ScottyfromMarketing is doing the media rounds to assure us that political games will not distract his laser-like focus from dealing with the very serious issues facing this nation.
Like voter fraud. And the ABC. And protecting the rights of religious people to be selectively nasty.
Then there’s the Solomon Islands to protect before someone else does.
Speaking of someone else, it’s so hard for Scotty to hopscotch around making us scared of a Chinese vessel sailing in international waters near us whilst vehemently defending and exercising our right to potter around the South China Sea for no particular reason.
How do you brag about a free trade agreement with China when they can ban imports and impose tariffs whenever you put your foot in your mouth?
How do you reconcile encouraging Chinese investment in business, property and infrastructure with Dutton’s beating drums of war?
Why are visas for sale to wealthy “investors” and why is money laundering through cash payments, gambling and property sales tolerated?
How do you demand more action from China on climate change whilst insisting on your right to sell more fossil fuels?
Inscrutable and vague seems more like a description of Australia’s policy direction than our Oriental neighbours.
Tim Wilson is frantically casting around to find some way to get attention – which reminded me of his ‘retiree tax’ con job last election. Using your position on a Senate committee to collect investors for your cousin’s company, pretending changing Howard’s franking credits rort was stealing from poor pensioners, and getting away with it, ranks right up there in political games.
We are the only country in the world that provides tax refunds to shareholders who have not paid the income tax to start with and it costs us more than $5 billion a year.
If we want to talk opportunity cost – a concept that seems to be sneered at by the pork-barrel apologists – $5 billion pa would allow us to increase Newstart by $95 a week and rent assistance by $20 a week. This would profoundly change the lives of millions of Australians and stimulate the economy but we all know that this government’s laser-like focus is on individual wealth creation rather than the travails of the poor.
Remember the days when the Coalition’s game plan was all about debt and deficit and how only they could manage money? Back in black next year?
Well now that the debt is rapidly approaching $1 trillion, this bunch of financial wizards think it’s a great time to cut taxes for the wealthy, costing the budget more than $184 billion over the next decade.
And since we don’t care about being in debt anymore, they are increasing military spending for the 9th straight year to over $157 million per day. The Defence Forces have so much money they can’t spend it even with the billions they are wasting on abandoned contracts.
Must we really waste hundreds of billions of dollars just so the Coalition can say Labor taxes more and is weak on national security?
If Scotty takes away the game-playing, what’s left?
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