Caught out trying to stop the funding of troops flying home for Christmas – while ministers fly the world first class going to nothing more than photo opportunities - the Gillard Government has worked out a new way to run down our defences. Now they’re putting the boot into those patriotic school boys and school girls who have volunteered as cadets. There are around 14,000 of them. Now among the core functions of government are the defence of the realm and securing our borders. On both counts this Gillard government has failed. They’ve reduced defence spending to the disastrous levels which prevailed when we went, unprepared, into the Second World War. They’ve thrown the borders open to illegal immigrants who are housed by the taxpayer, who invite in their relatives and most of whom are unemployed and on welfare even after five years here. Among some groups the employment rate is less than 10%. The Gillard government has showered the world with so called “aid” to buy a next to useless seat on the United Nations Security Council so Julia Gillard, Bob Carr and even Kevin Rudd can grandstand in New York. They are cutting by almost one third the allowances for supervising staff, the cadets exchange program has been cancelled, and funding for national and regional activities dropped. This is an unbelievably petty attack on the youth of our country. It's not as bad as the Whitlam government’s arrogant decision to disband the cadets but it's coming close to it. And this from a government which throws around billions of dollars, losing, for example, several billion dollars on the so-called Building the Education Revolution.