It is difficult to reconcile the federal government's election plan to deliver tax cuts to "small" companies turning over $2 million to $10 million a year, with its determination to deny some of Australia's poorest families an energy supplement worth from $4.40 to $7.05 a week.
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The company tax proposal would, it was promised, trickle down to create jobs and was the cornerstone of the Coalition's "jobs and growth" program in the recent poll.
That didn't go so well for the government.
The abolition of the supplement, which does not apply to households already receiving the benefit, is one of the "Zombie" measures left hanging by the failure of Tony Abbott and Joe Hockey to get key elements of their first budget through the Senate in 2014.
The Australian Council of Social Service says $18 billion worth of such "Zombie" cuts still lurk in the wings.
ACOSS argues if the government gets them all through the new Senate, a sole parent with two teenagers who goes on to a disability benefit or Newstart after they took effect would be $96 a week worse off than a "grandfathered" recipient.
A jobless 22-year-old living away from their parents would be $51 a week worse off. They would also have to forego more than $1000 in income support because of the extended wait for payments to start.
One reason the Coalition fared poorly in the election was many voters, fearful of changes to Medicare, suspected it was more sympathetic to the big end of town.
Neither Mr Turnbull or Mr Abbott have been able to persuade John Howard's battlers they care about those in society who have experienced some of the worst life has to offer.
ACOSS has been saying for years that budget cuts to welfare payments and benefits have a disproportionate impact on low-income households.
A family with two workers on the average wage of $80,000 has a combined income of $160,000 a year. The loss of $10 a week under these circumstances is negligible.
In a single-parent household where the only income is from welfare payments that loss is vastly more significant.
Why are senior government figures badgering Labor to support the measures without seeing the detail?
If we have reached the point where the government believes the only way to make ends meet is to rob poor Peter to pay rich Paul it has genuinely lost its moral compass.
