Things we CAN afford

February 21, 2014 Kaye Lee Politics 62

I know times are tough and that we will all have to tighten our belts (well so the government keeps telling me). The list of things we can’t afford grows longer and more depressing every day.

But take heart. The list of things we can afford is also growing.

We can afford to spend $9.5 billion over the next four years locking innocent people up in offshore detention camps (though that figure might lower as we kill them off).

We can afford to use a naval flotilla to ward off a few fishing boats. Under Operation Sovereign Borders two frigates, seven patrol boats and numerous Customs vessels will patrol the seas between Christmas Island and Ashmore Reef and Indonesia. Anzac Class frigates cost about $207,000-a-day to operate compared with $40,000-a-day for Armidale Class Patrol boats.

We can afford orange life rafts which cost about $70,000 each to leave on Indonesian beaches after one use each.

We can afford to make a gift of two patrol boats to the Sri Lankan Navy and even spend $ 2 million refurbishing them first. Tiger shooting anyone?

We can afford $14 billion in fossil fuel subsides over the next four years because Lord knows they need our help.

We can afford to give $3.2 billion to the worst polluting companies. This is not to save or create jobs, it’s a handout so they can upgrade their factories and lower their bills.

We can afford to give $5.5 billion a year to new parents. The richer you are, the more you will get.

We can afford to spend $40 billion? on a fast internet system that very few people will be hooked up to. Greenfield developments just became a whole lot more attractive.

We can afford $1.5 billion for the east-west link without seeing the full business case because the state government has refused to make it public (even to Tony). This is despite the pre-election promise that no infrastructure project over $100 million would go ahead without a CBA.

We can afford to give Rupert Murdoch $882 million because he knows how to shuffle money between companies to avoid paying tax.

We can afford to spend about $600 million on two new bigger planes for Tony so he can accommodate the Murdoch press and his personal film crew in VIP luxury.

We can afford to buy a fleet of bomb proof BMWs for Tony at a cost of about $5 million.

We can afford to pay $300 million a year interest on the money Joe Hockey borrowed to gamble on the foreign exchange market.

We can afford two Royal Commissions at God knows what cost (the 2001-03 Cole royal commission into the building industry cost around $100 million) because 8 investigations into the Home Insulation Scheme weren’t enough – we want to get Kevin and Peter. The other one is so we can get Julia and Craig and shut the unions up.

We can afford to give Cadbury $16 million because they sponsor the Pollie Pedal ride.

We can afford to give the Manly Sea Eagles $10 million to upgrade their oval because it is in Tony’s electorate and he is the number 1 ticket holder. We can also afford to give the Brisbane Broncos $5 million because they are owned by Murdoch’s Newscorp.

We can afford $4.3 million for a research company to trawl through millions of Australian social media posts to advise the government on its immigration policies.

We can afford $2.2 million legal aid for farmers and miners to fight native title claims

We can afford to pay Tim Wilson, a man with absolutely no relevant qualifications or experience, $320,000 a year to be an extra Human Rights Commissioner appointed by George Brandis without interview or consultation. To pay Tim, the programs that may have to be cut on anti-bullying and education for older Australians were just a doddle anyway compared to what Tim can bring to the table. The fact that Brandis was present at the IPA 70th birthday bash is just happy coincidence. What a guest list that was.

We can afford to pay Price Waterhouse Cooper to do a study into childcare while the Productivity Commission finishes its study into childcare because Sussan Ley had to have something to talk about first week on the job. I have no idea how much that would cost but, as they are fondly known as Pick Wallets Clean, childcare workers who were asked to give back their payrise may be a little perturbed.

In fact we can afford countless reviews and audits and consultants and committees and investigations. I think we are up to about 50 so far but that could be old news. Considering each of the panel on the Commission of Audit get $1500 per day (and that’s only one review and doesn’t count their office and staff expenses) collectively this has to be in the hundreds of millions. The cost of white papers and green papers makes red tape look attractive.

As Opposition leader, we could afford to pay Tony Abbott well over $1 million a year in claimed entitlements. This is on top of his wage and does not include any staff wages. It’s travel and office expenses. I can’t wait to see how much he claims as PM.

We can afford to pay for Members of Parliament to go to weddings and wineries and book launches and football matches and real estate hunting tours. We can afford to buy books for them and build furniture for them and hire private jets for them.

We can afford to pay for Kirribilli House, the Lodge, the other place we rented for Tony and his family that no-one is living in, and the digs at the police barracks (what’s that all about??) as well as being away from home allowance.

We can afford for Parliament to spend two weeks asking about a convicted Egyptian jihadist terrorist kept behind a pool fence and I don’t know how many weeks on AWU slush fund, Slipper, Thomson. If we took out the daily boat count, there is very little left to justify what we paid them to be there running our country.

We seem to be able to afford a lot of things. The question is….

Can we afford this government?

Post Views: 569
About Kaye Lee 1328 Articles
Kaye describes herself as a middle-aged woman in jammies. She knew Tony Abbott when they both attended Sydney University where she studied for a Bachelor of Science. After 20 years teaching mathematics, with the introduction of the GST in 2000, she became a ‘feral accountant’ for the small business that she and her husband own. Kaye uses her research skills “to pass on information, to join the dots, to remember what has been said and done and to remind others, and to do the maths.”

61 Comments

  2. Kaye Lee

    Keep up the absolutely, positively brilliant work. You are going from strength to strength sista!

    Also, we can make a difference – by not giving up, by outing the liars, by passing on information, by marching not only in March – remember flash-mobs?, we can do flash protests.

    Maybe I am running out of life – but I am not running out of passion or hope.

    Watching Howard lose Bennelong was sheer uplifting joy, however, that will pale in comparison to when I watch Abbott defeated in the next election – or sooner – if he keeps up with this arrogantly obvious pandering to his cronies and big business, there has to be grounds for a DD.

  3. NO! But I agree with you. We can also afford to be introspective and preserve our sanity. Meditation works.
    Nil desperandum! Or even – Illegitimi non carborundum – meaning “Don’t let the bastards grind you down”.

  4. They’ve pissed me off.

    I really dislike getting lied to. I have always been able to accept previous governments and have had issues with all of them but this crew are dangerous and they have such a feeling of entitlement that all moral compass, all thought of long term, all thought of the common good has been thrown away with crap phrases like stop the boats and axe the tax and lift the tide…the new one used by both Abbott and Tim Wilson is shining a light on dark places.

    Well I am happy to oblige boys. The spotlight’s on you.

  7. Reblogged this on beingcoralie and commented:
    I am sickened every day to see how other Australians are accepting this nasty little man and his lies. Please someone in Liberal party stand up and be counted. Don’t let this crazy man destroy your party and the future of your children’s children. Open your eyes and see what Tony Abbott is doing.

  10. Thanks guys but you must all take credit because I can sit here in my jimmy jams, read what you all write, read your links, research a bit further, and then try to put together what I learn from all of you. So kudos to all of you who teach me so much and send me searching.The internet is a wonderful place – the truth is out there.

  12. Kaye Lee

    Keep up the absolutely, positively brilliant work. You are going from strength to strength sista!

    I’m with you on that one, diannaart.

  13. Watching Howard lose Bennelong was sheer uplifting joy, however, that will pale in comparison to when I watch Abbott defeated in the next election

    And I’m with you on that one too.

  14. Tony Abbott appoints Lawler to Fair Work Australia. Kathy Jackson HSU and cohort plan to dump Thomson in it with fake evidence. Meanwhile Jackson sets up Phoney consultancies in her name and bills the HSU, then pays herself with cheques she has signed on behalf of the HSU.
    Judge Lawler and Jackson become lovers. She blows the whistle on Thomson and Fairfax takes the bait.
    Fairfax journo gets Walkley Award for busting the case wide open based on an amateur hour piece of evidence where Thomson’s name was spelt with a ‘P’ (Thompson) on what was a carbon copy bank pink slip. Unfortunately, the forgers wrote on the Carbon copy with first with blue ink and then black biro.
    Worse still they insert in blue ink a bank code which is a sale rejection code for every bank and vendor. That number is 211 at the top of the page.
    That did not stop the Fair Work Judge launching an investigation into Thomson’s paper trail in the HSU while Kathy hides or attempts to destroy evidence that would expose her hundreds of thousands of dollars fraud of HSU funds. Real whistle blowers inside the HSU provide Hard evidence to an investigative Blogger named Wixxy leaks. All of the Above is published on line for two years and every MSM journo got copies and not one was prepared to print a word. The ABC studiously avoided getting involved and Kathy Jackson Gives speeches to the adoring crowd at the HR NIcholls society, Abetz and Abbott an all.
    Lawler’s investigation is damning and the Parliament ensures the mud sticks to Thomson. The same mud by the way that saw Kathy Jackson’s first husband expelled from the HSU for buying favours with prostitutes. Yet Kathy still use his surname? Weird.
    When you see this all bundled up like Peyton Place stories. you have got to wonder when journos finally revisits this story who will go down; and who has benefitted from this rotten story.
    Abbott’s mob’s hands are all over this and they have been found by Judge Ares to have conspired to bring speaker Fisher down, and to get Mal Brough elected. Thereby forcing the minority Government to the polls.
    I for one, see this as corruption at the highest level, and a case of the police forces both federal and state looking away while the ruling class does their thing. Meanwhile we are told that no one is above the law. Bullshit, Mr Abbott.

  15. Mendacious, fiscally corrupt, immoral, uncultured, what’s not to like… ? Timmy “Twat” Wilson perhaps.. oohh, and Joe”Cereal/SPC Killer Hockey, and Eric “Vichy” Abetz, and who can forget Cory “Bestiality’ Bernardi finding solace in writing religious fiction? And Chrissie “The Whyne” Pyne, the Perfect-Prat-of-a-Prefect pontificating on how our teachers need to be more professional….they sound more like the cast of a Da-Da performance in Zurich in 1916 than a government…..but it seems most Australians prefer Surrealism to Realism.

  19. Oh Kaye, you have missed the point with these guys? Please, you as a citizen and tax payer of Australia mean nothing to the LNP, in their eyes, you simply don’t exist.? This is a one eyed pirate campaign. There is a scheme to smash the Trade Unions, there is a scheme to reduce wages and conditions and “Asianize” Australia, there is another scheme to dig up all the mineral recourses and flog them off for whatever they can get, there is another scheme to privatize as much infrastructure as they possibly can, then a scheme to reward all the wealthy who support all these and a huge number of other hidden schemes.
    AND here we are the largest single global supplier of carbon dioxide per head of population and of course we don’t believe in Global warming?
    Oh ! and when they have completely screwed the country, you know, like the USA with something like 20% of the population on welfare, they can settle back on their Poli’s super and handouts and watch the Australian slave market from Bali or some other Asian hell hole. Notice, It did not take “Honest” Tony long to find the cookie jar and get his grubby’s on the housing and motor vehicle loot.?
    The Labor mob have sadly burn all their bridges and we, as the “electing public” have absolutely “No choice” it is simply wall to wall crooks and liars. A bit harsh you might say but NSW has shown what crooks we can elect. The Health Services Union has done its best to spray mud over the entire Trade Union movement. The pack of adolescents who are now the “Abbott Government” have broken all promises and trust in the political and financial systems.
    They might well be considered to become a one term government BUT will there be anything left worth governing when they are booted out? The cars will be gone, the Unions will be gone, the wealth of the country will be gone, the farms will be sold, most of todays employment will have vaporized.
    So someone please tell me where in the F$#@% are we heading and where can I buy a survival kit.
    Please.

  20. Money, money ching ching!
    I would suggest, however, that the ultimate answer to your question john921fraser is found in something we have been seeing right before our eyes. Yes, hidden in plain sight. ching ching.

  22. Can someone explain to me how a country, a country as rich as this one can run out of money.

    I just do not understand.

    It must be, as I am sure someone as great as Mr. Hockey would not lie to us. Would he.

  23. Another one, really bad and worse than it sounds, believe me. We can afford to pay borderline white collar criminals minimum $1.6BILLION per annum in precious funds which would go back into a run down and cash starved Medicare, 3 times more efficient and vastly more decent and human than the dreadful, intimidating Bupa and Co. Bupa are been set up to move in on Medicare and trust me, when that happens, if you think Medicare are bad now, just wait until then. Mike Taylor, if you read this, just letting you know that Bupa have been subtly intimidating and monitoring me, they have banned me after I posted links to one of the victims in the Mike Moore doco, sicko, the poor woman who lost her partner so the Health Insurance Firm he had a policy with could save money from vetoing a potentially life saving cancer treatment. Think of all the shareholders they have to serve! Great article BTW

  24. You have understated the rebates received by Murdoch

    Your personal prejudices have gotten in the way of common sense! The NBN is essential for Australian business and education.

    Otherwise you are spot on!

  25. Come on Kaye, Tones is doing the best job he knows how to do. Ruph’s is only claiming $800 mill. Just a drop in the ocean when you think we have a budget emergency. Can someone tell me if ABBOTT has any idea at all ? The Guy is a total Joke.

  26. The idiocy of the PPL scheme is that a Governmt subsidy is not going to influence Abbotts “women of calibre” to take time off to have babies? If a woman is in a high paid job she can afford parental leave financially. I can’t help thinking he is endeavouring to please his own daughters.

  27. Fed up – Yes good point: Actually Australia can’t run out of money. We are a soverign currency issuing nation and ‘can create’/’do create’ money or bonds every day. Anybody who says we could literally run out money does not understand macroeconomics. (im looking at what hockey has been doing lately, he might need to go ‘back to school’)

    Reminds me of a conversation in 2008 i had with a good friend who works a the RBA. I asked if they could run out of stimulus money. He said it all a matter of ideology we could run defecits 10 times larger for decades if we wanted.

    http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=2326

  28. sam, I wonder if Hockey uses the same infantile language this weekend at the G20. By the look some give him and Abbott, I suspect he does.

  29. Hockey is obviously not listening to what Madame Lasgarde has to say. Of course he and his boss, the PM knows better than the experts.

  30. ……………Structural deficits – the great con job!
    Posted on Friday, May 15, 2009 by bill
    There has been a lot of talk lately about the need for the Government to plot a course over the coming years back into fiscal surplus. Our perceptions of fiscal responsibility are being conditioned by the relentless media campaign that this is the best thing for the Government to do. We are being told that cyclical deficits are unavoidable at this time but the “structure of the budget” should point us back to surplus as soon as possible. This campaign is being supported by official looking documents that are produced by Treasury (notably the Budget papers) which have all sorts of technical terms in them that only the cognoscenti understand. The term structural deficit is being touted around in these documents and appearing in the opinion columns. But the way this concept is being represented is very misleading and is deliberately being used to obfuscate the lack of intention by this Government to seriously pursue full employment. Well lucky for me I am part of the cognoscenti and cannot be so easily fooled. Here is the truth.

    The federal budget balance is the difference between total federal revenue and total federal outlays. So if total revenue is greater than outlays, the budget is in surplus and vice versa. It is a simple matter of accounting with no theory involved. However, the budget balance is used by all and sundry to indicate the fiscal stance of the government.

    So if the budget is in surplus we conclude that the fiscal impact of government is contractionary (withdrawing net spending) and if the budget is in deficit we say the fiscal impact expansionary (adding net spending).

    However, the complication is that we cannot then conclude that changes in the fiscal impact reflect discretionary policy changes. The reason for this uncertainty is that there are automatic stabilisers operating. To see this, the most simple model of the budget balance we might think of can be written as:

    Budget Balance = Revenue – Spending.

    Budget Balance = (Tax Revenue + Other Revenue) – (Welfare Payments + Other Spending)

    We know that Tax Revenue and Welfare Payments move inversely with respect to each other, with the latter rising when GDP growth falls and the former rises with GDP growth. These components of the Budget Balance are the so-called automatic stabilisers

    In other words, without any discretionary policy changes, the Budget Balance will vary over the course of the business cycle. When the economy is weak – tax revenue falls and welfare payments rise and so the Budget Balance moves towards deficit (or an increasing deficit). When the economy is stronger – tax revenue rises and welfare payments fall and the Budget Balance becomes increasingly positive. Automatic stabilisers attenuate the amplitude in the business cycle by expanding the budget in a recession and contracting it in a boom.

    So just because the budget goes int….

    http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=2326

  31. Joe Hockey is at risk of being labelled ‘the boy who cried wolf’. Does he realize that constantly bemoaning the state of the economy and telling the world that we are running out of money will cause damage to this economy and make his ‘we’ll all be rooned’ phrophesy a reality.

  32. don’t forget 3billion+ for drones to protect the borders. Maybe they just want to quietly take out border incursions with a few missiles rather than having the navy up their patrolling and towing all the time :/

  33. This piece should be required reading by all voters.We get snippets from MSM but nothing as detailed as this list. Great work Kaye! Frightening, but great work. Let’s help get it circulated!

  34. Yer shine the spotlight on Rabbett and his mate Joe, what exactly are they up to. Its not what we pay them to do. They work for us and we pay them very well to run our country better thac SPC. Abbott loves imported goods and labour so he won’t mind if we replace him with Barack Obama , Obamas term is nearly up, he knows how to run a country and we pay Abbott more than they pay Obama. GMH may even stay and employ Australians. We need some brains at the top and Abbott is just an idiot.

  35. The brains are slowly hemorrhaging as we watch the sacking/silencing/resignations of very experienced talented public servants, advisers and scientists, to be replaced by people like Maurice Newman, Tim Wilson, and Sophie Mirabella.

  36. Deb, unless I read Kayelee wrong, the NBN reference was to do with the fact that Turnbull’s version of the NBN will only be easily accessible in regional/city CBDs not to the wider community. If you want to hook up it will cost you megabucks. Under the Rudd proposal the NBN was direct to every household and you paid a registration fee (I think $5,000 was mentioned) if/when you wanted to make use of it. Hence only the wealthy will be able to access Turnbull’s NBN version. Those more knowledgeable on this issue might want to either correct me or fill in the correct details.

  38. Oddly, in the prevailing economic atmosphere where entitlement and corporate largesse is on the nose, a generous corporate subsidy of around $5.5 million p.a. to our 36 ( 24 open and 12 restricted) private health insurance companies is in Mr Abbott’s DNA………….

    Interestingly, many at the top end of town – those who get their salary packaged – already get their private health insurance as an employment perk from their employer so the subsidy, means tested under the Labor government, goes to the benefit of the employer.

    As we prepare to sell off the largest private health insurer, the publicly owned Medibank Private, the big sales pitch to overseas health insurance companies and prospective buyers is: where else in the world can you get 30% of your income paid by the government, uncapped.

    We cannot afford this largesse at a time when universal health funding is under scrutiny and we are talking about a crazy co-payment scheme on bulk billing patients who, inevitably, are the most financially stressed within our community.

    We can afford universal healthcare but we cannot afford to prop up 36 private health insurance companies. There needs to be some rationalization and mergers in that industry to get them to stand on their own two feet and off the public teat.

  39. Sam and Fed Up are right! ‘No Dough’ Joe’s grasp of economics is simply embarrassing but it does echo the usual neo-lib line of ‘we all have to tighten our belts’ in order to create greater fear among those still lucky enough to have a full time job, while at the same time discouraging any kind of collective action to improve wages (which have shown little or no growth in the last decade), or conditions – in short, union busting.
    It’s good to see that both of you have included references to Bill Mitchell and MMT. This theory of economics is the one that Australia employed until the 1990s and created a strong middle class and full employment, both of which are the foundations of a strong economy
    At present what we have is a government that is determined to totally destroy the middle class in the name of a discredited and vicious ideology which promotes the ‘trickle down effect’ (the rich piss on the poor) and the government -small, naturally sits on its hands, does very little save to exploit the population and the nations resources in the name of ‘the free market’
    As for ‘No Dough’ Joe:
    http://mugwumpost.wordpress.com/no-dough-joes-gravity-in-space-no-one-can-hear-you-brain-fart/

  40. On the NBN thing:
    Under neither the Labor and Coalition plans was/is it to be funded out of the budget; it is being funded by government bonds which are to be paid off by the wholesale charges to access the network (ie. the money which would normally be going to Telstra will be going to NBNCo)
    Under the Labor plan this would be paid back by about 2030 at which point NBNCo would be generating $3 billion a year into the federal budget.
    Under the Coalition plan? They’re allowing alternate fixed line infrastructure providers to co-exist, so their revenues will be lower. Who knows what will happen.
    There isn’t a $5k “access fee”. Turnbull had proposed that people who were not getting fibre but who wanted it, could pay to get it specifically installed, at an unknown cost but “up to $5k” was quoted.

  41. Brilliant article Kaye. Would it be possible to update the post with hyperlinks to the data sources for these cost figures? You’ve clearly done a lot of great research but it’s always illuminating to read the original source as well. Keep up the good work. Thanks.

  44. Every time I read one of your posts, Kaye, I am at once impressed and shocked. Impressed by your research, links and knowledge and shocked by the truth under this government.

    Thanks again for keeping me informed.

    Now bring me that man’s head!

  46. To paraphrase Marian Wright Edelman: “We do not have a money problem in Australia. We have a values and priorities problem.”

  47. Thank you Charles G. But am I correct in saying that the Rudd version would have been more financially and physically accessible in that it was to be a FTTH system and not FTTN?
    I really do appreciate having my ‘bitsa’ information filled in and clarified.

  49. The dead do speak from the grave.B.A.Santamaria lives!
    Murdochracy is now our tacit electoral system.Tony is the Minister for Propaganda of the New World Order.
    To be fair we are being told about all these fiscal excesses.They could just refuse to tell us anything at all because it is deemed “Operational Matters”

  50. Those nasty facts again Kaye. Bit of a bummer. She’ll be right just get rid of a few more jobs shrink government and pay me mates. Now that’s not waste that is reallocation of resources. Don’t tell anyone where though.

  51. Whoops ! I said (above) that the annual subsidy to private health insurance companies was $5.5 million; it should have read $5.5 Billion.

  52. The LNP’s agenda is to privatise as much as they can get away with while cutting the tax burden on the big end of town. What they can’t privatise, they will cripple with cuts.

    The people who vote LNP are the top 10% of the population who appropriate 80% of the wealth the other 90% produce. How did they win then? With the consent of other 50% of the voters who STILL believe that what’s good for business is good for the whole country. This ideology is also deeply entrenched in the ALP, especially its right wing.

    As the article points out very well, the LNP won’t cut spending, it will just cut spending on PUBLIC health, education and welfare.

  53. Sometime,in the not to distant future Mrrrrrabbit is going to have to begin to act like a grownup.It will not be because he wants to,but because circumstances will make him and even the Murdoch press will not be able to stop the cresendo

  54. In full agreeance with the Kaye Lee article.

    The comments are spot on.

    The future The present and The Past combine with unbelievable efficiency.

    Abbott Credlin & hubby with Joe the fool, Scott the menace, AG Fraud from Qland, Abetz and on through the list of Ministers, staffers, ideologues , untouchables, legends from their own lunchtime, all with one aim to defraud you one and all.

  55. Murdoch waits for the federal government to change the media laws to allow him to own press,radio and tv in each region.

  57. Great article that highlights clearly where cuts can be made rather than making cuts to services and imposing tax hikes on ordinary Australians …

  58. broken election promise stakes

    Gillard 1(questionable) and hounded relentlessly by Abbott and the toilet paper baron et al
    Abbott 25 in 6 months andnot a word from MSM

  59. One might add the current order for up to 100 Lockheed-Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighters. Details and cost are carefully obscured – but it’s around $400 million each – see e.g. http://rt.com/usa/pentagon-us-defense-lockheed-martin-129/. The details of this $40 bilion raid on the Australian treasury (to support the next US colonial war, and the next and the next) are secretive enough to make Morrison and his tame brass-hat look like blabbermouths. MInd, we’ll be well placed to scare the hell out of Indonesia’s fishing boat skippers I suppose. .

  60. Well, it appears we can afford spin doctors by the hundred. A growth industry indeed. Has this government taken on the responsibility for taking on all the journalists, sacked over the last year or two.

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