Budget for Abbott’s Australia

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The Abbott government has been working incessantly to work up to the Mother of All Scare Campaigns.  There is an emergency!  There is a crisis!  About what, the government has been careful to avoid backing up with anything factual.  Economists both left and right leaning have said not one single word in support.  We do know that there is debt, writ large with a capital D and that somehow pensioners and disabled people are the cause of it. . . or at least both Hockey and Abbott sticking to their chosen theme would have us believe so.

This brought to mind one of John Howard’s favourite techniques, this being to prime up his audience usually via the media so as to create ‘a situation’.  Newspapers, shock jocks et al would dutifully comply running numerous *shocking stories* complete with photos taken by willing neighbors/rellies and other assorted accomplices of, for example:  long haired ‘louts’ who refused thousand-dollar-a-week jobs on sublime tropical islands due to the fact that they preferred to loll about on the dole in some mall in an unnamed western suburb, or a ‘pretend’ disabled person caught by his worthy neighbor *gasp* on his roof.  Clearly people with disabilities cannot be disabled if they can find themselves on a roof.

And it worked very well.  Following a few weeks of such stories, which by some miracle would appear simultaneously in all major newspapers; to the rescue – our fearless then PM, little Johnny promising to ‘come down hard on’ such rorters.  A thankful public sighed with relief that we had such an alert PM who knew how to ‘take action’.

John Howard, did however accomplish this with at least a modest amount of subtlety, a trait which Tony Abbott and his team are the antithesis of.

Tony Abbott in an attempt to emulate his hero Howard makes a mockery of all things Liberal.  The ham-fistedness and inept handling of this government’s attempt to reshape Australia in a regression to some unknown ultra-conservative stance way beyond anything which Howard would even contemplate, nor want, is an embarrassment to all.

Abbott therefore commits falsehoods, but one must consider that he does either with such ego that ‘it doesn’t count’, or with an ignorance which cannot be excused away as ‘new to the office of Prime Minister’.

May 18, 2010:

TONY ABBOTT has told voters not to believe everything he says.

In an extraordinary admission last night, the Opposition Leader said his only utterances that should be regarded as ”gospel truth” were carefully prepared and scripted remarks such as those made during speeches or policy pronouncements.

However, it would seem that we are not to believe even the carefully prepared and scripted ones.

To date the government has encouraged speculation on (and the list is not exhaustive), that the family home of pensioners will be sold from under them if they expect to collect the pension; that pensioners are a drain on the economy and society, (while completely ignoring the contribution that people in their 70’s, 80’s and beyond have made to Australian society); that pensioners and people with disabilities should be ‘encouraged’ back into the workforce (which jobs and how? remains an unknown); that ‘everyone’ will have to pay $6.00 to visit the doctors (while dismantling the super clinics).

And now comes the penultimate of lies, that the Deficit Levy is not a tax.  That is, families on $80,000 will be losing out by $800.00pa, more than the average of one month’s mortgage payment while at the same time giving millionaire mummies a ‘gift’ of $75,000 for 6 months of bonding time with bubs.  Is something not quite jelling here?

John Howard knew not to frighten the horses.  The Tony Abbott/Credlin duo do not have that sort of finesse, intelligence nor acumen.

 

Another Open Letter to Tony Abbott

The Australian Independent Media Network

Dear Tony Abbott

I’m writing to you again with the knowledge that you clearly haven’t read my previous correspondence, including this letter, this letter and this video. Since I wrote those letters, you have gone from my worst nightmare as an Opposition Leader, to an even worse nightmare of a Prime Minister. Yet, as I was reminded this week on Twitter, and as I would like to remind anyone who reads this letter, you aren’t a scary monster. Thinking of you has some scary creature underneath the bed is probably not very helpful because it gives you a status you don’t deserve (and I don’t like the idea of you being anywhere near my bed). But seriously Tony, to be scary and feared, you need to be successful. But when you look at your term as Prime Minister so far, it would be inaccurate to suggest you’ve been…

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Maybe you’ll be old one day too

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“Treasurer Joe Hockey has signaled a further increase in the pension age, more welfare means testing and co-payments for medical services in a speech in Washington delivered as the budget takes shape”.

And it’s not if we didn’t see that one coming.  For quite a while now Hockey has been “priming his audience” with stern lessons about how we must “end the Age of Entitlement”.  Hopefully it’s not just those least able to defend themselves who will be at the top of the Liberal government’s agenda.  To date the cuts already announced, and often surreptitiously, do not instill me with a great deal of confidence; cuts to welfare groups including the PCYC, cuts to legal aid for Aboriginal people and has begun dismantling the GP super clinics, to name but a few.

But surely when Hockey spoke about the ‘Age of Entitlement’ he was referring to the upper income brackets, those with plenty of cash to splash on luxuries such as multiple investment properties and private this and that. . . but perhaps not.

But let’s admit it, we have been forewarned. . .

From April 2012,

Despite an aging population and a higher standard of living than that enjoyed by our children, western democracies in particular have been reluctant to wind back universal access to payments and entitlements from the state.

Quite right and bravo, Joe!  Obviously Hockey was on the cusp of announcing that he didn’t support his boss Credlin, Abbott’s fervent desire to pay ‘women of calibre’ $75,000 for bonding time with bubs.  Or perhaps he was referring to the cancellation of all upper class welfare and other lurks and perks.

But of course not.  These are the same people who add, and substantially to Liberal Party coffers. . . they are therefore a no-go zone.

The Daily Telegraph was clearly stunned to learn:

Senior government sources have confirmed that Australians over the age of 70 are also almost universally securing free or discount medicine ­because they qualify for ­taxpayer-funded concession card schemes.

A stunning 94 per cent of Australians over 70 qualify for either a pensioner concession card or a seniors health care card for self-funded retirees.

The growing number of older Australians claiming discount medicine under the PBS is a challenge for the government because 78 per cent of the cost of scripts claimed at chemists under the PBS is going to concession cardholders.

Hell, we can’t have that!  The luxury, the profligacy – *gasp* discount medicine!  Perhaps we should go back to “the good old days” and have pensioners cut their heart tablets in half to make their prescriptions last that little bit longer.  Pensioners also receive free hearing aids, plus “low cost” batteries, discounts on public transport, plus on electricity.  OMG the world’s gone mad!  It’s all the pensioners’ fault.  We have to stop it now – we simply cannot afford these oldies and their draining the dollars from “hard working Australians”.  How much was that again that Brandis was going to cost us for his new library?  How much was that again that Abbott cost the taxpayer because he didn’t fancy staying the $3,000pw temporary Canberra residence, the house that he had originally chosen?

However, and in the real world, it is important that politicians at least make a semblance of keeping their promises, and it is understandable that at times some do get broken or bent in the process of having to re-jig a government in that particular political party’s own image.  Gillard certainly paid the price for her poorly explained price on carbon, the JuLiar tag being the result.  So I wonder what the public will make of this plethora of broken promises coming from the Liberals?

In a pledge, an absolute guarantee Tony Abbott said on the night before the 2013 election:

“No cuts to education, no cuts to health, no change to pensions, no change to the GST and no cuts to the ABC or SBS.”

And election eve pledges are certainly ones which need to be believed as these are the promises on which many people base their voting decision.  To sneak into victory based on a series of known falsehoods is deception at it’s worst.

The GST and other lies

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In 2004, Alan Ramsay wrote:

“Telling a lie is easier than killing it, even for a prime minister. A lie is a lie, and once it is out on the street no amount of passing traffic can ever truly skittle it. John Howard told a lie on May 2, 1995. Then he told more lies to reinforce the first lie. To protect himself from what he judged a serious threat to his last chance to be prime minister, Howard lied and went on lying. Now, three years later, he is telling still more lies to hide that first lie.

Ramsay was of course writing about then Prime Minister John Howard and Howard’s never-ever promise to never-ever introduce the GST.

“Suggestions I have left open the possibility of a GST are completely wrong. A GST or anything resembling it is no longer Coalition policy. Nor will it be policy at any time in the future. It is completely off the political agenda in Australia.”

Amanda Vanstone was somewhat more honest than ‘Honest John’ stating that, “I wouldn’t have tried it from Opposition. You’ve got to wait until you get into Government and sell it there”.

The GST was subsequently introduced by Howard government on the 1st July, 2000 with predictions of how its introduction would hit hardest the poorest in society while at the same time doing little to tackle the cash in hand economy.  On winning the election Howard promptly declared that victory gave him a mandate for the GST.  He however only succeeded in getting it through a hostile Senate after doing a deal with the Australian Democrats to exempt food.

Howard’s sales pitch to the Australian people included:

“This is something the country has needed for more than twenty years and we’re doing it because it is the right thing for the nation.

It will give us a fairer taxation system.

It will cut our income tax.

It will strengthen us in the world.

It will guarantee the revenue we need to support the health, education, police and other services so important for a fair society.

The new tax system is designed to reward Australians and their families with lower income tax and increased family benefits”.

Has the GST ever lived up to what was promised?

KERRY O’BRIEN: Pensioners are emerging as the latest bloc of voters to test the Howard Government’s promise to listen to their problems- in this case, over the GST.

They were due to receive a 4 per cent increase to their pensions today in line with the cost of living.

But they only received 2 per cent…

KERRY O’BRIEN: Edith Morgan of Pensioners and Superannuants Federation. . . says that pensioners are coming to her saying, “We have paid our own way all our lives. Suddenly, after the GST, we’re going to have to go to charities and collect food parcels to live on.”

KERRY O’BRIEN: The peak lobby group for the welfare sector, ACOSS, says that the compensation package was always inadequate.

They said that before it came in. They say the facts have now borne that out.

They say that in particular as people, pensioners, the disadvantaged, are experiencing the full cost. That’s being passed on to them by retailers.

Also, and from 2012:

TAX dodgers are cheating the country of up to $100 billion a year in undeclared income through the cash economy more than a decade after the introduction of the GST.

“It was said the GST would put an end to the cash economy but that was always a flawed argument,” he (Taxpayers Association spokesperson Roger Timms) said.

“Clearly it hasn’t reduced since the GST, in some ways it has promoted the cash economy. If a householder pays a tradesman in cash the householder saves on GST.”

Since it’s inception the spectre of raising the GST has been used as a stick with which members of both parties have used to try to beat their opposite numbers.  The slightest hint or a leak from an ‘unnamed source’ would have leaders and treasurers and their equivalent opposition spokespeople scurrying into a series of denials.

April 22, 2008: ‘It is very important that Mr Rudd guarantee Australians there will be no increase in the GST’, Brendan Nelson

May 18, 2013:  ‘Abbott plans to raise GST’, claims Bill Shorten.

 Peter Martin recently wrote, “Hockey and Abbott spent the entire election campaign never entirely ruling out an expanded GST, as they shouldn’t have“.

The Abbott government is now of course in a complete state of denial that they ever countenanced such an opinion.

The Abbott government has dismissed calls from Treasury secretary Martin Parkinson to consider raising taxes to get the budget out of trouble, including lifting the rate of the GST.

Treasurer Joe Hockey’s office on Thursday rejected the suggestion that the government would raise the GST to plug holes in the budget.

According to all economists, there as likely to be some massive ones..holes in the budget.

“A broader GST covering currently exempt services such as private health and private education would fix a hole in the tax system and get serious money from Australians with serious money”.

However, it is unsurprising that Hockey has rejected all worthy suggestions, even suggestions that the GST is something which we should be talking about, especially given that this would mean tackling the ‘serious money’. . . and anyway:

Joe Hockey criticises Treasury as not trustworthy….

2013 ELECTION Shadow treasurer will not produce final forecast of deficit or surplus because Treasury projections are ‘not credible’…  The Coalition is refusing to commit to a final budget bottom line when it releases policy costings because it does not believe the Treasury figures…

So there you are, once again nothing will be done, the Abbott government clearly incapable of playing hard ball with a difficult opponent (such as private health or private education), and any GST would doubtless instead of tacking private and wealthy institutions would instead be looking at bread rolls and goat’s milk.  Given that those looking to take the majority of the hits, the least powerful, those on welfare, are going to be hit big time in the forthcoming budget, any attempt to add further to this pain would be equivalent of hitting someone over the head while simultaneously stabbing them in the back.  Clearly Hockey’s current priority is to tackle welfare, and any further forays into real reform will have to wait until – next time.

 

 

Palmer pursued. . .

“Why did they bring this up this week?” Mr Palmer said. “Why is the government, ministers and the departments handing stuff to Rupert Murdoch?”

Quite right Mr Palmer, why is the Abbott government handing “stuff” to Rupert Murdoch?

“The Clean Energy Regulator is currently investigating whether Queensland Nickel Pty Ltd has made any payments towards the debt in the last 24 hours,” a spokeswoman for the Clean Energy Regulator said.

“We have no record of payment having been received at this stage”.

Already well and truly on the public record is Clive Palmer’s objection to the carbon tax with Palmer stating in November last year that, “the Abbott government should sue him if they want to get the $6.17m in carbon tax owed by his company Queensland Nickel“.

However to Clive Palmer’s credit,

Palmer United Party federal leader and Member for Fairfax Clive Palmer will abstain on voting on the Abbott government’s carbon tax repeal legislation package despite the party’s opposition to the carbon tax…

“I’m applying company director standards and stepping out of this debate as there’s currently a potential conflict of interest,” Mr Palmer said.

This being a most refreshing attitude coming from the right of politics where conscience and money are never normally an issue.

The fact Clean Energy Regulators is/was “currently investigating” came as a huge shock. . .  just to know that the CER is still with us.

New prime minister Tony Abbott wasted little time after the swearing-in of his conservative Liberal National Party coalition, delivering immediately on his promise to repeal or dismantle all institutions and policy measures involving climate change and clean energy.

Therefore even more of a shock is Tony Abbott’s statement of yesterday that Clive Palmer should forthwith pay his taxes, taxes which are a direct result of the price on carbon.  Surely there should be some sympathy given Abbott’s endless rants against the carbon tax, including that Whyalla would be wiped off the map.  So incensed was Tony Abbott that he called on Labor and the Greens to “repent”.  However, not to get between a politician, some pre-election rhetoric and a dollar, Abbott has now insisted that Clive cough up.  **Apparently Mr Palmer has paid, but that wasn’t going to stop The Australian running the story anyway.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott has insisted that Mr Palmer should respect the law and that his company should pay its outstanding taxes.

But I thought that Tony Abbott was so vehemently against the price on carbon that he will call a double dissolution election should he fail to get a repeal through the Senate.

“. . .if an incoming Coalition government can’t get its carbon tax repeal legislation through the Senate, well, we will not hesitate to go to a double dissolution.”

I would say, bring it on Tony.  If your grandstanding about Palmer not having paid a bill which he has in fact paid is the best that you can currently dredge up, I would suggest that you go back to your knights and dames.

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