Can you do a better job than Joe Hockey?
Joe Hockey (image from news.com.au)
I have read a lot since the budget has been brought down as have, no doubt, many of you. I have also listened to the spin from Joe Hockey, and the responses to date from a great range of people. I could give my responses to what Hockey said at the Press Club, and some very interesting quotes but, quite frankly, I got sick of listening to bullshit.
So I thought my time would be better spent deciding how I would fix things.
The Coalition approach is to make some people wealthy so they will employ more of the rest of us. As least I think that is the plan. Economy has replaced the word society so it becomes increasingly hard to understand why things are being done – what are our goals, what are we trying to achieve. Surely the economy is only a means to an end rather than THE end.
I understand that we need to raise revenue and cut spending. Here are a few ideas. Feel free to add your thoughts.
Cap and freeze defence spending at $20 billion a year. If a real threat emerges we can increase this. Saving $50 billion
Cancel the order for the 58 extra jet fighters and get by with the 14 we have already ordered. Saving of $24 billion
Cancel the changes to the Paid parental leave Scheme. Saving $22 billion
Cancel Direct Action and keep the carbon pricing scheme. Saving of $10.6 billion
Scrap the fuel tax credit to mining companies. Saving $11 billion Scrap the fuel excise indexation. Loss $3.4 billion. Net saving $7.6 billion
Keep the mining tax. Saving $5.3 billion
Find a better solution for asylum seekers that does not involve our Navy except to rescue people in distress, does not involve offshore processing, and most definitely does not involve disposable liferafts costing millions. One that actually helps people. If you let them work while their application was being processed we might actually get some taxes from them rather than incarcerating them or giving them below poverty handouts. Saving…..hard to tell but it would be several billion.
Scrap the 1.5% decrease in company tax until the country can afford it. Also scrap the 1.5% levy for the PPL.
Keep the requirement for people claiming car business usage to maintain a log book for 3 months once every 5 years to justify their claim. Saving $1.8 billion
Make the 2% increase in taxation on income over $180,000 permanent. How much this will make is dependent on if we tighten up on tax avoidance, otherwise the revenue will be nothing and for those as creative as Rupert and Google, we could end up owing them money.
Negative gearing should only apply to new building with certain greenfield developments slated as owner-occupied only.
Introduce a Financial Transactions Tax on various categories of financial transactions including: stocks, bonds and currency. If implemented on a global basis, its projected revenue could be as much as US$400 billion a year, depending on the size of the levy imposed, the size of the reduction in trading (if any), and the number of implementing countries/jurisdictions. In the US alone it has been estimated that annually, between US$177 and $353 billion could be raised.
A flat rate of 0.05% has been proposed on all financial market transactions, many experts actually advise vary rates (of between 0.01 and 0.5%) depending on the transaction (stocks, bonds, currency, commodities, swaps, derivatives, etc). The UK stock exchange, one of the largest in the world, already has a 0.5% tax on share transactions.
Forget buying Tony a fleet of new planes to carry around business people and journalists. Saving over $600 million.
Keep the Clean Energy Finance Corporation. Saving $400 million
Tighten up the tax concession for superannuation. There are huge savings to be made there. At least reinstate the tax targeting earnings on superannuation pensions above $100,000. Saving $313 million.
Cut the exploration subsidies to mining companies. Saving $100 million.
MPs should fly by commercial flights rather than private jets. Flights to football games, the races, weddings, book signing tours, charity events, fun runs, should be paid for by the MP rather than being seen as an entitlement. Accommodation for these events will also not be provided as an entitlement. Don’t know how much it will save but Tony Abbott as Opposition Leader claimed over $1 million a year in entitlements.
Legalise voluntary euthanasia. This not only gives terminally ill people a choice which may give them peace of mind, it would also save an enormous amount of money which is spent in the last month or two of life.
Having just saved lots of money, here is how I would like it spent
Help lift people out of poverty by increasing the Newstart payment by $50 a week. Child poverty has increased 15% in the last decade. Welfare and pensions should be linked to average weekly earnings rather than the CPI to keep the relative quality of life.
Instead of reintroducing the ABCC, reintroduce the Commonwealth Employment Service who actively provide a link between employers and the unemployed, helping people find jobs without having to go through agencies who take a cut of their wage or hire them out as contract employees with no workplace entitlement to paid sick or annual leave.
Action must be taken about the housing crisis. We must change negative gearing concessions, introduce stricter foreign ownership restrictions on residential properties, make some new developments owner-occupied only, increase government partnership agreements to provide affordable housing and housing for the homeless.
Invest in education by implementing the full Gonski reforms and re-opening the trades training centres. Keep University fees capped and introduce more scholarships.
Invest in research by immediately refunding the CSIRO and giving them back their independence. Support other promising research through our universities. Do not provide a slush fund for pharmaceutical companies.
Invest in the renewable energy industry through the profitable CEFC and grants to businesses who implement sustainable practices.
Invest in preventative health. Ask the health experts to come up with ways to better spend the health dollars. Do not make access more expensive. I note that the doctors get $2 out of the $7 for all co-payments. I don’t think doctors are the ones most in need of a payrise at the moment.
Build a proper FttP NBN because it would have enormous productivity benefits, encourage entrepreneurial enterprises, give more flexible workplace options, reduce demand for and consequences of transport, open up educational and health applications, improve the lives of rural and elderly Australians.
Continue with the full rollout of the NDIS.
Keep the schoolkids bonus.
Increase wages and training to childcare and aged care workers. Provide affordable childcare and aged care. Community nurses and respite providers do a fantastic job of helping the elderly and disabled stay in their homes for longer which saves us a fortune. As do carers. Tony Windsor said a Senate committee was advised that if we could keep 20% of elderly people in their homes for one year longer we would save $60 billion over the next ten years.
Increase action on climate change because the social and economic cost is only going to escalate for every moment of delay.
Continue the gradual increase of the superannuation guarantee to 12%.
Increase spending on public transport with Infrastructure Australia prioritising projects.
Increase foreign aid and pressure on governments who commit human rights abuses. Increase our humanitarian intake, open processing centres in transit countries, and speed up the process.
I am sure I have left out many ways to save money and many things that would give a better return on money spent but my brain is tired. Yesterday’s budget was physically and emotionally sapping.
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Return to home pageKAYE LEE please go get MAggot and Cockey out of parliament and kindly put yourself in there KAYE LEE our new forward thinking Prime minister.
Perfect, you’re my preferred PM now.
Reintroduce import duties on all manufactured and agricultural goods of 30% and export duties on all non processed raw materials such as iron ore ,coal, gas etc of 30%. Stop live animal exports because it is just cruel.
yep yr hired…. when can you start
I’m just wondering if I can be PM from home. I hate getting my hair done and my wardrobe doesn’t contain any Armani suits. It would save money if I could just read reports and type my replies.
I was also unlucky enough to see the start of Smokin’ Joes BS speech
But when he started to babble on about his old imaginary friend Mrs I Don’t Exist
and her advice, I turned TV off for an hour
Who couldn’t?
Good point David
Axe the school chaplaincy programme. There’s another $245 million. And axe Kevin Andrews marriage counselling vouchers for newlyweds – another $20 million.
Your suggested savings and expenses are largely not compatible with conservative “DNA” – to use the parlance of our times. (Always love an excuse to reference The Big Lebowski (not recommended conservative viewing).) But they are good.
Hopefully you have sent all this to both the Labor Party and the Greens so when the DD happens they have a list ready to go. We’ll all vote for it.
Limit ceo salaries to no more than ten times the wage of the least paid employee. If ceos want to earn more, they must pay their staff more.
Spot on as usual Kaye though when shutting down off-shoring of refugees I would return the capital to foreign aid and add further to it as it has substantial benefits for all.
Kaye Lee , I understand that you are not keen to be Prime Minister but could you either run for parliament or, at the very least, be an advisor to the ALP. Why haven’t they come up with a list of alternative suggestions like yours ?
And I don’t understand that we need to cut spending. We need to redistribute wealth in an equitable way so that we all earn more (and increase government revenue through income tax), and therefore spend more (increasing revenue through gst). The higher the disposable income of the majority of Australians, the more we have to spend, pushing employers to hire more staff, creating more tax revenue. What is the point of having billionaires who don’t spend their money? Trickle down economics, which is what the capitalist world is all about, doesn’t work unless the rich spend their money. They don’t. They use their money to make more money through financial instruments that make already wealthy people, including themselves, even wealthier, with no net effect on societal wealth whatsoever. Tax them hard and pour that money into free higher learning, as educated people have a higher earning capacity than those uneducated. Limit market influence on floated companies, derailing the status quo of shareholder profits over employment of people. Re regulate the market.
I agree Rob. Every cent that we give to our poorest people will be recycled through the economy. Give Gina more money and she just buys another condo in Singapore or another coal mine where profits go to foreign shareholders while we breathe the dust.
@celticjo The answer is that Kaye Lee is a genuine liberal, whereas the ALP are, like the government that replaced them, a conservative party, (albeit slightly less to the right.) I’m pretty sure the Greens could come up with a list of reasonable suggestions, but Australians are too stick-in-the-mud to vote for them. Until we grow up in terms of political awareness, I’m afraid we’re going to be stuck with the government Rupert chooses for us.
celticjo:
Because they have lost their mojo through years of capture by the right and the pseudo cultured business style that is far from the roots of combative confrontation and genuinely assertive working class opposition. There is something in Shorten that is not genuinely emotionally wired lacking charisma and a sense progressive ‘can do’. A leader must be clear assertive and unafraid since to vacillate for a moment is to leave a space open for criticism. Case in point. That is why I am criticizing him here.
As for Kaye as politician.
I think, more than party leader, Kaye is well and truly capable of acting as a necessary lateral thinker and consultant willing to challenge the status quo and offer alternative solutions by promoting creative ideas and critical analysis. She could also work with a professional motivator of her choosing to generate a more positive and assertive framework for challenging neo-conservatism and economic rationalism.
Labor needs a contemporary approach that is not conditioned by a habituated past that is beholden to entrenched economic conventions. That is unlikely to happen within the party at this point in time.
There has been a consensus that has formed around Kaye’s writing that is admired by many of us and we simply need to promote her vision of fairness.
Kaye has demonstrated she is well and truly open to suggestions and willingly changes her approach if ideas are soundly based in logic and social justice.
Where to now? I don’t know but there is something organic that is evolving at AIMN that is generating a core consensus for action. I honestly am lost in the vacillation of other blogs so don’t bother however I feel there is something solid to hold onto here.
It’s takes time but I see a growing framework for challenging the status quo left and right.
Stop forcing us to subsidize kooky religious indoctrination or parents wanting to give their kids a leg over. Serve the public good: Cut all taxpayer funding to private schools immediately.
I would happily sit here reading what experts say, listening to advice, and then making decisions, but looking around at the neglected housework, rapidly emptying fridge, and huge pile of paperwork (my real work), it’s probably time I paid a little more attention to my personal responsibilities. I’ll get back to saving the world when I’ve cleared a few flat surfaces.
Exactly Kaye, and the reality is that Gina only wants a limited number of condos. I’ll put it like this. Gina is worth 18 billion dollars. She will never spend that money. She will use that to make more money. She might buy a condo worth 1 million and good on her. Still, he only needs one bed to sleep in. But that still leaves close enough to 18 billion dollars, working away, creating more personal wealth. My family and I could live for the rest of our lives, very comfortably, lacking for nothing, on 1 billion dollars. Easy. That leaves 17 billion dollars that she will never spend! She still only needs one bed to sleep in. Now, if that $17000000000 was redistributed throughout the populace, through limits on boss salaries indexed to the lowest paid employee.. Lets just say that if ten million people had $1700 extra dollars to spend on new beds, that’s a lot of new beds. That’s TEN MILLION beds. That’s a lot of jobs to make those beds. Those jobs pay income tax, gst. Those jobs buy other items from all sorts of business. Those business get busy, they employ more people. Those jobs pay income tax, gst. Those jobs buy other items from all sorts of business… It’s a perpetual cycle of common growth and wealth that has stopped with the reinvention of ultra rich, non spending plutocrats whose only bizarre purpose in life is to hoard their wealth in order to show off the number of zeros after the one in their bank to their equally bizarre mates. And our government is progressing the rules that allow this to happen! Oh, and the above analogy regarding beds only pertains to one billionaire.
Reblogged this on hi2lea and commented:
My thoughts exactly. I always said that if I became health minister that I would put preventative health care under medicare
Agree with all suggestions, maybe pass it onto Joe
A mining tax would be a good start.
Its time Gina gave our iron ore back to all Australians. Who signed our minerals over to her family for ever, why wasn’t there a sunset clause like every other lease. Who signed them.
We need a Royal Commission inquiry into that lease.
Kaye, rather than Prime Minister with all the hoo-hah that involves (that Tony loves so much and you do not), could you instead be Labor’s Peta Credlin? That’s where the true power lies anyway.
Interesting how most of your policy platform sounds pretty much like Labor’s last platform. Whoddathunkit?
I refuse to mop brows. I refuse to travel around with an entourage. I refuse to micromanage people’s staffs. I refuse to comment on people’s ties. I refuse to lie. I refuse to organise photo shoots or groups of nodding extras. So what else is it that she does?
Sorry…I take your comment as a compliment but the very words Peta Credlin make me cranky. Who the hell is she to treat us like that.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvVZgjxllag
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@Kaye Lee
Appears Abbott is doing better than Joe :
http://northcoastvoices.blogspot.com.au/2014/05/australian-pm-tony-abbott-celebrates.html
No word if Abbott danced though.
Kaye Lee:
Firstly i assume you’re aware that budget does not have to be ‘balanced’ that is neo-liberal econoic garbage:
http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=27823
Unless we’re capacity constrained (nearly everyone working/high level of technology in all sectors of the economy) or equitably making surplus off the external sector (like norway: how dare they look after their citizens with full employment, a wealth fund and a minimum job guarantee ;)). Trying to go to surplus is not possible unless the private sector takes on unprecedented debt.
In that case:
Congratulations. You’ve got the job 😉
Just have to get a syndicate of business mouth pieces to ‘think tank’ you into the minds of quite a few Australians.
sam,
In my opinion we should borrow more right now while interest rates are low and invest it in game changers for the future. But I know others disagree. The art of being a people manager is to listen to others and allay their fears. The size of a debt is irrelevant in isolation. Depends on what the debt is spent on and your ability to service it. Keeping people employed would be high on my list – far higher than worrying about scary numbers with lots of zeros
Actually, that is what is wrong with this government. They work on fear. it makes us all either angry or uneasy. We know our country is doing well so why are they trying to frighten us. Quoting possible debt in ten years time for example and then saying Labor left us with this debt. Actually I should apologise to the poor girl who answered the phone at my local member’s office this morning. She copped the full brunt of my budget displeasure. I would encourage you all to email your local members…type the swear words…then in the morning delete them when you reread it before actually sending in the hope of getting a response. The more phone calls and emails to local members the better, Think of what you want to say first…I went on a bit of a rant because I was trying to say too much at once. Let them know how you feel. Ask them to explain their reasoning. Ask them about their plan for jobs. And steadfastly let them all know that you know that the figure of $667 billion debt came from MYEFO and was a projection for ten years time under Coalition policy decisions at that time ie scrapping taxes and spending on silly things like PPL and Direct Action and the gift to the RBA. PEFO showed deficits over the forward estimates of $38 billion under Labor policies. When Hockey says Labor left $123 billion deficits over the forward estimates he lied…that was the deficit under Coalition decisions. Make that very clear that you won’t be conned that way. Tough budget blamed on Labor then sugar on the table before the election won’t wash.
One of the new things in the budget is an incentive for employers to hire over 50s and keep them for 2 years. Why wasn’t this added to the list of clauses for the now butchered under 30s on newstart?!
Youth unemployment going to end up at a dangerous level.
We had it so good for a long time in this country.Then gullible Australians appointed nuff nuffs like John Howard and the complete nutter of them all Tony Abbott.These men are dangerous fundamentalist’s.They crave power,discipline and order.And in the end they love war.It really is time for people to switch off your favorite TV show and start engaging with your opposites in the community.Their modus operandi is to confuse and muddy the waters.I know battlers and working class people who voted for them.There are so many issues going on here.It’s hard to know where to start.But I feel they must start at the grass roots.It’s time to inform the the uninformed of what is happening and how this will effect them.One issue at a time.You can change people’s views on some things.It just takes vigilance and effort.
And the budget news just gets worse and worse,if you thought that couldn’t be possible.
The budget has cut significant funding to ASIC, specifically that part that regulates the financial sector. This governments is moving to deregulate that sector and we know how well that worked in the US, who are still suffering badly because of it.
Alice surely:
The inconsistency and irrationality of a budget that pits youth against the elderly is just the type of manipulative strategy geared to keep the hounds at bay by getting them to fight amongst themselves. This type of cynicism can only be exposed if people have some account of rationality and logic. By continually bashing on about welfare bludgers, greedy pensioners and the big bad debt they are telling you you are going to loose wealth and suffer if the marginalized are given assistance. Though I do not belong to a religion I thought that Christian promotion of ethics suggests that we should assist those in hardship. They have obviously used amorality as an excuse to undermine the marginalized until it has turned from amorality to immorality while many of my fellow citizens are dragged into this absurdity through fear. These are not Christians they are oligarchic capitalists intent upon ownership of the citizenry.
Technology is the way of the future and definitely has the potential to eradicate many of our current difficulties however if you are being dragged backwards into a Smithian self-regulation Arcadian past you cannot see the wood for the trees. De-funding the CSIRO is just like intellectual deforestation. If we look forwards with positive trust in science and technology to help deal with poverty and inequality there is hope. However if we continual vilify and marginalize others our society is going to fracture and may even move towards some type of police state. Marginalize the youth and you are building a powder keg that will come back to haunt you.
Neoconservatives do not care on which side of the need equation you sit you are a nuisance undermining their profit motive. That our moral sense has been so easily undermined is a tragedy, nevertheless let’s hope that those amongst us who see the injustice act to counter this blatant greed and unmitigated self-interest.
ME,
“The Tax Office will lose the largest number of staff in 2014-15: it is expected to shed more than 2300 full-time jobs.”
Since we have declared an amnesty for off-shore tax cheats I guess they don’t need staff anymore to chase them up.
But you’ll be thrilled to hear that we are recruiting an extra 2744 military personnel, presumably to polish Ton’y new planes while they sit there not at war.
Congratulations to Sarah Ferguson with Christopher Pyne on 7.30 last night.
This is why we need the ABC – you will never see a smirking, evasive politician held to account by the commercial stations and obviously not the Murdoch media:
http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/content/2014/s4004718.htm
Thanks Terry, I missed that. How very Marie Antoinette of Christopher…
The States are starving
Let them eat coal…….
Mobious:
This is truly disturbing. As it is in the US Dod-Frank has been weakened and as many progressive economist suggest Glass-Steagall should be reintroduces separating investment and traditional banking. e.g. Robert Reich. So Australia is going to chase the US tail into deepening cycles of boom and bust. Great! They don’t care because they make a killing regardless as too big to fail institutions are bailed out. In the mean time Quantitative Easing is supposed to build up bank reserves to prevent another crash. Either way you the workers pay. Even so according to Bill Williams we are all beings old a lemon.
“For a private firm, of-course, negative capital means it is insolvent. For a central bank in a currency-issuing nation it means accounting insolvency but nothing other than that. Maintaining bank capital for a central bank is just a charade. The comparison with private balance sheet practices fails. There is no relevant meaning to “negative capital” for an institution that has the monopoly capacity to create its own liabilities at will (that is, issue currency).”
http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=23316
There is not need to deregulate because debt is not an insoluble problem in fact it is beneficial to the economy during recessions.
“But the point is that these voluntary constraints allow socio-paths and conservatives (both of whom might be in the same set) to fool the public into believing there are no alternatives but to inflict massive damage on the economy and the citizens (avoiding any collateral damage being borne by themselves of-course).”
“They should all be scrapped and replaced with clear statements of the role of government in terms of achieving and sustaining full employment and price stability. The two are not trade-offs in a properly constructed policy mix.”
http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=23316
Conservatives are criminals and liars concerned only with their own profits, power and control.
To cause unnecessary suffering to the poor and marginalized is criminal and immoral.
Predictions…. Palmer United gains votes in the next opinion poll.
Labor hadn’t been aggressive enough in denouncing the budget nasties… AND a lot of people KNOW it’s all Gillard’s fauly.
Hear Hear Kaye Lee
As an independent small business owner I MUST do a better job than Joe on a daily, weekly, monthly and annual basis in order to simply survive and pay my way. I am part of a one-income family, keeping a teenage son at the local TAFE college in Albany, whilst my wife cares for our new baby daughter born on Good Friday this year. I have a mortgage of $240,000 and we live on a small farm 34 kilometres from the City of Albany where there are no public transport facilities. We own our two motor vehicles; one is my 6 year old 4 WD work vehicle that is also used on the property and in earning my off-farm income working throughout the Great Southern and South West regions of WA, the other is a small family sedan now 10 years old which we use for both business and our rare social outings & shopping. These vehicles are kept in good mechanical repair as we can’t consider replacing them in the immediate future. With the latest “Smokin’ Smirkin’ Joe” “budget” it’s unlikely we will be able to replace either, short of winning Lotto!
We provide quite a bit of our own sustenance by growing some of our own vegetables, collecting all our own rain water supplies from our water tanks that need regular attention and periodic repair, collecting all our firewood from the property from storm-damaged trees that regularly get knocked down in “unseasonal storms” (possible consequences of climate change/global warming/acts of God?), whilst we also have planted and replaced more than 20,000 trees of Australian native species (no blue gums!) over the last 25 years so that our great grand children can one day see tree species and enjoy our small forest area where we have allowed the natural bio-diversity to restore areas of the property that had been damaged in the past by poor land use and management.
And we’ve never put out our hands for “grants” (I call them “bribes” by government agencies and bureaucrats trying to justify their existence) or any other form of hand-out in this welfare-dependent “economy” that is destroying society. It’s been hard at times and “belt tightening” is a permanent condition. Our so-called “Government” at all levels [Federal, State and Local] has de-generated into groups of incestuously in-bred cadres of people who have caved into the Big Banking Cartel and the Trans-National Corporations who write the agenda ahead of each election at Federal, State and to a lesser extent, Local Government.
And by the way, my wife is Chinese from mainland China in the province of Shandong, where she grew up in the city of Qingdao. We have visited many parts of China and you don’t need to be a Rhodes Scholar to quickly understand why the Chinese are the new world leaders at all levels of industry, science, education, and in caring for their society. Welfare is not on their agenda, 17% leave loadings don’t enter the conversation, 19-day months and “rostered days off” are nowhere to be seen. Discipline starts at home and continues into the class-rooms at all levels, education and work performance are the normal practice and when you realise this is a country of 1.5 billion people and the city of Shanghai has the equivalent population of Australia’s TOTAL population (i.e. 23 million) we are looking the wrong way when it comes to seeing where we are at in the modern world. I suggest steps are taken to LEASE Australia to the Chinese for 99 years (just like what happened in Hong Kong when they let the Brits use this as a base in Asia) and let them formally arrange a series of 5-Year and 10-Year Plans as they regularly do in Beijing so we can see REAL BUDGETS at work, not this nonsense we see delivered by a bankrupt group of circus clowns disguised as “politicians” who imagine they represent those living in the real world.
Good luck and start ‘kicking butt”.
John A Jamieson
40 Mountain Road East, BORNHOLM via Albany WA 6330
PO Box 2036 ALBANY DC WA 6331.
The big idiot can stop selling our assets. The facts below, obtained from Australia Post’s website, highlights the lunacy of LNP practice to sell off assets that are providing good revenue.
http://auspost.com.au/about-us/fast-facts-about-australia-post.html
“Australia Post is a Government Business Enterprise. The Commonwealth of Australia is our sole shareholder.
We are a commercially-run business dedicated to providing accessible, reliable and affordable postal services to all Australians.
We are a fully self-funding business, earning a profit year on year. We return a large share of this profit to the Commonwealth Government. We receive no taxpayer funding.”
Financial results for 2012-13.
Total revenue – $5.9 billion
Profit before tax – $402.8 million
Profit after income tax – $311.9 million
Dividend to Australian Government – $192.7 million
Costs of Community Service Obligations – $177.5 million
On top of that, consider the employment opportunities this asset provides.
Australia Post employs more than 32,000 employees and around 10,000 licensees, franchisees and mail contractors
1.6% of our workforce is made up of 593 Indigenous Australians
7.1% of our workforce has a disability
Women make up 33.3% of our executive workforce
I maintain that if Joe Hockey was any good as a lawyer he would still be doing it. A good lawyer can earn a lot more than a Treasurer. He sucks arse as a Treasurer too. Selling assets like Australia Post is just plain irresponsible. If his hotshot banker wife is encouraging this then she is a dickhead too. We don’t need enemies with either of them ‘on our side’.
John Jamieson, the Chinese might be willing to work for a pittance but you get what you pay for. The quality of Chinese-manufactured goods is, on the whole, very poor. They aren’t made to last. Several manufacturers from various parts of the world have moved their manufacturing to China and the quality of their goods is not what it used to be – but often we’re still paying the same price for them as we would if they were made in Australia or Europe. Someone is making big money from selling crap and it isn’t the workers on the assembly line.
China’s food safety standards aren’t flash either. Remember the melamine-contaminated baby formula and pet food a few years ago that killed babies and pets? The pet food went around the world. Thousands of cats and dogs in the US suffered terrible deaths drawn out over a few weeks due to organ failure. We still have problems in this country from time to time with contaminated pet treats being sold here that have originated in China. Playing Russian roulette with my food isn’t for me.
John,
No thanks. The Chinese for all their self-discipline have replicated the US financial system, and engineered a bigger housing and debt bubble than we have here. Their miracle economy unwinds as we speak, yet their industries have not yet reached the sophistication of neighboring Japan and S Korea. But that’s their problem. The problem for Australia is politicians on both sides have neglected the non-mining sector, fulfilling Keating’s banana republic prophecy, dependent on a single export and a single export destination. China!
Kaye Lee, as always , you hit the nail on it’s head . Please continue your posts, and force it down the throats of the Labor party. No doubt it will be water off a duck’s back for the the thick skins of abbott and hockey.
In my opinion you have a few valid points,at least enough you run for leader of labour or the greens. however I think some eg the jets might be a little naive. how about the reintroduction of national service,female/male. cheaper than benefits, and the benefits are huge a trade, self esteem, discipline
,respect,win win situation now there is a thought.
How about simplifying the ENTIRE Taxation/Income System?? Abolish everything and start from scratch…A token amount of taxation on income (say 5 or 10%) and then tax ALL spending at a reasonable rate (say 15 or 20% flat rate depending on the amount of revenue required to reach equivalence with today’s revenues). NO dispensations, no loopholes!! That way, the people who spend more, will be the people who pay more tax. HOW FAIR IS THAT?? Didn’t we want the rich to pay more anyway? They spend more so they can pay more.
GST is a hard question. A consumption tax hits the poor harder than the rich. Paying an extra 20% for food would not bother wealthy people but it would really hurt the poorest who have very little disposable income. I understand that it closes some tax avoidance but I think that could be done by legislation and more vigorous investigation, though that will not happen under this government. They would rather give amnesties to tax cheats and have sacked thousands of workers from the ATO.
forget the GST it was used to free up Federal money to give tax breaks to our wealthiest citizens, there is the problem they dont do fair. Tax reform under the Libs will never be anything other than robbing from the poor to give to the rich. A friend of mine said Howards government did something really great with their Dental scheme, first step is to point out they scrapped a larger and fairer dental scheme and replaced it with something that left one in five with teeth causing health issues and lost work. This Government however is on a right wing bender.