Rev. Bill Crews has launched the winter appeal for his Exodus Foundation. Recently he visited the Exodus food van that serves the homeless in the city and spoke with some of the guest about how important The Exodus Foundation is to their very existence. You can see from Rev. Crews’ video that the homeless deserve better than they have in life.

The hand out is called the School Kids Bonus and the more kids you have at school the bigger it gets; $820 per child in high school in fact!

This all replaces an old scheme that forced parents to prove they’d actually spent money on things like school uniforms before they got a school bonus. You see parents had to produce receipts first. Now though they look set to get the cash with no need to prove what it’ll be spent on.

Meanwhile, single jobless parents look set to have their entitlements cut. It’s almost shameful.

You know I rail against middle-class welfare and as it appears today this School Kids Bonus smacks of it!

Of course it’s dripping in political cynicism. The cash will hit bank accounts within a month and naturally the government is hoping that when it does it’ll boost their popularity.

Organisations like my Exodus Foundation go begging, begging the government for money to help the poorest of the poor in the community but we get almost nothing. Seemingly the poorest of the poor don’t have enough votes to matter.

Just as an aside – I notice that Harvey Norman’s profits we down during the week. Well Gerry, this $820 handout could help revive your fortunes if you play it right!

I want to know if you’re in favour of this cash handout for parents of school kids. Is it vote buying middle-class welfare or not?