Month: April 2016

Federal Budget, Politics

Editorial – Super Tax Will Cost More Than it Raises

Increasing the tax on super contributions is yet another ill-conceived ‘budget fix’ idea which attempts to tax our way to prosperity.

The whole point of super is to decrease people’s reliance on aged welfare (which currently amounts to $60.7 billion of spending annually – or 1 in every 7 dollars spent by the federal government). The more super is taxed, the greater the disincentive to save and the more people will rely on welfare in their retirement (shocking stuff, I know). Given that our population is ageing and that around 80% of retirees receive a full or part pension, discouraging even more people from funding their own retirement is something we can ill afford. However, this is precisely what is going to happen, regardless of whether Turnbull or Shorten wins at the upcoming election.

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Events

Did 60 Minutes Get Played?

It goes without saying that the whole 60 Minutes saga has some serious knobs on it.

However, I don’t just mean the ’60 Minutes are a bunch of idiots with a serious corporate culture problem'(*) kind of knobs. I also mean the ‘this all got resolved very quickly and a little too easily with a lot of money changing hands’ knobs.

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Politics, You've Got to be Kidding

‘Reality Exists in the Human Mind, and Nowhere Else’

Some of you will have already seen this extraordinary video doing the rounds today. It contains a series of University Of Washington students all too willing to allow (or too scared not allow) a 5’9” white man to self-identify as being 6’5”(*), a first-grader, female and/or Chinese:

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Politics

Safe Schools Issue Far From Over

If you don’t pay attention to the weeds in your garden, they will keep growing relentlessly until they completely take over. You can’t just pull a few out and leave it for a year or even a few months. They’ll come back a lot sooner than that… and in greater numbers.

If you thought that the federal government’s review and overhaul of the Safe Schools program resolved this matter, think again. Here’s what has happened since:

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Events, Politics

Julie Bishop to Save the Day? (UPDATE)

I don’t know about you, but if I walked into another country and took part in a botched child snatching operation, I’d expect to go to jail in that country.

Fittingly enough, that’s exactly where Tara Brown and her 60 Minutes crew currently find themselves in this matter – together with the mother (Sally Faulkner) and the ‘child recovery team’ that was engaged at a reported cost of $115,000 to nab the children. I wonder if they’ll provide a refund?

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Politics

Putting Shorten’s Improvement in Perspective

Earlier this year, I speculated whether it was only a matter of time before Labor ditched Bill Shorten.

Since then, Turnbull has nosedived in the polls and given Shorten some breathing space – to the point where Andrew Bolt concluded that it’s spared Shorten the axe and Sportsbet now has him at $1.02 to lead Labor to the upcoming election.

Perhaps this was all a Turnbull master stroke to ensure that he faces Shorten and not the far superior Albanese on the campaign trail? If so, then well played (assuming that there is also a plan to make up the lost ground).

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Federal Budget, Politics

Growing Pains

This was Bill Shorten on the ABC’s 7.30 program in December 2014:

What I agree is that for Australia to have a bright future, then we’ve got to go for growth. And the way you go for growth is you spend money on skills and training and higher education. You make sure that you have a system where the infrastructure is being built and it’s working…

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Federal Budget, Politics

Strange Bedfellows

It appears that Malcolm Turnbull and South Australian Premier Jay Weatherill ideologically have a lot more in common than most would think… and every bit as much in common as some would.

Here is Weatherill following today’s COAG meeting:

South Australian Premier Jay Weatherill, who proposed the income tax sharing idea, said Australia had a revenue problem that would not be fixed by one change.

“We don’t raise enough taxation as a nation to meet the imperatives that we have,” he said.

And here is Turnbull:

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