Gerard Henderson and a rich vein of comedy stylings for the long suffering souls on struggle street ...

(Above: a Nicholson to set the comedy styling mood. More Nicholson here).

The commentariat in the United States realise they're in the entertainment business, a kind of off-Broadway gig where comedy stylings are part of the message.

So when Tea Partiers - who tend to be a bunch of angry old farts - rage about the need to cut deficits, and then get outraged when Republican politicians suggest cutting Medicare - thereby directly affecting the interests and health coverage of angry old farts - they often like to don colonial clothes.

Now all we need locally is for the highly esteemed Gerard Henderson to don sackcloth and ashes, so that the rich comedy vein he taps in Middle-class welfare tag insults the noble art of raising children can take him to an off-Broadway gig. Hey, the pond would settle for an off-Auckland gig if that was all that was on offer for the prattling Polonius.

Poor Gerard is terribly concerned for folks and families earning more than $150,000 a year, which might seem a tad excessive up against the thirty odd thousand a year female social workers get, but hey (a) the lumpenproletariat woman shouldn't breed, and (b) if they did they should learn the noble art of raising children on the sniff of an oily rag.

Why back in my day we were glad of a meal of bread and dripping - 'twere the Sunday meal of choice - with breakfast most days a fine mix of chopped gravel and left-over hay. (Underpaid female social workers win big pay rise).

Back to the sob fest from Henderson, and an alarming question:

... a more appropriate question, in terms of the budget debate, is whether such a phenomenon as middle-class welfare exists.

Oh dear won't someone think of the hapless dwellers in the land of the north shore or the eastern suburbs, poor things, struggling along on struggle street as they are?

Sure thing. In flies that caped crusader for the upper crust, Gerard 'the Hulk is angry now' Henderson:

Take a husband and wife with two children who live on the north shore or in the eastern suburbs of Sydney and earn a family income of $150,000. If they send their children to a government school, use a bulk-billing doctor and attend the local public hospital when necessary, no one would then depict them as welfare recipients.

Say what?

wel·fare (wlfâr) n.
1.a. Health, happiness, and good fortune; well-being.
b. Prosperity.
2. Welfare work.
3.a. Financial or other aid provided, especially by the government, to people in need.
b. Corporate welfare. (and more here).

Of course anyone in the United States who thought of using a government funded health system or a government school, with or without vouchers, would be considered not just welfare recipients, but certainly socialists and most likely communists, and quite possibly crypto-travellers with Mau Mau worshipping Kenyan Muslims with a post-colonial mindset.

Oh it's an awkward line for the hapless Henderson to wander, as he spends an entire column explaining how welfare for the middle class is a jolly good thing, and not really welfare at all, as opposed to welfare to useless ne'er do well wretched working class ruffians who sit around indolently, which is wasteful welfarism of the worst kind.

Funniest of all is the complete lack of any rational evidence for such a subtle differentiation. But there is of course the standard history lesson, in which Henderson rabbits on yet again about Ming the Merciless aka Bob Menzies, and his line 'the forgotten people', and Ben Chifley's attempt to nationalise the banks. Oi vey.

We used to run a weekly competition about the number of times John Howard would turn up in a Henderson column, and for those in a nostalgic frame of mind, he scores three times, with a matching three from Menzies. Well played team.

Howard leads off with a splendid routine, helping out Henderson's sobbing, and renting of garments, and wailing:

... if a government decides to pay benefits for bringing up children whose parents earn $150,000, this is now classified as middle-class welfare. Is it? Not really.

Yes, you see it's not government giving money to people in need. That's welfarism. It's giving money to people who need to give their vote to Tony Abbott. That's just sensible politics. Hey ho, hey nonny no, on we go:

Successive Coalition and Labor governments have decided to assist families with children. Such payments increased during the latter period of the Howard government and have been wound back somewhat under Labor.

Oh no, the despicable socialist fiends. And now we pause for a message from Valhalla:

John Howard tackled the issue directly during his address to the Menzies Research Centre in April 2006, declaring: "Those who seek to denigrate what we've done constantly refer to family tax benefits as 'middle-class welfare'. They are nothing of the kind. They are tax relief for a universal reality - that it costs money to raise children."

Yes, it costs money to raise children, but it costs people earning $150k a year so much more than those poor sods on thirty odd clickety clicks a year. So it is, and so it's always been. Sod off working class suckers.

And then what do you know, suddenly we're back in the world of Peter Costello and having a couple of kids for yourself and one for the country or for Petey boy:

It may be intellectually unfashionable to say so, but there are good policy reasons to encourage families - including men and women with a total income of about $150,000 - to have children. This is for two reasons. The best way to constrain the ageing of the population is for Australians to have children. Ageing societies have their limitations - as a glance at Japan, Italy and Russia demonstrates.

One thing's for sure. If you want someone determined to be intellectually unfashionable in the quest for Liberal party votes, Gerard Henderson is your man. It's populate or perish folks, and never mind those pesky immigrants, breed, baby breed. And let's not have any talk of the middle class. Let's instead blow a smokescreen over the whole proposition:

Then there is the matter of what used to be called the middle class - once positioned between the upper class and the working class. Such terminology is now out of date for numerous reasons, including the fact that most Western nations also possess a group of welfare recipients, many of them young, who cannot be depicted as members of the working class.

Ah yes, the welfare recipients - the wastrel, wasted young - as opposed to the honest hearty yeoman of the struggling northern and eastern suburbs of Sydney, consumed by anxiety over a chardonnay shortage.

There is also the fact that what was once the working class has merged into the middle class and many of the former group, commonly known as "tradies", now run their own businesses.
Australia does not want a situation to develop where it is primarily the rich and the less well-off who have children. This was the rationale for Howard's family tax benefits scheme, along with the baby bonus (which was a form of parental leave). Such schemes are best regarded as payments - not unlike contributions made by governments covering the education and health of children.

Yes, there you go. Not welfare, but best thought of as payments. You know payments to people. Not welfare payments. Just (wave hand vaguely in the air) payments ...

Remember, the last thing we need is those lumpenproletariat breeding like rabbits, when what we need is hearty yeoman stock from the better situated suburbs.

Then it's on to the history lesson - sorry class, that's out of hours reading - and a celebration of how Tony Abbott's after-budget appeal to welfarism for "forgotten families" is working splendidly, and did we mention how Bob Menzies was wonderful, and how wicked the socialist Ben Chifley was - hiss boo - with his hatred of families, and oh wondrous sight, then a splendid set of tricks with a pack of ordinary playing cards (please remove the joker from the pack before attempting this trick):

There is a significant difference between wealth and income. Some families on an annual income of $150,000 have existing assets or potential inheritance; others do not. Then there are those who aspire to attain a family income of $150,000 or more. Wayne Swan's budget is risky for Labor if it is depicted as an attack on middle-class welfare in a society where many people regard themselves as middle-income earners.

Semantics thy name is Henderson. You see if you aspire to earning $150k a year, why then you're practically a member of the club. Sure you might be a female social worker about to get a little tickle in the pay packet, but if you aspire to join the northern and eastern suburbs on a hundred and fifty clicks, why come on in and join the club. Applications accepted on spec, and only subject to finally achieving necessary income (please note we disapprove of tents on the nature strip).

But wait, there's more, and for a sheerly splendid burst of prattling Polonius, drawing himself up to a sneering portentous height to deliver a pretentious put down, it doesn't get better than this:

It is noticeable that most middle-income earners in the private sector do not sneer about middle-class welfare. This is very much the preserve of the well-educated middle-income earners in relatively secure employment in the tertiary sector. Journalists, academics, public servants and the like. Occasionally this can lead to a lack of self-awareness.

Oh you wicked tertiary sector academics, oh you unaware journalists, oh you public servants and the like, how dare you renounce welfarism for the struggle street private sector sufferers barely able to afford a decent muesli for breakfast, let alone a nice yoghurt and the china required for a fragrant cup of tea:

Take the Grattan Institute economist Saul Eslake. On May Day, The Sunday Age quoted him saying "there is little good done by giving people who are perfectly capable of looking after themselves and their dependents money raised by higher taxes on other people". But where should the line be drawn? Eslake is perfectly capable of working in the private sector. But he is on the payroll of the Grattan Institute, which received $30 million in grants from the federal and Victorian governments.

Yes, you wretched welfare recipient. But hey hang on, isn't the argument supposed to be that receiving money from the government isn't actually welfarism? It's just a jolly good thing?

Well of course it depends who's receiving the cash in the paw. If it's some wastrel from the ABC then it's wretched welfarism at its worst:

Last week on ABC2's The Drum program, the lawyer Kara Greiner interrupted a statement by fellow panellist Julian Morrow on people becoming dependent on public funding with the telling question: "Isn't your entire income from public funding?"

Yes, you dole bludging cardigan wearer, shame on you.

And there, you see, is as good an argument as any for those on a tidy $150k a year to stick their snouts in the government trough, and not call it welfarism. Provided they vote Liberal and live in the right struggle street suburbs in the right private sector jobs, it goes without saying ...

And then a final reminder that whatever you do, don't talk about government cash in the paw to families as a form of welfare. It's actually called offsetting costs, and should never be ridiculed:

There is good reason to be strict on welfare in particular and government spending in general.
It's just that payments to assist in offsetting the cost of bringing up children should not be ridiculed as welfare, for whatever class.

And there you go, as fine a set of comedy stylings as any on offer in the United States, where welfare isn't welfare, unless it's welfare, in which case it's bad, as any Tea Partier could tell you.

Perhaps we should leave the last word to a fine observer of how things are already skewed in the Australian system to those long suffering souls in the richer suburbs:

It so happens that some of the best public schools and public hospitals are located in the most expensive suburbs of Australia's capital cities. (here).

Thanks Gerard, for setting out how hard it is for the eastern and northern suburbs, but sssh, whatever you do, don't call it welfare, just call it good luck, and a handy off-setting of the cost of living in well-off suburbs for those long suffering souls on struggle street ...

(Below: Katauskas at New Matilda, here, or how to put an entire column into a cartoon. Damn you Katauskas, damn you to hell).