Dear Jacinta Allan, thanks for the $400, but I really didn’t need it

I love a generous handout as much as the next guy. But when a hopelessly indebted and politically desperate government starts showering people like me with cash we don’t need, it’s time to park the celebrations – and fire up the blowtorch.

In a sadly typical case of political bribery to the bourgeoisie, my daughters’ school recently asked us how we’d like to spend a one-off $400 “School Saving Bonus” from Jacinta Allan’s Victorian government.

The $400 school saving bonus is not means-tested.Credit: Peter Riches

My kids go to a state primary school in an affluent inner-Melbourne suburb. Most of their mates live in nice houses, are driven in late-model cars to expensive activities like dance and gymnastics, wear premium kids’ labels like White Fox, and enjoy dining out in the neighbourhood.

Some also take overseas trips during school holidays. As I write, I’m on an Airbus A350, cruising over the equator on the way to a skiing holiday in Japan. To be clear, I had to leave the kids behind on this one, and I’m in economy class – but you get the idea.

Luckily, the Allan government has recognised my abject circumstances. As a parent, and without reference to my means, I’m getting this handout – $400 for each child – which, the government says, will “help families cover the costs of their kids’ school uniforms, textbooks, excursions and activities”.

You’d have to cross the Yarra to Toorak and Malvern to find a less worthy cohort of social welfare recipients than the mums and dads at our school. Without doubt, some are genuinely struggling and deserve help. But all of us?

The Victorian government is in a financial mess. Every extra dollar it spends now adds to a mountain of debt – forecast to be more than $156 billion by July and rising – that threatens to impoverish future generations.

Already, the government is haemorrhaging billions annually just to cover the interest on its debt – money that could otherwise fund desperately needed essential services and infrastructure. In such circumstances, it is unconscionable for state Labor to be using borrowed money to dole out political bribes to the cafe latterati.

The school bonus was means-tested, but only for children in non-government schools – presumably to avoid the stench of giving cash to multimillionaires with kids at wealthy private schools. In state schools, it’s a free-for-all, with about 700,000 beneficiaries and a total cost to the state of $287 million this year.

Depressingly, this scheme is just the tip of a proverbial iceberg of middle-class and upper-class welfare in Australia, which has continued to grow in response to the “cost-of-living crisis”.

Millions of Australians are indeed under intense pressure to afford daily essentials because of the high cost of housing and inflation. They deserve help.

Millions of others, comparatively, are in cruise mode – financially chastened, but hardly on the bones of their bums. Yes, many will have cut back on treats and luxuries – perhaps forgoing Peter Alexander pyjamas for Kmart, or taking “the trip of a lifetime” to Phillip Island, not Europe. Or taking a cut lunch to work instead of takeaway sushi.

Such sacrifices, though real, do not meet any reasonable definition of hardship and should not attract charitable state intervention. Welfare is meant to be a safety net, not a sushi net.

Major party politicians don’t see it that way. Their instinctive urge to give money to people who vote, irrespective of need, routinely overrides considerations of right and wrong. How else can we explain Allan’s school bonus or, more egregiously, the Albanese government’s universal electricity rebate scheme?

Every Australian household – from dirt poor to filthy rich – has been gifted a $300 discount on their power bills this financial year, and received another $150 in the recent federal budget to round out 2025. With small businesses also sharing in the spoils, the total cost will be more than $5 billion.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers, when assailed for giving handouts to the wealthy, protested that means-testing the scheme would have been too difficult. But he also rejected the obvious alternative of giving cash directly to low-income earners, saying he wanted to help middle-income earners, too. Enough said.

A similar spirit of generosity to the rich and comfortable applies with the Allan government’s Victorian Energy Upgrades scheme, a climate-change initiative that rewards Victorians for switching from gas to electric heating and cooling.

I wasn’t aware of the scheme until my gas ducted heating failed last year, triggering a long-planned switch to electric reverse cycle. I was amazed to learn from my contractor that Victorian taxpayers would chip in $3900 – almost one-third of the cost!

Welfare is meant to be a safety net, not a sushi net.

Grateful though I was, this was a scandalous waste of public money. I didn’t need the cash – I’d have made the change anyway.

And of course, there are cheaper ways to discourage gas consumption. The government has already banned gas connections to new homes. Why not go further and ban – or at least tax – new gas appliances in existing homes?

It just might work. But it wouldn’t buy a single vote. Enough said.

Tom Ormonde is a Melbourne writer and former staff journalist at The Age.

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