Tomorrow's SMH is running this letter of mine:
11/02/2025
Our priorities are skewed!
Now that President Trump has decided that imports into the US will be subject to tariffs we will see the completely unedifying sight of our Prime Minister going cap in hand to POTUS begging for some largesse.
And of course, it was only a week ago we paid over $800 million Aussie dollars to the US government as a down payment on the massive AUKUS bill which will be with us over the next few years. The perspective that we have to take is this: The average funding amount under the NDIS is $64,400. Even if we were to have cancelled the payment of $800 million we would have been able to fund an additional 12,500 participants in the NDIS at the “average” level.
Remember also that there are still billions more to be paid under the terms of AUKUS. And as a taxpayer I would much rather fund people with disabilities to live a lifestyle remotely resembling that of inclusion, access and equity.
Suresh Rajan
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