Federal Labor Party discussion

Julia said:

That's a very realistic precaution.
I might be misunderstanding the change, but can't companies still provide the same car benefits to employees, eg sales people, but just require them to actually document the use, in contrast to up to now being able to just arbitrarily claim 20% deduction?

Happy to be corrected if I'm wrong.

Whatever, it seems a vast overreaction for Ray Hadley to claim that "this is the end of the new car industry".

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I haven't looked at the detail, but the question that comes to my mind is that given the political context, to what extent is this a well thought out policy in the context of broader tax reform ?

drsmith said:

I haven't looked at the detail, but the question that comes to my mind is that given the political context, to what extent is this a well thought out policy in the context of broader tax reform ?

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it appears that it has just been made up to make up for the loss in revenue now that the carbon tax is gone. Hes just trying to balance the books. Rudd is also trying to please everyone, something which cant be done

dutchie said:

We can see that but how does he fool so many other Australians?

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It is because they are so naive and have short memories.

The show pony tells them what they want to hear. He is a real psycho and plays on peoples minds with little intent to carry out what he says.

Knobby22 said:

It will hurt people such as a person I know who is on a huge salary and gets a new car every 2 years. He doesn't need it for work so how will he be able to claim it anymore?

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I don't think doc is alluding to the individual who leases a car, more about the companies and their employees who operate leasing businesses.

Somewhat like the person who has a couple of cows on a hobby farm, wasn't affected by the cattle export embargo.

Hope that helps.

I have to make a post, otherwise it will slip off the front page.

I guess everyone is just gobsmacked, at the way Rudd can do a reversal on everything enacted over the last six years.
Then say " well that's sorted, what's next". Very Monty Python IMO.

Rudd seems to want to run politics like an episode of 'home and away'. It may impress some, don't think it helps Australia in any way.
Just another scam, is he from the Gold Coast? lol

I see Wayne is still talking up garbage.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-07-17/wayne-swan-says-housing--sector-can-drive-economy/4826674

As the mining, manufacturing, farming and retail sectors fail. We are going to sell services and build houses to lift ourselves into the new economy. Worlds greatest what?

"Our success in the Asian Century cannot rely on unfettered growth in China to support our mining sector - it's about how we diversify our economy by making the most of the enormous structural shifts occurring in our region."

How do they get away with saying that sort of rubbish.

sptrawler said:

I see Wayne is still talking up garbage.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-07-17/wayne-swan-says-housing--sector-can-drive-economy/4826674

As the mining, manufacturing, farming and retail sectors fail. We are going to sell services and build houses to lift ourselves into the new economy. Worlds greatest what?

"Our success in the Asian Century cannot rely on unfettered growth in China to support our mining sector - it's about how we diversify our economy by making the most of the enormous structural shifts occurring in our region."

How do they get away with saying that sort of rubbish.

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Best we use our comparative advantages as best we can, along with the remaining competitive advantage we have in small niches.

Do you want to try and flog some of the dead manufacturing horses?

I'd like to know what is rubbish with his statement? China already consumes huge amounts of hard commodities. If they kept growing as they have over the last 5 years they'd end up consuming 100% of everything.

Things are changing dramatically within the Asian region. For the past few decades it's been all about exporting to the rich countries with little of their production consumed within the region. That's starting to change. The growing middle class there is now a market for an increasing amount of what's produced in the region.

We're a high wage economy. We can't hope to compete in making $10 electric kettles and toasters or 10 cent pens. We can compete quite successfully at the higher end for manufacturing, or small run production that the Asian mass producers aren't interested in.

For an example of our manufacturing abilities - A few months ago Hofmann Engineering in Perth sent the world’s largest gear to China – a 13.2 metre diameter, 73.5 tonne King Kong monster of a gear. It's a great example of the German Mittelstand. I wish we could foster more of these companies here.

We're also pretty sophisticated in the financial services, though at present that sector is still heavily protected by most Asian countries, but you can see the likes of ANZ, AMP, Macquarie making headway in the region.

I disagree with the use of the world fail. The soft and hard commodity sectors wont fail, they may slow down - thermal coal certainly seems in terminal decline while iron ore is back up to $130 a ton, yet coking coal is still in decline so not sure what that means. Farming will remain at the mercy of the seasons, but Aussie farmers are some of the most productive in the world. IF we could get Asian rice farmers up to the same yields as in Australia well we'd not have to worry about such a basic food crop being in short supply.

Compared to the below eloquence of Tony at least Swan said soemthing that conveyed something

We'll give people what we believe are realistic timetables.

Now there are some things we'll do in year one, there are other things we'll do in year two, there are further things we'll do in year three, and there are things that we'll be doing in years four and five."

I feel so enlightened by the words of Tony and all the "things" he's going to achieve if elected

Well Syd, Labors idea of "Big Australia' and a population of 50million, may be the answer for the housing sector. Also as China is buying up our arable land, that won't give us much scope for fiscal growth, through that avenue.

I guess we have to hope they want more gears.
I dont see how, the fact our banks are moving into Asian markets, is going to help working Australians. That is of course unless the banks use FIFO bank workers, but I doubt that.

It leaves tourism, which even Greece and Italy are finding doesn't support a welfare state.

So in a nutshell, the only person who has come up with anything new is Abbott, with the suggestion of developing the North.
All Labor has come up with is introducing taxes, to accelerate the demise of manufacturing and increase spending on welfare. This to incourage the mass migration to our shores, which we are witnessing.

So in summary, in the last three weeks.

Labor have backflipped on, the carbon tax, the asylum seeker policy and getting the budget in surplus.

Agree sptrawler.

Rudds popularity has waned, now that the gloss has come off and people get down to business. He needs to admit that he has created these problems rather than blaming Gillard and co.

The last 6 years have been disastorous for Australia, businesses are over regulated, no business, no jobs. Most economists are shaking their heads at what we are doing and trying to do.

Abbott should have probably said more, but seems he has done the right thing letting this buffoon take centre stage for a while, talking alot, taking lots of pictures, but doing nothing else for the country.
Now that all his problems have hit him in the face, he is stumped.
The longer he holds out the election, the more chance he has of losing.

I still think the Coalition will win, will be close, but I think they will get through.

I am hoping the public wouldnt be so stupid to put Rudd back in, and even more so if he tries to change the rules to give himself more power where he cant be moved because of his insecurities.

This government is slowly but surely destroying this wonderful country.
From the lucky country, we are becoming the stupid country.

Tink said:

From the lucky country, we are becoming the stupid country.

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Looking at the polls since Rudd's return it would seem we are already there (i.e. stupid country).

sptrawler said:

Well Syd, Labors idea of "Big Australia' and a population of 50million, may be the answer for the housing sector. Also as China is buying up our arable land, that won't give us much scope for fiscal growth, through that avenue.

I guess we have to hope they want more gears.
I dont see how, the fact our banks are moving into Asian markets, is going to help working Australians. That is of course unless the banks use FIFO bank workers, but I doubt that.

It leaves tourism, which even Greece and Italy are finding doesn't support a welfare state.

So in a nutshell, the only person who has come up with anything new is Abbott, with the suggestion of developing the North.
All Labor has come up with is introducing taxes, to accelerate the demise of manufacturing and increase spending on welfare. This to incourage the mass migration to our shores, which we are witnessing.

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Can you show me the policy document that shows the ALP is for a 50M Australian population?

So you are against foreign investment in the Agricultural sector, or all foreign investment in Australia?

Why would China's investment in arable land have a negative impact for fiscal growth? What do u mean by fiscal growth - the term fiscal include Government spending and taxation. As long as a foreign company continues to grow food at globally competitive yields and is not allowed to sell their produce at below international market rates, what is the problem whether the manager is Australian or foreign? It's not like we're not using Australians to still work the farms. The last few years seems to indicate foreigners value our arable land more than we do. Is that the Governments fault?

Inbound tourism has been growing over the last few years, though the high dollar has meant outbound tourism has been growing stronger. Do you think that a falling AUD is going to have a negative impact on inbound tourism? Do you think less foreign students will want to study in Australia now that it's at least 15% cheaper to study here that a year ago, and likely to get cheaper in the future as the AUD goes back to a more fair value level? The near slave labour these students provides also keeps the cost of your takeaway cheap.

My understand in Tony has pretty much put the go north 100 dams policy into the thought bubble box and there is no current policy to do anything. I'd also like to know where the money will come from since you don't want any foreigners investing in arable land in Australia, and all Government debt is bad so that would only leave the private sector able to do the investments?

What welfare increases has the ALP introduced? The only one I can think of is paid parental leave, but then that partly replaced the baby bonus. Lest we forget Abbott has a similar policy that is 5 times more expensive and will cost business more than the fixed priced carbon trading scheme. Abbott said he's not increasing taxes, since it will be a levy, not a tax (can you explain why a levy isn't a tax because Tony wont) yet most large companies in Australia will face a higher levy bill than under the carbon trading scheme.

sydboy007 said:

Can you show me the policy document that shows the ALP is for a 50M Australian population?

So you are against foreign investment in the Agricultural sector, or all foreign investment in Australia?.

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Rudd is on record saying a rapid population growth to 50million is a desirable target.
I am against direct foreign ownership of our land, we are one of the only countries in the Asia region that promote direct foriegn ownership of land.

sydboy007 said:

Why would China's investment in arable land have a negative impact for fiscal growth? What do u mean by fiscal growth - the term fiscal include Government spending and taxation. As long as a foreign company continues to grow food at globally competitive yields and is not allowed to sell their produce at below international market rates, what is the problem whether the manager is Australian or foreign? It's not like we're not using Australians to still work the farms. The last few years seems to indicate foreigners value our arable land more than we do. Is that the Governments fault?.

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Most foriegn owned businesses have some sort of parent company tax minimisation scheme happening. The ATO is currently spending a fortune trying to unravel it as we speak. It has been reported in the Media

sydboy007 said:

Inbound tourism has been growing over the last few years, though the high dollar has meant outbound tourism has been growing stronger. Do you think that a falling AUD is going to have a negative impact on inbound tourism? Do you think less foreign students will want to study in Australia now that it's at least 15% cheaper to study here that a year ago, and likely to get cheaper in the future as the AUD goes back to a more fair value level? The near slave labour these students provides also keeps the cost of your takeaway cheap..

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Tourism in Australia is a cottage industry, compared to European countries, such as Greece and Italy. They can't support a physically small and well serviced country with the income from it. Venice alone gets 21million tourists/annum. How you think it will save us is hard to follow
The number of overseas students, will fall inline with the standard of our education ratings on a world ranking.

sydboy007 said:

My understand in Tony has pretty much put the go north 100 dams policy into the thought bubble box and there is no current policy to do anything. I'd also like to know where the money will come from since you don't want any foreigners investing in arable land in Australia, and all Government debt is bad so that would only leave the private sector able to do the investments?.

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The Asians need more food especially as their living standards and food requirements become more westernised. They will require more meat and dairy products, we don't have to sell them the land to provide the food. The whole issue of foriegn investment requires overhauling, with a view to long term sustainable industry, local jobs and sovereignty.

sydboy007 said:

What welfare increases has the ALP introduced? The only one I can think of is paid parental leave, but then that partly replaced the baby bonus. Lest we forget Abbott has a similar policy that is 5 times more expensive and will cost business more than the fixed priced carbon trading scheme. Abbott said he's not increasing taxes, since it will be a levy, not a tax (can you explain why a levy isn't a tax because Tony wont) yet most large companies in Australia will face a higher levy bill than under the carbon trading scheme.

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The welfare increase I see, is the billions of dollars that are being used to support illegal economic migration, through government inaction.
That money could be spent developing some of these projects.

Seems a vote for labor is a vote for the safest workplaces in history

Since 2007-08, according to data from Safe Work Australia, the incidences of compensated workplace fatalities have fallen by one-third, rapidly accelerating a slow downward trend since the turn of the century

The fall has partly been driven by a safer construction industry, which in 2010-11 was on-track for a record low incidence of fatalities of below four per 100,000 employees compared to over 10 in 2003-04. As a large employer of over 1,000,000 workers, safety in construction has a major influence on overall workplace fatality rates. The transport sector, which employs around 600,000 people, has also seen significant falls in fatalities: the Rudd government inherited a rate of 16.9 deaths per 100,000 employees; that was 9.9 in 2009-10 and 8.5 in 2010-11.

One way or another, Australian workplaces, on the most recent data, are significantly safer than six years ago, except in agriculture, which remains a stain on our workplace safety record.

Damn those pesky unions and safety regulations. Murdoch must be livid with this kind of positive information leaking out.

sptrawler said:

Rudd is on record saying a rapid population growth to 50million is a desirable target.
I am against direct foreign ownership of our land, we are one of the only countries in the Asia region that promote direct foriegn ownership of land.


Most foriegn owned businesses have some sort of parent company tax minimisation scheme happening. The ATO is currently spending a fortune trying to unravel it as we speak. It has been reported in the Media


Tourism in Australia is a cottage industry, compared to European countries, such as Greece and Italy. They can't support a physically small and well serviced country with the income from it. Venice alone gets 21million tourists/annum. How you think it will save us is hard to follow
The number of overseas students, will fall inline with the standard of our education ratings on a world ranking.


The Asians need more food especially as their living standards and food requirements become more westernised. They will require more meat and dairy products, we don't have to sell them the land to provide the food. The whole issue of foriegn investment requires overhauling, with a view to long term sustainable industry, local jobs and sovereignty.



The welfare increase I see, is the billions of dollars that are being used to support illegal economic migration, through government inaction.
That money could be spent developing some of these projects.

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We don't need a magic bullet. Increases in the earnings from all types of services exports are good for the country.

The transfer pricing you are talking about is mainly be companies that own little to nothing in Australia. It's generally IP that allows them to do this. Google uses Singapore to sell online adds in Australia and ebay from memory uses Ireland to run it's Aussie business.

I'd argue transfer pricing on commodities is next to impossible since the market price is pretty much widely available, so selling wheat or what ever crop they can actually get to grow up north shouldn't be too much an issue.

I don't see you mentioning what kind of crops will be grown, nor how they will go without the use of high level of pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers since the soils up north are pretty crapola. Then there's the high freight costs for getting the food to market. From what I read there's few viable damn sites up north, and with evaporation of around 2M a year the dams will have top be pretty deep to hold much useful water.

As for Australia's population, I've yet to hear that the coalition is going to curb immigration to any extent, so it would seem the "big" Australia is going to happen regardless of who's in power??

sydboy007 said:

The transfer pricing you are talking about is mainly be companies that own little to nothing in Australia. It's generally IP that allows them to do this. Google uses Singapore to sell online adds in Australia and ebay from memory uses Ireland to run it's Aussie business.

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Well a quick google came up with a big exposure in Australia.

http://www.smh.com.au/business/car-profits-driven-overseas-20121007-27787.html

Meanwhile, back on the good ship S.S. "Laborious" Capt. KRudd irate: it seems has charged all boat refugees with mutiny on the high seas. They will hitherto all have to walk the plank to PNG or sink to Davy Jones' locker.:1zhelp: Argghh!

Sacre bleu.. talk about sending a broadside over the bows of S.S. "Greens-peace"!! Aye, there'll be three cheers for Mon Kapitan! Hip hip....

One thing that is really interesting, all the normal pro Labor posters have become conspicuous by their absence.

Would this be due to the fact, all the issues they hated Abbott for, Rudd has now adopted.

They must be having trouble reconciling, the team they blindly barracked for, has deserted them.lol

Just shows four weeks is a long time in politics.

Now you can vote for the right wing coalition, or the really right wing Labor.lol,lol

sptrawler said:

One thing that is really interesting, all the normal pro Labor posters have become conspicuous by their absence.

Would this be due to the fact, all the issues they hated Abbott for, Rudd has now adopted.

They must be having trouble reconciling, the team they blindly barracked for, has deserted them.lol

Just shows four weeks is a long time in politics.

Now you can vote for the right wing coalition, or the really right wing Labor.lol,lol

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I would be furious if the LNP did a massive lurch to the left weeks before an election to get votes - even if their intent was to change it once they got in.

If Howard had backflipped on work choices just before the election - would voters have believed him? I doubt it and hopefully voters will not trust Rudd.

It seems he only stands for power and little for labor policies.

Agree that it would be interesting to hear the opinions of ASF's Left on Mr Rudd's asylum seeker policy.
So Cynical? IFocus? Sydboy? Orr? Others whose names I can't right now bring to mind.

The Greens, amongst their disgust, will be salivating at the numbers of once Labor voters who will now swing to them.