Tobe Frank: Moving goal posts

To be frank, I am proud that I’ve worked hard my whole life. From the tender age of 15, right through to retirement, and have never once held my hand out.  I’ve paid my own way, paid my taxes… well, most of them. Paid for rapidly increasing portions of my own medical bills, childcare services, put my brothers through university (well at least that’s what I’ve told the kids) and paid for my own children’s private education.  I’ve been as little a drag on the costs of this country as possible.

So it is with this that I say, I absolutely detest moving goal posts.  It’s the same as the missus changing the rules or the basis of an argument either:

a)    at will;

b)   retrospectively;

c)    to suit herself;

d)   all of the above.

How’s anyone suppose to keep up let alone plan a sensible response, defence or escape route?  I know this is all to do with a women’s prerogative.   Trying to change that is like trying to wind back evolution and Darwin’s theory of it.

However, when the goal posts represent my hard eared SMSF (self managed super fund) and the men in white are the bastards from Canberra, well then you have a whole new level of ‘not fair’.  The way our government treats our retirees with complete disrespect, discontent and disaffection defies logic.

On what planet would anyone try and propose a retrospective change to superannuation and tax rules that impose harsher penalties on people that have already retired?  It makes a slap in the face with a wet fish look like something I’d kind of enjoy.

I’m done Mr Government.  I’ve worked hard.  I saved hard.  I contributed heaps and calculated that I now have enough to live on – that’s right, with my hand still firmly in my own pocket – for the rest of my life. That is of course assuming the missus eventually cuts back on some of the spending.  Changing the equation isn’t going to stop me living out my life the way I planned.  They are my plans, not yours so you’re not entitled to them.  So now when I run out of money a little earlier than expected (which was never), I won’t mind putting my hand out and getting some of it back.  I just hope the treasury’s coffers still have something in them when that time comes.

I guess Campbell Newman’s retrospective pay rise is going to be funded by a retrospective grab at my hard earned money…

Do you feel that the government aren’t respecting our rights when it comes to super? Do you feel that they are taking away the money you worked so hard for?