Illustration: Glen Le Lievre. But it appears it was all an act. Underneath the feminist facade was, all along, the hairy chested​, budgie-smuggler-sporting Tones of old: the manly eater of onions, the high-vis vested friend of the tradies​. It was Tony Abbott as workplace relations minister in 2002 who said we'd see "compulsory paid maternity leave, over this government's dead body, frankly. It just won't happen." And we should have believed him the first time. Even worse, Tony 3.0 is now on the hunt for welfare cheat mums, so-called "double dipping" by collecting both their employer's paid parental leave and the government's scheme of minimum wage for 18 weeks. Our Prime Minister once left a voicemail message on my work phone thanking me for a column I wrote supporting his more generous paid parental leave scheme. He confessed he was more used to getting brickbats than bouquets over the policy. OK, Tones, time for your brickbat.

You're a rat. Bad enough to scrap your scheme, which you took to two elections. But now to liken new mums claiming their entitlements to welfare cheats? The only crime new mums are guilty of is double-dipping on the X chromosome. This is the man, let's not forget, who until a few short months ago was offering all new mums half a year's pay at their own salary.

It has become fashionable to advocate paid leave on the grounds of boosting workforce participation. But in truth, the benefits are relatively small. Parental leave is, at its heart, an issue of sex equality and supporting the health and wellbeing of women and their babies in those first difficult months. After all, a really great way to force women back to work is to pay them nothing at all. But we get the choice, as a society, to help the vulnerable. And new mothers are amongst the most vulnerable people in our community. If men had babies, I can guarantee you they would expect a full year's pay at their full salary. (I also reckon C sections and formula would be free.) But they don't, and women continue to carry a disproportionate share of the financial, physical and mental burden of child-rearing. I suspect what really riles the government is public servants who get generous schemes of up to 20 weeks and also can collect the 18 week scheme. But if that is the problem, wind back what you pay your own employees. Don't tar everyone else with the same brush.

What a short-lived life as a feminist you had Tones. Consider yourself permanently excommunicated from the sisterhood. Will the real Joe Hockey please stand up? Australia's 38th Treasurer is also having something of a new-old makeover. Cuddly Joe slimmed down to become mean Joe in Budget 2014. But it looks like fun Joe is back! His neck on the line, the Treasurer has come out swinging this week urging all Australians to "have a go". Nothing like Scott Morrison breathing down your neck to pull you into line, just ask asylum seekers.

Conventional wisdom has it that treasurers are politically safe, given the recent longevity of treasurers Costello and Swan. But looking further back, Joe wouldn't be the first treasurer to go. Gough Whitlam's first treasurer, Frank Crean, was shown the door just three months after delivering his second budget. Malcolm Fraser also axed his first treasurer, Phillip Lynch, after two years – replacing him with a young upstart named John Howard – after controversy around the Lynch's use of a family trust to minimise tax. Treasurer John Kerin lasted all of five months after taking over from Paul Keating before he resigned amid tensions between Hawke and Keating. But Treasurer Hockey's "avagomaaate​" budget seems to have bought him some more time. IT was the late British economist John Maynard Keynes who suggested one way to stimulate the economy would be to place dollar bills in bottles, bury them in landfill and wait for people to dig them up. "There need be no more unemployment and … the real income of the community, and its capital wealth, would probably become a good deal greater than it actually is," he wrote in his 1936 General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money. So what are you waiting for? Off to the shops with thee! Tones and Joe have buried $20,000 tax deductions in JB Hi-Fi, Myer and Harvey Norman. All you need is an ABN and a vague justification that the purchase is for business purposes. Sure, the scheme will be rorted​ like nobody's business. But that's not the point. Any spending that results will boost the economy and create jobs.

What's that you say? When will this reckless spending stop? Not today. Gwaarn​ … avago! CONGRATULATIONS to SBS on an excellent, if confronting, glimpse into the lives and struggles of some of the residents of Mt Druitt. There were moments of despair, watching as heavily pregnant Billie Jo smoked a bong and the toddler son of ice-addict Corey stood on the porch of his grandparents house observing an altercation with a drug dealer. But who wasn't touched by the closing scene of the Kennedy family gathered together to watch a video of family members compiled by matriarch Peta for her husband Ashley. Ashley has dementia and early Alzheimer's and will soon lose his memory. Peta is her family's rock; the glue that holds them together. She never gets angry, or loses her sense of humour. Her clothing soaked, she laughs off the pouring rain that swamps the community fair she has organised. She weeps for her family's troubles, but is unbroken.

What a woman.