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Australia has an election on July 2nd. The official campaign started on Monday. On Monday night, our taxpayer funded television network, the ABC - always accused of being heavily biased to the left - held an election forum on a program called Q&A where people could ask panellists including a number of Federal politicians questions.

Duncan Storrar - who I have to say is almost a stereotype as an obvious poorly educated, not very smart, welfare recipient asked a question as to why the government wants to reduce taxes on 'the rich' instead of reducing taxes for people like him. There were cheers in the left-leaning audience, and lots of praise on Twitter for this obviously wonderfully perceptive question that could not possibly be argued with.

This is despite the fact it was a stupid question by a man who obviously didn't really have any understanding of what he was asking. Mr Storrar doesn't earn enough to pay any income tax and his entire question was about raising the income tax threshold which is already higher than his income - in other words, the change he seemed to be asking for wouldn't have made any difference to him anyway. Sorry, did I say, Mr Storrar doesn't earn enough - my mistake. I shouldn't have said 'earn'. Mr Storrar does not receive enough money - his main source of income is a government welfare payment called AusStudy which exists to support people who are studying to improve their future prospects. Personally, I've no huge problem with AusStudy - it does help a lot of people move towards better employment prospects and better income where they wind up paying higher income taxes and more than pay back what they received in AusStudy - but the fact remains this is a man on a welfare payment who doesn't pay any income tax - and he has been proclaimed and hailed for the last four days as some sort of Australian hero by the left wing media - they've even quite deliberately used the word.

And some people set up a GoFundMe campaign for him that's raised a considerable amount of money?

And now more facts about the man are becoming clear. He's a convicted criminal - and we're not talking about a man who has shown signs of going straight - his most recent criminal conviction for assault was just over two years ago. His own son has come forward to talk about how he moved in with his Dad at 17, three years ago, because he wanted a chance to get to know him, and wound up getting caught up in his Dad's drug using lifestyle (to the young man's credit, he seems to have had enough sense to get out and get his act together - he has a formal apprenticeship now, which at 20 is a decent job with decent prospects). This man is no hero and those on the left who have painted him as one, have just exposed themselves as the fools they are. You'd think the media would have background checked the man before turning him into a public figure of praise.

Oh - and what is the man studying with his AusStudy payments? Youth work and mental health. Pretty useless things to study as nobody is likely to employ him to work in those areas with his criminal record (if he'd been clean and law abiding for a decade or so, he might be seen as a good example of how somebody can change and might have a chance - but that 2014 conviction takes that off the table.) So we're paying him to study something pretty useless in his case. That may not be entirely his choice - our welfare rules require the unemployed to do things to improve their prospects and a lot of people find themselves put on courses that are useless to them by 'Job Network Agencies' that are supposed to help the unemployed and often seem to just exist to siphon off money from the government (some JNAs do seem to do a decent job of genuinely helping people to employment - but a lot just push paper to get funding).

1 posted on 05/12/2016 2:11:12 PM PDT by naturalman1975
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To: naturalman1975

Interesting information. There have been plenty of similar people in the US who get the public’s attention and then turn out to be something different from what’s presented.

Maybe Mr. Storrar’s son, “Aztec Major,” will turn out better.


2 posted on 05/12/2016 2:16:06 PM PDT by Tax-chick ("We like us the way we are. That makes us real, true friends." ~ The Undead Thread)
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To: naturalman1975

“And some people set up a GoFundMe campaign for him that’s raised a considerable amount of money?”

They were conned by a con artist.

Suckers !!!!

.


3 posted on 05/12/2016 2:16:46 PM PDT by Mears
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To: naturalman1975

At least Aztec has a heart.


Anyway, leftoids being stupid? I’m putting on my shocked face.


4 posted on 05/12/2016 6:40:04 PM PDT by Rockpile (GOP legislators-----caviar eating surrender monkeys.)
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