Tony haters" in the feminist movement opposed this measure out of spite. It was certainly unloved; when the PM announced he was dropping the scheme, Essential's poll recorded 59 per cent of Australians being glad, 25 per cent being sorry and 16 per cent not having an opinion either way. But surely, if women really were grasping opportunists, you would have seen more of a dash for cash? In the end, it turns out, as the PM himself has explained, women told him - in a message that he heard and upon which he acted - that they'd rather have the resources put into child care, a measure that would help them to manage parenthood with being productive members of society. Sort of the opposite of greed, really.

Annabel Crabb is the ABC's chief online political writer. She tweets at @annabelcrabb.