So not only has Mr Rudd put up the price of ready-to-drink cans and is threatening to do the same to beer and wine, which will hit me where it hurts, he now wants me – at an age when I am starting to have a long, hard look at the pension and hoping like hell there is something left when I get there – to be the unwitting taxpayer to sponsor maternity leave for mothers via another levy.

Can I afford five or six dollars a week to give future kids some semblance of a proper upbringing – so they can sit home and be nurtured properly – or should I be more worried about where the next payment for the Plasma or the new four-wheel-drive is coming from?

The realistic answer at this stage is probably yes, I can afford it, but it would have to come with a few conditions.

Firstly, they are not getting my five or six until they put a means test on, so that I am not sponsoring someone who is cashed up, sitting by the pool while the nanny cleans the house, changes the nappy and gets dinner on the table before hubby gets home from Club Pelican.

And while on that topic, the baby bonus should get the flick if they are going to pay maternity leave – unless they don’t have a job, and then they should get one or the other.

No problem again with the needy being looked after, but how do authorities stop the cash going down the throat of a poker machine or paying for a year’s supply of smokes.

I think the real danger is we could end up a society dependent on the government, and that is a risky thought.

But getting back to my five or six dollars, I know where I would rather spend it. I was reading a story the other day about a shortage of nurses in Australia; apparently no one wants to train for the job under the current wage rewards.

For instance, my research shows a casual rate of pay $24.10 per hour, plus penalties, for a four-year trained nurse, which doesn’t seem very much to me.

Now compare that to a stop-and-go person on roadworks who gets $23.37 per hour casual rate, plus penalties. The difference between the two for a day’s work is about $6.

I mention this because last week I was in the Caloundra Private Hospital for three days to have my gall bladder removed, with the only benefit being that people probably won’t be able to say, “gee he has some gall, that bloke”.

Actually a friend of mine was telling his son about how I managed to stay alive without a gall bladder, because as the kid pointed out, unlike some other organs there is only one.

After he mulled it over, he remarked that is why the liver is called the liver, because if you haven’t got one you don’t live.

No doubt about kids and their perspectives.

But anyway, I spent a few days at the hospital and I can’t imagine what it would have been like getting looked after by a stop-and-go person, or in fact a barman or anybody else that earns a similar hourly rate.

Those wonderful staff at the hospital had to put up with my whinging, rolling my big arse on the help button and having them coming in to check on me when there was no need, asking for cups of tea at three in the morning and my drug-induced ramblings after surgery.

The only time I heard any complaints was from one terribly efficient young lady, who was more worried about how messy my bed was than my actual medical condition.

But in her defence, once I conformed to the neat-bed practice, she looked after me like I was a king.

I was stunned when I looked into the nurses’ award, the amount of training they do and dedication they need for the job compared with other professions.

So I have no problem with the $6 for the maternity leave Mr Rudd, but for God’s sake look into the nurse situation first, and spend my tax money there.

To Heather and Prue, their workmates and for that matter nursing staff in general, you deserve better.