By Terry OBrien
The LNP, so called conservatives, bought themselves many terms in office on the back of a con job; lower taxes. Using peoples’ seemingly innate dislike of taxes, they have controlled the economic, and therefore political, agenda billing themselves as the superior economic managers and the party of lower taxes, voters have taken that at face value, not questioning the validity of their claims.
While they have cut taxes, they have commensurately cut services.
Labor governments by contrast, the conservatives tell us, are high taxing governments. They have all these expensive programs and need to hike up taxes to pay for them. That’s what Labor governments do, they say.
We are constantly being told that governments can’t afford to build major roadworks, so we enter into private public partnerships (PPPs) and now every major road construction is a tollway and will remain so for 40 years, typically. The tolls go up, as a minimum, by the CPI. Canadian Superannuation funds can see value in these government guaranteed investments.
Sydney is now one of the most tolled cities in the world. Every time you pay a toll, much of the money now flows oversees. Some people now pay hundreds of dollars a week in tolls, these pseudo taxes. It wasn’t that long ago that governments borrowed money to build this kind of infrastructure. The Harbour Bridge and Snowy Hydro come to mind. Sure, we were paying it off through our taxes for many years. Now we do it by paying tolls. But the taxes we paid for our infrastructure were far cheaper per person than the tolls.
Conservative governments have divested themselves of services and palmed them off to private enterprise. At a cost; a cost that we all pay. These governments no longer see themselves as service providers. They see themselves as managers. Now, every time we want money for schools and hospitals they ask; “Where’s the money coming from?”.
In Britain they have run down the NHS to such an extent that a nonagenarian felt compelled to do laps of his London backyard to help raise money for it. We may not have yet sunk to that level, but thousands are sleeping rough because we’ve cut funding for affordable housing, women and children escaping domestic violence are sleeping in cars because governments can’ afford to shelter them. Queues grow bigger at food banks because they can’t afford to feed themselves.
Governments, their departments, and councils are now outsourcing many of their services because it’s “cheaper”. City of Sydney Council is currently struggling with their garbage collection services because they outsourced their collection services to Cleanaway. Cleanaway’s TWU employees are striking for higher wages and now garbage piles up, threatening to become health risks. The Council has ceded control of its garbage services to Cleanaway.
Changes to superannuation for those with $3m+ stashed away in tax friendly accounts. This tax lurk was set up by Howard and Costello providing reduced taxes putting away savings for their retirement without ensuring that the money was not being set aside for tax evasion or estate planning. Dutton, Ley, and now Angus Taylor are now regurgitating their scare mongering line that Labor are coming after your money because they’ve run out of their own, conveniently ignoring the fact that those that can afford to stash up to $50m into super can also afford to pay fair tax on that money.
In rural areas roads and bridges have still not been repaired since the floods, and people are waiting for homes to be returned to liveable states, while others are still waiting for their bushfire-ravaged homes to be rebuilt. Why? Because governments claim they haven’t got the money to pay for them. Why? In large part, because we’ve been bribed, yet again, into voting them back into office with dubious tax cuts.
We have been conned.
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