Big Brougher

"We're not talking about the entire family benefits here or unemployment benefit but a portion of it," he said.

"That money being able to only be spent on things that will benefit the child - so things like cigarettes and alcohol would be excluded from the purchasing for these families.

"[That money] can go to a school tuckshop to ensure breakfast, morning tea and lunch are provided."

Even the Liberals--heartless money-grubbing pricks that they are--must concede that the capacity to spend one's income in ways that are detrimental to one's children is not an attribute peculiar to welfare recipients. (However many extra votes there may be in the good old neoliberal tradition of kicking people when they're down.) Your credit-card wielding aspirationals are "aspiring" their way towards a probable interest rate rise and, according to George Megalogenis, "we're in some danger of a short, sharp, and maybe even a prolonged recession in the next couple of years." Which means a lot of ex-aspirationals will soon be joining the ranks of those whom they have been encouraged by the Tories to despise.

So, given that fiscally irresponsible parents are to be found among many walks of life in Australia, let's strike a bargain. You can directly debit 30 percent of the Centrelink payments of welfare recipients as long as you apply the same principle to the Family Tax Benefit system. Government money is, after all, government money.