Better in prison, elderly told

When the rises for "cost of living" or inflation are calculated by percentage, the lowest income people get less than the dollar amount their costs have risen by. Why aren't cost of living rises awarded by the dollar amount? If the basic food, rates, health care, electricity and transport costs have risen by $3.75 a week then let everyone eligible get $3.75 extra a week, even those on thousands of dollars a week. If it's $20 a week then likewise and no excuses about can't afford it. By giving no more than $20 extra a week to anyone no matter what their salary we probably could afford it and still be saving!
But no, what we have is the poor getting relatively poorer with every such rise.

Our family have just been through the process of getting our mother into a resthome. We know at first hand of the caring, supportive and sympathetic staff that we have had to deal with within the ODHB. Whether it was the emergency department, hospital wards, or the assessment units, they have been simply outstanding.
What is less than outstanding are those that dismiss these efforts as not worthwhile. I cannot believe our community is happy to even contemplate cutting services and comfort to those that have reared us, cared for us, and are deserving of a little care in the twilight years. We as a community, don't contribute in any sort of meaningful way to places like the Hospice, we look on statistics as an excuse for not caring, we ignore what will be in place for what will befall us when we get to the stage where we cannot care for ourselves. We seem more concerned to build monuments to those least deserving, while at the same time, cut services to those with little opportunity to protest.
Of course people like Swann and Harford are to blame for thieving our community money - but some blame also has to be atatched to the systems within the ODHB that allowed their greed to take place.
Nor do we see the assets of those convicted to be released to the ODHB. I say, shame on those that are deciding to recover their losses in the balance sheets from the elderly. May you reap what you sow.
[Abridged]

So who do we blame for the proposed funding cuts that will affect some of the most vulnerable in our community? Swann and his $17 million of our money? If some of that could be clawed back the measly $4 million cuts would be unneccessary. On the 1st April [April Fools Day] each year, Superannuitants get a rise that doesn't even cover the price increases for the past year let alone take care of the future!