I am not sure what Malcolm Turnbull was thinking, or drinking, when he posted the following on his facebook page today:
Like most Australians, I was angry about Labor’s reckless
financial mismanagement of the NBN….but then as I read another Labor
press I started to feel young again. Yes, this took me back to my youth,
to the 1980s, to Duran Duran, shoulder pads and the Alan Bond and
Laurie Connell school of finance – borrow billions, dont worry about how
you can pay the interest let alone repay the principal.
He was apparently chuffed with his theatrical posturing in Question Time today. He found himself rather witty and the smirk on Abbott’s face shows he enjoyed it too.
Well the reviews from the public show they weren’t quite as impressed
with Malcolm as he so obviously was with himself. They were actually
more concerned with substance than performance.
The following is a very small selection of comments which overwhelmingly follow this vein:
“Like most Australians” – you’re kidding yourself if you actually believe this Mr Turnbull.
“Like most Australians, I was angry
about Labor’s reckless financial mismanagement of the NBN” – Where did
you pull that one from? Most Australians want an NBN FTTP, and you know
that.
‘Like most Australians’, I want FTTH. Anyone who’s passed year 11 physics can tell you why.
Sorry, I can’t hear you over THE COST OF TELSTRA’S COPPER NETWORK.
LOL What you guys are doing to the NBN
now is a lot bloody worst mate. Thanks for building something that will
cost more to maintain and is already out dated……….The libs always
thinking short term not long term when it comes to infrastructure.
I’m not surprised you’re harking back to
your youth. Liberal party current policies are from a bygone era also.
Archaic tech solutions, removing anti-discrimination protections,
education for the rich, religious chaplains. Seriously? We are better
than all of that. It makes me sad that now both majors have lost the
plot.
13 percent GDP is not debt crisis. Sorry but you’re a pack of liars.
No Mr Turnbull I was not angry over
Labor’s NBN plan. I was however, angry over the LNP’s second rate
alternative plan. Now all I hear when you speak is ‘blah blah blah blah,
turn over the record, blah blah blah blah, turn over the record, blah
blah…..
You have lost all credibility with me, and I think it’s time I changed the record.
This isn’t a company you’re managing
Minister, it’s a country. A good bottom line means nothing to me. I want
services for my tax dollar. People are borrowing 6 times earnings to
buy a house and you are worried about a debt of between 10 and 20
percent of GDP. I was hoping for a little bit more from you. Don’t fear
monger, it belittles you.
If there really was financial
mismanagement why can’t you fix the problems and continue with an all
fibre rollout? If you really are the superior economic managers that you
claim to be then I don’t see why you can’t do it instead of lumping us
with technology that is outdated before it is even rolled out.
I am Australian – like most of my
friends – and I can assure you I was not angry about Labor’s NBN. If you
think that the Libs can roll it out more efficiently – then I will
support your policy just as I supported Labor’s. I think you should have
said, “like most Australians – we all want faster internet speed”.
Please stick with Labor’s good intentions and use your considerable
business knowledge to get it to us in a cost effective way. It is NOT
cost effective for any nation to have SLOW speeds. Copper has got to go –
and I am pretty sure most Australians agree with that!
One of these days Malcolm, you will
realise that people want a world class NBN. If you want to bag Labor
over the NBN, how about you go on about how they wouldn’t have delivered
a world class broadband network and the Libs will.
Where we’re at today, literally nobody believes that the Liberal
Party cares about the digital economy. *This* is why people rally behind
Labor’s vision, because any vision is better than what Liberals are
offering us. You want to win the argument? Do it better, not worse.
The Liberal Party can go on and on about Labor’s reckless spending.
Most voters understand that cuts need to be made. What we don’t approve
of is the inequitable way that this government has looked to save.
Malcolm, I’m happy to pay extra in tax if it’s going to our pensioners,
the sick and the needy. I am NOT happy paying for CEOs to have kids,
Gina’s fuel rebate, politician’s entitlements (especially like the ones
that Don Randall claimed) etc. That’s just offensive and un-Australian
and it makes me ill to hear the words “fair go” spew forth from Tony’s
mouth.
Just wondering Malcolm….do you still
intend borrowing $22.2 billion for your paid parental leave scheme and
$24 billion for your fighter jets to add to the $8.8 billion you
borrowed for Joe Hockey to gamble on the exchange rate going down? How
many billions are you borrowing for Operation Sovereign Murders? How
many billions will we be borrowing to gift to our worst polluters?
I too am happy to contribute. We do need some changes. But when I
hear of amnesties for offshore tax cheats, and that Frank Lowy’s
Westfield chain paid 8c in the dollar tax for the last umpteen years,
and that we gave Rupert Murdoch about $880 million tax return for having
accountants who are savvy enough to move profits from country to
country to minimise tax and take advantage of currency exchange rate
shifts, you then want to shaft our most vulnerable? How about we stop
giving Gina “exploration” grants. How about you grow some balls and tell
her that a condition of any approval is that she employs Australian
citizens and use Australian steel and equipment. The US made it a
condition for Gina’s recent $7 billion loan for her new destruction of
the planet venture – she must use American steel and equipment. How
ridiculous is that – they estimate it will create 3,400 jobs in AMERICA!
This crew are way too scared to require anything from Gina but you say
sick people and pensioners and students and unemployed need to
contribute more. Not only that we will get rid of that amazing mining
tax that on one hand destroys investment in this country (NOT), but on
the other doesn’t raise any money. Just as it was about to start kicking
in with billions (from your own estimates), you say oh no we can’t have
Gina paying anything to make billions from our resources. Let’s get rid
of the schoolkids bonus instead. Do you seriously expect anyone who
knows the truth to think that is the way this society should go? And why
are we sending $12 billion out of our economy into the American economy
for jets we won’t see for a decade if they ever work out how to make
them work. Malcolm, listen to your conscience. You KNOW the truth –
speak out and we will back you.
It seems that “most Australians” have an entirely different opinion
to Malcolm and his buddies and that “most Australians” were singularly
unimpressed with his video of himself being smart and seeming more
concerned about the many ways that this government is making this
country a worse place to live in.
The advertising isn’t working Malcolm. How about trying some truth.
Who knows, you may have a chance to salvage a modicum of integrity if
you have the guts to drop the turnbullshit. Remember when you thought
climate change was real and that the ABC was important? Was this an
attempt to gauge public opinion because you well and truly got
told….remains to be seen if you listened.
“A senior Liberal Party official
attended last night’s dinner with Cabinet minister Malcolm Turnbull,
the Treasury secretary Martin Parkinson, and latecomer Clive Palmer.
The ABC has been told the Liberal Party’s federal vice president Tom
Harley was at the dinner, which Mr Palmer is describing as “chopstick
diplomacy” amongst “friends”.
"I think it's a sad reflection on the modern
Australian attitude that they can't see that all areas have to make a
contribution,": Tony Shepherd. Photo: Alex Ellinghausen
The man who helped provide the blueprint for Treasurer Joe
Hockey's austere first budget has lashed out at ''narrow sectional
interests'', including his ''good mate'' David Gonski, for the hostile
community response.
The head of the Abbott government's Commission of Audit, Tony Shepherd,
said the commission had ''agonised'' about spreading the burden of
repairing the budget across the community but no single sector,
including education, had accepted it must sacrifice.
''I think it's a sad reflection on the modern Australian attitude that
they can't see that all areas have to make a contribution and they look
at it as a narrow, sectional issue,'' he said.
''People will protect their sectional interest, that's understandable,
but I wish people could also stand back, look at the overall picture of
the Commonwealth budget and rather than say 'don't touch me', say 'what
can be our contribution to a sustainable surplus'.''
It comes as Liberal backbencher George Christensen, the LNP member for
the Queensland electorate of Dawson, posted a photo of an impoverished
child on social media and suggested complaints about the budget lacked
perspective.
"Aussies should do a tour of Asia & live like locals to put these
1st world complaints re budget in perspective," he wrote. He followed up
his original tweet with: ''Try getting any serious form of welfare in
Thailand or other SE Asian nations.''
The Abbott government is faced with widespread protest - both physical
and rhetorical - from groups as diverse as students, pensioners, welfare
recipients, state governments and the health and education sectors.
Mr Hockey adopted the commission's recommendation to pull the plug on
Gonski funding from 2018 and instead apply increases based on inflation
and wages. In a speech on Wednesday, Mr Gonski savaged the government
and the audit commission for gutting funding commitments made in the
name of his schools review.
Mr Shepherd returned fire, saying: ''I have the greatest respect for
David Gonski, who is one of the finest human beings I've ever met - but
on this we disagree.''
He described the Gonski reforms as a ''fine idea'' and said the audit
commissioners agreed with needs-based funding but retaining the $5
billion a year extra funding would have to come at the expense of other
sectors if there was an overriding commitment to bring the budget back
into balance.
''We would have loved to have kept education funding at the
levels of Gonski but we had to go through every program and bring
[spending] under control. To maintain Gonski you must answer the
question: do we cut hospitals more? Or cut disabled pensions more? Lower
the rate of growth in the aged pension?'' he said.
While Mr Gonski praised federal education bureaucrats for their
dedication, Mr Shepherd said a twin layer of bureaucracy was a ''waste
of money'' and renewed calls for the states to ''quit the education and
health space''.
''States that preside over a bad [school] system will be punished by
voters and those that have good ones will be rewarded, that's
competitive federalism,'' he said.
Mr Abbott who encountered 100 pro-Gonski protesters in Hobart on
Thursday, said Labor's Gonski commitments were ''pie-in-the-sky''.
''I'm certainly not committing to a permanent massive increase at the
same level of the former government,'' he said. ''We are continuing to
increase funding, it's just that we are not continuing to increase it at
the rate of the former government's promises.''
Opposition Leader Bill Shorten said the government got ''an F'' for
effort. ''What a lazy, reckless, indifferent mob of swindlers this
government are when they say we're not going to have anything more to do
with the funding of schools.''
As
the dust settles from Tuesday night’s wrecking ball budget, I have been
thinking about how this happened. How is it possible that Australia was
conned into voting for Abbott and his fellow Liberal and National psychopaths?
There’s a fairly obvious answer to this, and two clear culprits. First
of all, Abbott and his LNP colleagues lied to the electorate about what
their real plans for Australia were. And second, the mainstream media
let the people of Australia down by refusing to pre-warn them about
Abbott’s real plans.
Abbott knows as well as I do that the Liberals would never win an
election if they were truthful with voters. So they lied. Lying has
become natural to them, because without lies they have no chance of
power. But let’s make something very clear right now. Anyone who didn’t
see this budget coming, wasn’t looking. When I say they weren’t looking,
I mean they were either too uninformed to understand who Abbott really
was, they were looking right at Abbott and wouldn’t admit to what they
were really seeing, or they were looking elsewhere and ignoring what was
right in front of them. And when I say anyone, I mean all Australian
voters. But much of the responsibility for keeping these voters informed
falls on the journalists who were responsible for this important
democratic function. And there’s absolutely no doubt that Australian
journalists did this important job atrociously.
When you take into account that the mainstream political press in
this country have been obsessing for the last six years over the Labor
Party, it’s quite easy to see why journalists either wilfully refused to
scrutinise Abbott, or why they were wearing their Labor-bashing
blinkers and whacking so hard with their Labor-bashing sticks, they had
little energy for any Abbott coverage. And by coverage, I don’t mean
following Abbott’s safety-vest-banana-stacking-three-word-slogan circus
blindly around the country. I mean truthful, objective analysis. Not a
big ask, but apparently too big an ask for Australian journalists. If
even half the time that journalists spent covering Labor leadership
tensions over the last six years were instead devoted to even a cursory
analysis of Abbott’s values and ideology, the lies from the Abbott
government would have been obvious well before it was too late for the
voting public to defend themselves from the sucker-punch budget we’ve
just had rammed down our throats by Foghorn Leghorn Hockey.
Another favourite topic that mainstream journalists obsessed over was
Labor’s narrative. Did Labor have one or not? If they did have one, was
it the right one? If it was the right one, why were Rudd and Gillard
having such trouble communicating their narrative? And on, and on, and on, and on this analysis went. But, I have the same question as some of the commenters on Andrew Elder’s post about the Guardian’s Katharine Murphy’s failure to properly inform her readers about Abbott. Why do journalists never write about Liberal narrative?
I’ve got a really simple explanation for this; it’s because the
Liberal narrative is a wolf dressed up as a lamb, in an entirely
unconvincing costume that leaves the wolf looking exactly like a wolf to
anyone who has their eyes open and is looking straight at the wolf.
Yet, when this wolf tells people it’s a lamb, journalists tell everyone
the wolf is a lamb. And voters vote for this lamb, and even think this
lamb is a better than the Labor alternative. But as we all found for
ourselves on Tuesday night, the wolf is a wolf! And all the journalists
are now acting surprised, as if they had never seen this wolf before.
But I would suggest that either these journalists are lying or stupid.
And either way their inability to expose the wolf makes them unqualified
to be journalists.
The new trick for many of these journalists, having discovered that
Australians have seen the wolf for themselves, and are now rightly quite
afraid that this wolf is running the country, is to say ‘Labor is a
wolf too. You can’t trust any of them. They’re all as bad as each
other’. You get this same attitude from some lefties who, for reasons
only apparent to themselves, have decided to perpetuate this myth of
Labor and Liberal being just as bad as each other. This myth works like a
charm for the Liberals because it allows them to get away with being a
wolf when they need to be. I often wonder if these lefties are aware of
the damage they’re doing to their own cause. And I ask them to think
about why, if Labor and Liberal are apparently just the same as each
other, the Abbott budget has ripped the heart out of Labor’s Australia,
and left it bleeding and unable to breathe in the gutter on the side of
the road? It doesn’t look like they’re just the same at all now does it?
So back to this wolf. Since Australian journalists are unwilling to
discuss the Liberal narrative, and are obviously incapable of
understanding Labor’s narrative, which is right in front of their eyes
in the same way as the wolf in sheep’s clothing is, I thought it might
be helpful to explain the values of both parties really clearly, here in
digital ink for them to find whenever they need them to accompany a
discussion of complex policy debates and budget analysis (so in other
words, never).
Labor’s values
We are all in this together. Where this means a community
where everyone works towards the health and security of the whole
community. The collective wealth of the economy serves this community.
Not the other way around.
Liberal’s values
We are all in this together. Where this means a free-market
economy where a person’s wealth determines their status, and in turn
their status determines their privilege and their privilege determines
their access to health and security. If someone can’t access health and
security, this is their own fault and it’s not the free-market economy’s
role to help them. So in fact, we’re not all in anything together.
We’re all on our own.
These values can be found in the true narratives of both parties,
intertwined in every policy they produce, and every statement they make.
To find them, you don’t have to look very hard. In fact, you don’t have
to look for them at all. All you have to do is open your eyes.
Australian voters have had our eyes opened for us. But I just hope that
those who feel most let down, the ones who are suffering in silence now
because they were the dopes who voted for Abbott, I hope they save some
of their resentment for the mainstream media for so blatantly letting
them down by feeding them to the wolves.
Following his reports on economic stimulus in Independent Australia and elsewhere, Alan Austin offered to appear before the Royal Commission into the just commenced Home Insulation Program (HIP). Commissioner Ian Hanger AM QC responded requesting he present a sworn statement of evidence to the Commission.
AA SUBMISSION TO HIP ROYAL COMMISSION
(This piece is part one of Alan Austin's sworn submission
to the RC into the HIP and has been only edited (slightly) for format.)
Seven important aspects of the findings of previous HIP investigations appear problematic.
None so far appears to have analysed the program’s overall costs and
benefits. None has determined the extent to which it served to avert
recession. None has measured the lives saved and other personal, social
and economic benefits delivered by its rapid implementation. And none
has explored the extent to which enemies of the then federal government
distorted and falsified claims about the program.
Part 1: Success of the 2009-10 stimulus in averting recession
In 2007 Australia was one of the world’s better-managed economies.
Depending on the formula used to measure and compare economic health,
Australia ranked between 8th and 12th globally. Chart A, below, published in Independent Australia,
shows 2007 rankings using scores derived from a transparent formula
using eight variables – income, growth rate, median wealth, jobs,
inflation, taxation, government debt and economic freedom. [1]
Chart A: Top 12 economies in the world in 2007 ranked in order by IAREM score.
Australia in 2007 was 9th on the IAREM ranking, only bettered by
Norway, Iceland, Luxembourg, Kuwait, Finland, Hong Kong, Singapore and
the United Arab Emirates.
All developed economies were then impacted severely by the global
financial crisis (GFC). Markets collapsed and workers lost jobs in their
millions. All governments scrambled to respond. Only one developed
nation emerged almost unscathed from that turmoil.
By 2011-12 Australia found itself clear world leader on economic wellbeing.
'Australia was one of the few advanced economies that avoided
recording at least two negative quarters of economic growth over this
period. During the most acute period of the global recession Australia's
economy slowed but it did not experience the large sustained
contractions experienced in many other countries over the same period.' [2]
Only two member nations of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)
avoided two negative quarters of gross domestic product (GDP) growth
through 2008 and 2009. Thus only two averted recession (defined in
Europe and Australia as two consecutive quarters of declining GDP).
These were Australia and Poland. Poland’s stimulus spending response was
second highest in the OECD, second only to Australia’s.
France, Germany and Austria experienced four negative growth
quarters. Canada, Japan, Sweden and the USA went backwards in five
quarters. Luxembourg, Norway and Britain fared worse with six negative
quarters. Denmark and Finland both experienced a disastrous seven, while
Iceland, Ireland, New Zealand and Spain all had eight or more.
The advice Australia’s government accepted was thus proved sound. Treasury again:
'The rapid deployment of fiscal stimulus appears to have been
effective in increasing domestic demand, with transfers in late 2008 and
the first half of 2009 boosting household consumption and putting a
floor under business and consumer confidence … Fiscal stimulus estimates
imply that growth would have been negative for three consecutive
quarters absent fiscal stimulus.'[2]
Joseph Stiglitz: 'Trickle Up Economics' to Blame for Crisis
This opinion was shared worldwide, including by Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz of Columbia University:
“Kevin Rudd … realized that it was important to act early, with
money that would be spent quickly, but that there was a risk that the
crisis would not be over soon. So the first part of the stimulus was
cash grants, followed by investments, which would take longer to put
into place. Rudd’s stimulus worked: Australia had the shortest and
shallowest of recessions of the advanced industrial countries.”[3]
Note: the definition of recession used by some in the USA is one negative GDP quarter.
The human cost in joblessness and poverty following the devastation of the GFC was enormous in most developed countries. According to tradingeconomics.com,
unemployment increased in Denmark from 1.7% to 4.4%, in New Zealand
from 3.9% to 7.0%, Canada from 5.9% to 8.7%, the United Kingdom from
5.3% to 8.0%, the USA from 4.9% to 10.0%, Ireland from below 5.0% to 13%
and Cyprus from below 4.0% to peak eventually above 16%. [4]
“There was little economic optimism at the time. Before the stimulus,
unemployment was forecast to reach around 10 per cent by mid-2010 with
the highest impact expected on lower-skilled workers. Negative economic
growth was forecast for 2009, with the construction industry being
particularly affected.” [5]
By 2010, Australia was almost universally seen as having the world’s
best-performed economy. The evidence strongly suggests Australia’s
continuing buoyant economic activity was the result of the unique
stimulus implemented by the then federal Government.
At the end of 2013, according to analysis published in Independent Australia, Australia’s economy continued to lead the world on IAREM scores derived from the eight variables:
Chart B: Top 12 economies in the world in 2013 ranked in order by IAREM score. [6]
The quantum, speed and direction of the stimulus spending, notably the rapid cash handouts to households, the HIP and Building the Education Revolution, clearly had the desired effect.
Authorities to have reached this conclusion, besides Australia’s
Treasury and Columbia University’s Joseph Stiglitz, above, include:
'While European countries implemented austerity measures
worsening social conditions of their population and pushing the economy
into a fallacious fiscal adjustment, the prompt reaction of the
Australian government limited the possible negative effects caused by
the macroeconomic shock and favoured the process of economic recovery.'[7]
'As a tool of economic policy, the stimulus worked. Although
other factors, including the strong demand from China and the sound
position of Australia’s banks, were also important, the stimulus played a
central role in making sure that Australia suffered less of a downturn
than most other developed countries.'[8]
“The package targets consumer spending, which is absolutely
critical to our near-term economic prospects, and boosts capital
expenditure — looming as one of the real casualties.”
'… the fiscal stimulus has clearly helped. Australia went hard
and went early and put resources in the right places. As a result,
Australia was the only advanced country to have reported positive
through-the-year growth to June 2009. It's no wonder the international
commentators have been talking about Australia's ‘miracle economy' going
from "down under to down wonder".'[10]
'Although some of the details of these fiscal stimulus packages
have since been the subject of domestic political criticism,
international organizations such as the International Monetary Fund and
the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development have praised
Canberra’s response.'[11]
Royal Commission into insulation scheme begins
You can follow Alan Austin on Twitter @AlanTheAmazing. Coming soon: Part Two. The critical rapidity of home insulation.
In light of the deficit levy and the PPL levy and the increased medicare levy to pay for the NDIS and the increased fuel excise and the co-payment for doctors and medications (aka sick tax), I thought it might be interesting to revisit Tony Abbott’s words.
Thanks to the abc and Crikey. I have also added a few more to their lists.
August 22, 2011
: “It is an absolute principle of democracy that governments should not
and must not say one thing before an election and do the opposite
afterwards. Nothing could be more calculated to bring our democracy into
disrepute and alienate the citizenry of Australia from their government
than if governments were to establish by precedent that they could say
one thing before an election and do the opposite afterwards.“
January 31,2013
“So my pledge to you is that I won’t say one thing before an election
and do the opposite afterwards because fibbing your way into office is
what’s brought our public life into disrepute.”
August 25, 2013
“We will be a no-surprises, no-excuses government, because you are
sick of nasty surprises and lame excuses from people that you have
trusted with your future.”
October 28, 2010
: “We stand for lower, simpler, fairer taxes, not great big new taxes
that damage Australia’s economy, not great big new taxes that are yet another hit on the cost of living of struggling Australian families.”
January 2011: “Why should the Australian people be hit with a levy
to meet expenses which a competent, adult, prudent government should be
able to cover from the ordinary revenues of government?”
February 10, 2011: “The one thing that [people] will never have to suffer under a Coalition government is an unnecessary new tax, a tax that could easily be replaced by savings found from the budget.”
February 23, 2011: “We honour the victims of the floods by being a competent parliament and a competent government. We do not honour them by imposing an unnecessary new tax.”
May 12 2011: “People can be confident that spending, debt and taxes will always be lower under a Coalition government because we have the record to prove it.”
August 15, 2011:
“This is the week in which we will mark the first anniversary of the
Prime Minister’s infamous promise to the Australian people before the
last election: ‘There will be no carbon tax under the government I
lead’. This is a promise that will haunt the Prime Minister and the
Government every day until their ultimate political death. This
Government fundamentally lacks legitimacy and not because it lacks a
majority but because it lacks integrity and nothing more highlights the Government’s lack of integrity than this monumental broken promise.”
August 16, 2011: “A very clear message is going out from the Australian people to this government: there can be no tax collection without an election. If this government had any honesty, any decency, that is what we would have: an election now.”
August 16, 2011:
“There is one fundamental message that we want to go out from this
place to every nook and cranny of our country: There should be no new tax collection without an election.”
August 22, 2011: “I have often said, and members of this House will no doubt hear me say it again, there should be no new tax collection without an election,”
September 14, 2011: “I say to this Prime Minister: There should be no new tax collection without an election.”
November 23, 2011:
“This government thinks that somehow you can build prosperity with new
taxes. No country ever got rich by increasing taxation. No country ever built a strong economy by clobbering itself with tax after tax after tax.”
November 24, 2011: “Our objective can be stated quite simply and quite clearly. It is lower taxes, better services, more opportunities to work and, above all else, stronger borders.”
March 14, 2012: “What you’ll get under us are tax cuts without new taxes,”
May 10, 2012: people who work hard should not be “hit with higher taxes“.
September 19, 2012: “The time for big-spending, big-taxing, big-fibbing government has gone. We will give the Australian people the decent government they deserve.”
January 2013: “And when this government claims that its attacking middle class welfare, its just attacking the middle class because the family tax benefit and the private health insurance rebate are tax justice for families, not handouts.
May 16, 2013: “We want taxes that are lower, simpler and fairer and will take proposals for further tax reform to the following election,”
Real Solutions pamphlet, 2013: “We pledge to the families of Australia that we will never make your lives harder by imposing unnecessary new taxes.”
Liberal Election Policy 2013: “But
only the Coalition can be trusted to actually deliver tax cuts and
genuine tax reform that will boost the economy and ease cost‑of‑living pressures for Australian families”
July 8, 2013: “The current government is addicted to regulation. They’ve never seen a problem that they didn’t think a new tax or a new regulation or another bureaucrat could solve.”
August 6, 2013: “Taxes will always be lower under a Coalition government.”
August 9, 2013: “The only party which is going to increase taxes after the election is the Labor Party.”
August 11, 2013: “The only party that will raise taxes after the election is the Labor Party.”
August 15, 2013: “I am determined not to increase the overall tax burden. I am absolutely determined not to increase the overall tax burden on anyone.”
August 15, 2013: “There will be no overall increase in the tax burden whatsoever.”
August 17, 2013:
“Now I say the tax burden isn’t going to increase. Well, we are going
to abolish the carbon tax, abolish the mining tax, we will reduce the
company tax – of course the overall tax burden is going to go down.”
August 18, 2013:
“I want to make it absolutely crystal clear that our objective when the
fiscal circumstances are right, is to lower all taxes. We want to lower all taxes. We really are the party of lower, simpler, fairer taxes – look at our record in government.”
August 19, 2013: “We’ll build a stronger economy so that everyone can get ahead, and part of building a stronger economy is cutting unnecessary taxes, abolishing unnecessary taxes,”
September 2, 2013: in three years’ time, “because taxes will be lower and regulation reduced, economic growth should be stronger” if the Coalition was elected.
September 5, 2013:
“Right now the best thing we can do for our country and ultimately the
best thing we can do for people around the world is to strengthen our
economy and that means cutting taxes, building the
infrastructure of the future, because if tax is lower and infrastructure
is better our economy will be more productive and a strong Australia is
going to be a much better international citizen than an Australia which
can’t really pay its way.”
September 5, 2013: “Economic policy will be geared towards stronger economic growth than it currently is. If you reduce taxes, if you reduce regulation, if you increase productivity, you will get stronger economic growth.”
Swan claims government-business conspiracy to trash Labor’s record
mer Treasurer Wayne Swan has accused the Abbott government
and Commission of Audit head Tony Shepherd of “trashing” Australia’s…
Former Treasurer Wayne Swan says he faced up to the challenge of finding hard budget savings. AAP/Dan Peled
Former Treasurer Wayne Swan has accused the Abbott
government and Commission of Audit head Tony Shepherd of “trashing”
Australia’s record internationally “for base political motives”.
In a bitter attack Swan - who delivered Labor’s last budget a year
ago – declared that “sooner or later this runs the risk of spilling into
offshore financial markets”.
With the government asserting it has inherited a fiscal disaster from
the previous government, Swan insisted Labor had left the budget “in
sound shape” and that its cumulative fiscal consolidation meant spending
had been kept in check, including in the family payments system.
The present government were “fiscal vandals”, who had doubled the
deficit by some $68 billion. They were also “fiscal fabricators”, Swan
said at the launch of the Chifley Ideas Circle in Melbourne.
“They have been absolutely intent on falsely demonising our record -
by fiddling the forecasts, manufacturing a sense of crisis and of course
the appalling politicisation of the Treasury secretary,” he said.
“But one undeniable fact remains - Australia’s public finances are
among the healthiest in the developed world, envied by most of our
competitors.”
Swan’s attack came as government sources confirmed that Tuesday’s
budget will bring back petrol indexation. It will operate on a
twice-yearly basis, costing motorists about a cent a litre. The
decision was immediately attacked by Queensland Coalition MP Ken O'Dowd,
who told the ABC it would put all costs up and “I guess it could be a broken promise”.
Swan said the government’s “survival of the fittest mentality” was
about shifting the balance towards corporations and away from working
people, via less corporate tax and a higher GST.
He did not mind the cut and thrust of political combat. “What I take
exception to is the trashing of Australia’s record internationally for
base political motives. That is exactly what Mr Abbott and Mr Hockey
have been doing, along with Mr Shepherd”.
Abbott had co-opted his mates in the business community “into a conspiracy to trash our record”.
The “radical right wing manifesto” that the government had Shepherd
compile was “simply one more plank added to the mythical ‘budget
emergency’ - providing the rationale for the savage cuts they want to
carry out against vital services like health and education,” Swan said.
He insisted that in all Labor’s budgets from 2008-09 onwards,
including last year’s budget, it had faced up to the challenge of
finding hard savings.
“But we delayed the return to surplus because the economic conditions
demanded that we do so. That was because the revenue side of the budget
did not hold up as strongly as we would have liked, not because
spending increased unsustainably,” he said.
Labor had not shirked its responsibility to find savings to keep the
budget in a strong position despite the continuous revenue write-downs
it was hit with.
“We were Keynesians on the way down and remained Keynesians when growth returned.”
He accused the government of “petty, spiteful and infantile
behaviour”. It was guilty of an excess of partisanship, particularly on
economic policy; attacking key institutions including Treasury’s
independence; undermining important conventions of government; a litany
of broken promises, and an obvious culture of vindictiveness.
Not anymore, says Peter Barnes, and definitely not with a government intent on taking away the services and support most needed by the nation’s poorest.
But what is even more disgraceful,
laments Peter, are the lies that these people have to take a ‘hit’ for
the sake of (what is already) a strong economy.
“A fair go” could be Australia’s motto.
It’s a phrase that’s uniquely Australian, and one on which we pride ourselves: Fair go, mate!
There are other versions that nobody but an Australian would
understand: “Fair dibs”, and of course “Fair suck of the sauce bottle”,
but they all mean roughly the same thing.
Fairness, and balance.
A national poll
a few years ago showed that 9 out of 10 us think “a fair go”
is important. It’s a simple way of summing up most of the things which, when we’re polled, we say are most important : Health, Education, Employment, the cost of living, and more generally the Economy.
We understand, as Australians, that that’s what a fair society is
about. A fair society is one where you look after the sick. A fair
society is one where you look after the old. A fair society is one where
you care for the young, and they get the best education possible. In a
fair society everybody would like to be rich, but nobody wants to be
rich if it means that the sick get sicker, we neglect the old, the poor
get poorer and we endanger our children’s future. Wealth is nice, but
not wealth at any price, and not if there isn’t a fair go.
We understand, as Australians, that sometimes times are tough and
sometimes they’re easy, but a fair go means that if we’re “doing it
tough”, then everybody’s doing it tough, not just some.
In particular, not just the battlers.
This article was first published on Peter’s blog infinate8horizon and has been republished with permission.
“Mate, if we’re doing it tough then everyone deserves a fair go, especially the battlers.”
That is fair dinkum Australian.
Which is why it’s so hard to understand what’s happening in Australian politics right now.
Because we’re not doing it tough, not everyone is getting a fair go, and stone the bloody crows, the people who are getting the worst deal are the battlers!
What the hell is wrong?
All of the national and international statistics show that we’re not
doing it tough. In fact, compared to practically everybody else in the
world, we’re doing it easy. In a recent visit, Andrew Neil laid out his summary of
our economy, and Treasurer Joe Hockey agreed with him. Andrew Neil is
former editor of the Sunday Times, founder of Sky TV News, and publisher
of The Spectator. He compared Australia to the other members of the
G20.
Let’s remember that the G20, of which we are a member, represent 85%
of global GDP, 75% of global trade, and two thirds of the world’s
population. It isn’t everyone, but it’s most of those who matter
economically.
Neil pointed out that there isn’t a single other country in the G20 that can match our economic statistics, and Joe Hockey agreed:
A budget deficit of less than 3% of GDP
A national debt that’s only 23% of GDP
Twenty two years of continuous growth
Unemployment less than 6%
A strong currency
Massive mineral resources
In other words, there may be one or two countries who are better on one measure or another, but taken all together, nobody in the G20 can match us. Nobody. And Joe Hockey agreed.
Economically we are the luckiest country in the G20, and hence probably the world.
That is not doing it tough, by any measure. Quite the opposite.
We are in a better position than just about anybody else in the world
to create a fair society. I won’t bore you with more statistics, but we
actually spend significantly less than most comparable countries on
pensions, health care and other social benefits. There are some graphs
at the end of the article.
Even if we were doing it tough, we’d expect that everyone would share
the pain. In the spirit of fair go, we’d make sure that the weakest and
poorest didn’t end up getting hurt the worst.
But they are about to.
All of the talk leading up to the budget has been about cutting
services, about reducing services, about “unsustainable” services, about
coming economic disaster. Our social welfare is apparently too
expensive, we have to pay again for the health system we’ve already paid for,
we can’t afford as much for education or disability. It’s all doom and
gloom for the sick, the poor, the old and the young. Even though we’re
not really doing it tough.
But there’s no pain or doom and gloom for business.
We have the best economic credentials in the G20, and for some reason
we’re going to make life harder for the battlers, and business isn’t
going to feel a thing. Have you heard the Minerals Council, or the
Business Council, or any other business lobby screaming about the
upcoming budget? No. The only people screaming are the ones who can
least afford it.
This is the opposite of a fair go. This is bullshit.
Other countries with worse economies than ours are managing a fair
society, and are looking after their young, their old, their sick and
their poor. Why can’t we?
This is selfish, greedy, lying, unfair, un-Australian bullshit.
We have one of the luckiest countries in the world, and to make a few
people even richer we’re going to take money and services away from
those who can least afford it, even though we don’t really need to.
That’s a bastard act.
That’s not what Australia is about. That’s not what Australians expect, or respect, or deserve.
I am not sure what Malcolm Turnbull was thinking, or drinking, when he posted the following on his facebook page today:
I am not sure what Malcolm Turnbull was thinking, or drinking, when he posted the following on his facebook page today:
As
As
In light of the deficit levy and the PPL levy and the increased medicare levy to pay for the NDIS and the increased fuel excise and the co-payment for doctors and medications (aka sick tax), I thought it might be interesting to revisit Tony Abbott’s words.
In light of the deficit levy and the PPL levy and the increased medicare levy to pay for the NDIS and the increased fuel excise and the co-payment for doctors and medications (aka sick tax), I thought it might be interesting to revisit Tony Abbott’s words.
