Monday 18 January 2016
1 No doubt Labor starts the year behind the eight ball. But have you considered what Malcolm Turnbull faces?
He will be anxious to erase from the electorates mind two years of abysmal governance. Not an easy task given that after five months he has hardly made any impact at all.
Conservatives will want the policies of Tony Abbott to continue as they are now. Somehow he has to put his own stamp on the party he leads or be seen as just a smooth talking power grabber. And he will have to do it with Abbott and his supporters snapping at his heels.
It’s a ‘try to keep everybody happy’ scenario that will be hard to balance in an election year complicated by internal dissent.
It may well be the next budget that defines his leadership, his political philosophy and indeed his authority over the party.
Formulating the next budget will have many implications. It will be imbedded with many dangers, with many decisions to be made. All muddled by an economic white paper requiring decisions influencing the election.
Increasing the GST, Superannuation, negative gearing. An out of control NBN, Companies not paying tax, Capital Gains Tax, Subsidies to coal miners, Climate Change, Health, Money for science innovation. Investment in renewable energy and the revenue future.
A rise in the GST would mean further tax reform including cuts to personal income tax and company tax rates, as well as compensation for low-income earners.
However it will be a hard sell. Personally I don’t much see the point in lowering the company tax rate given its hard to get them to pay tax now.
Besides the ‘where is the money coming from’ to address the Climate Change question the one most challenging is the immoral Super tax rorts for high wage earners.
An observation.
‘Never in the history of this nation have the rich and the privileged been so openly brazen’.
If he retains them at the same cost as pensions he will be seen as pandering to the rich. If he acts against them he will have to cop the wrath of the powerful superannuation industry.
There will come a point in time where Turnbull will have to take ownership of Government policy. The difficulty might be matching the expectations and hopes people have of him with the undoubted difficult decisions that lay ahead.
2 When is it all going to end? Asylum seekers were demonised by Philip Ruddock many years ago purely for political purposes. It has continued to the point where both parties have become so ensconced in the immorality of it that history will record them as unconscionable retards.
What does it take to get a Royal Commission? We have people committing suicide, self-harming. Charities being maligned, growing lengths of detention now averaging 445 days. Millions of taxpayers money wasted. Paying criminals to tow boats back. New Zealand’s offer to resettle people being refused so that more lengthy detentions can be seen as a deterrent.
3 Lenore Taylor writes an excellent piece on Political Donations:
‘Combining stricter disclosure rules for donations and ending political ads dressed up as government information could enhance voters’ faith in the system’.
My thought for the day
‘In the information age, those who control the dissemination of news have more power than government’.
