“The way to ensure that continues is to keep spending under control and keep taxes low; that’s the way forward. I’m not going to try to sell the Australian public a unicorn, Alan, and say that there’s really easy solutions here. You’ve just got to keep going at it, day in, day out, and that’s what we’re doing.”
Scott Morrison
“But is the unicorn a falsehood? It’s the sweetest of animals and a noble symbol. It stands for Christ and for chastity; it can be captured only by setting a virgin in the forest, so that the animal, catching her most chaste odor, will go and lay its head in her lap, offering itself as prey to the hunters’ snares.”
“So it is said, Adso. But many tend to believe that it’s a fable, an invention of the pagans.”
“What a disappointment,” I said. “I would have liked to encounter one, crossing a wood. Otherwise what’s the pleasure of crossing a wood?”
― Umberto Eco, The Name of the Rose
Ok, I suppose it makes me sound like a bit of a romantic, but I prefer the Umberto Eco quote.
Anyway, after Joe Hockey telling us that poor people don’t drive, now Scott Morrison is telling us that none of us are allowed to ride unicorns. Or at least, he won’t be selling them.
He’s just telling us that the Liberal Party are going at it, day in, day out.
That’s right, they don’t stop. They been hard at work, developing their tax policy. They haven’t stopped. They’ve managed to rule out the GST and then they’ve told us that they’re sort of ruling out changes to negative gearing and not just because Labor suggested it. It’s because some of those people who use negative gearing are “mum and dad” investors. And by that he doesn’t mean mothers like Gina Rinehart. He doesn’t even mean mothers like Rupert Murdoch. He means that sort of “mum and dad” investors who struggle to send four kids to independent schools while negative gearing just so those poor renters have somewhere to live. And all this on an income of less than ten thousand a year.
It’s been a long week for the government, because they’ve been trying really hard to develop a tax policy that addresses bracket creep. And as Scott Morrison tells us they’ve been working to keep taxes low, only to discover that inflation is low so, as Mathias “Don’t be an economic girlie man” Cormann told us, bracket creep isn’t really that much of a problem, so we really only need to give tax cuts to companies and the people whose votes we may need in the looming election.
So, it looks like they have to keep at it. They have to keep “going at it, day in, day out”, until they develop a policy, coherent or otherwise, because I doubt that even this government couldn’t really go to the election with a tax policy of:
STOP THE UNICORNS!
Mm, Barnaby as Deputy PM, Brandis’ letter praising Tim Wilson, Phil Ruddock as Human Rights Envoy… Thinking about it, they may think they’re on a winner.
Still, unicorns aside, I liked the ABC news item that told us that even though the Turnbull government was “only five months old” it was already having a ministerial reshuffle. It’s almost as though, we’re all meant to have hit the reset button and treat the ascension of Turnbull as a whole new government. Surely, it would be more correct to say that since the Liberals were elected in 2013, we’ve had several more reshuffles than a deck of cards at Crown Casino.
I liked that even more than the government ads inviting us to join the ideas boom. I guess they’re waiting for the CSIRO scientists being sacked to offer to join it on a volunteer basis. Sort of like work for the dole. Except that’s not really volunteering.
Yep, they’re telling us that they’ll develop their policy and then release it closer to the election. I mean, it’s not like they’re the government or anything.
[textblock style=”7″]
Like what we do at The AIMN?
You’ll like it even more knowing that your donation will help us to keep up the good fight.
Chuck in a few bucks and see just how far it goes!
Your contribution to help with the running costs of this site will be gratefully accepted.
You can donate through PayPal or credit card via the button below, or donate via bank transfer: BSB: 062500; A/c no: 10495969
[/textblock]
No Unicorns? Outrageous in the extreme …..
Yes indeed, that’s the Liberals’ entire tax policy..they’ve managed to rule in and out a rise in the GST. Sterling effort…only took them 2 and a half years to work up to it.
if the liberals have been “going at it” hard for since the last election then a they are surely blind by now!
The Liberals did the same thing before the last election – fobbing off calls for their policy to be released – in time, you will know about it before the election etc etc right up to the final week – then a fizzer which went like this NO CUTS TO EDUCATION, NO CUTS TO MEDICARE, NO CUTS TO THE ABC OR SBS. Enough took them on trust and voted for them, only to find they meant the opposite – cuts to everything, And Morrisons Press Club appearance confirms they still dont know what their policies are – in fact I dont think they know the difference between the words “policy” snd “ideology”. Loved your article Rossleigh.
The Libs are certain to get a favorable report card from the Holy holy Cchurch thats for sure ,http://wixxyleaks.com/true-believers-the-liberal-party-the-sexual-abuse-royal-commission/
“Yes indeed, that’s the Liberals’ entire tax policy..they’ve managed to rule in and out a rise in the GST. Sterling effort…only took them 2 and a half years to work up to it.”
Given the Liebral Party’s penchant for blatantly lying to the electorate before an election, you can bet that the GST rise will be back on the table straight after the election, assuming that Australians are dumb enough to vote them back in..
Scott Morrison if the political voice of opportunism and privilege: He has no policies and wants corporations to rule as in the provision of transport infrastructure. What makes the situation worse, is that most of the electorate still wants the LNP back to do more damage according to a whole series of opinion polls.
The LNP last gasp to avoid releasing any policies at all will be a double dissolution which is probably the only plan they have developed.
Oh! Rossleigh! I just sprayed my treadmill with coffee after the caption to that pic!
This is a very reactive government which is not surprising as they are just following the practice set in place over the last several years.
Leak an idea. Wait for reactions. Make a new idea. Rinse and repeat.
Hopefully if Labor keep coming up with better ideas before the neo-cons can develop their punitive measures they will trounce the LNP govt and bury them like the picture above.
I just hope the sheeple are paying attention when the LNP recycle Labors policies as their own?
[Wiki: In the encyclopedias a unicorns horn was said to have the power to render poisoned water potable and to heal sickness]
I am sure that is something Morrison would never provide to the public. He is too busy attempting to polish the policy turds he intends to throw at the public.
They have ruled out unicorns because the Labour Party want them.
@kerri. Did the same to my computer but to @keerti’s comment.
They buried the unicorn because it knew where the bodies were buried