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The Abbott Government

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Well silly me-I thought that the idea was for people to have access to finance and debt-and consume their little bums off.
And as long as they can service the debt,the lenders do not care how much people borrow.
 
medicowallet said:
I 100% agree we need courage and conviction in a pm. But that would be political suicide
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I think a courageous PM would need a think skin, but generally people are willing to respect someone who makes a tough choice and sticks with it.

Changing our tax system away from direct to indirect taxes will be a hard sell, but the great thing is pretty much any economist worth their salt will back you up, and the massive efficiency dividend would allow more than adequate compensation for those on lower incomes.

I'd be quite happy if any extra GST income was tied to specific projects. If the punters can see where the tax is going i'd say we'll generally be a bit more supportive of the change.

If KMPG in the Henry tax Review are right, then the Government could replace $2 of corporate tax with around $1.25 of land tax. We could replace $6 of income tax with $5 of GST.

An added advantage of land tax on commercial property is the likes of Apple and Google would not find it so easy to avoid paying tax here. Land tax on residential property would also help to even the balance between property owners and renters who don't benefit from the tax free status of the primary residence. It also helps to catch some revenue from those who dodge GST via the cash economy.

Get some unions and a few major charities onside regarding the changes and you're half way to victory.
 
chiff said:
Well silly me-I thought that the idea was for people to have access to finance and debt-and consume their little bums off.
And as long as they can service the debt,the lenders do not care how much people borrow.
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That was during the Howard Equity Mate years.

Alas most borrowers have so over indulged they'll have years of indegestion. I think only Cananda is the other "rich" country that hasn't de-leveraged after the GFC with Australia. Household debt is now setting a new peak. A scary house of straw that I doubt with survive the oncoming ToT storm and real income shock.

I'm yet to see any economic article that shows how it's possible to have GDP growth while the private and public sectors both save.
 
sydboy007 said:
Combined with the fact they were able to buy relatively well located shelter for around 3 times the average wage compared to the current 6 on the edge of a major city and 9 if you want access to decent public transport. With such low housing costs it should have been relatively easy to pay off the mortgage and start saving for the future. Even my dad was able to scrap together around $100K in super for when he retired and he spent many years on a low income keeping peoples gardens in shape and handyman jobs for pensioners who had no one else to help them. My parents lived pretty frugally and knew the value of saving.
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Your last sentence relates to what sptrawler has previously said. There was a different culture in that generation. They didn't have the opportunity - or the compulsion - to buy the latest version of every u beaut bit of technology that comes out. They had things repaired instead of tossing them out. They mostly shared a common understanding that to get anywhere you had to be prepared to save and make sacrifices.

There are some young people with a similar attitude today so I'd dispute any generalisation that it's just too hard for people to get into their own homes. A couple with one child who were my neighbours until six months ago moved into their fully paid for new home, cost $1.1m. They have three IPs, one freehold and the other two not far off that. They're in their mid 30s, she's a teacher and he's an electrician with Ergon Energy.
He has worked extra hours to build up their asset base. They simply are good money managers.
They've had no assistance from anyone, both sets of parents are retired blue collar workers.

Then in my group of women friends, all are tertiary educated, two with PhDs, and only one is a self funded retiree. She has attained that status not because of being particularly financially literate but because she spent her whole working life in the public service with a defined benefit scheme attached to her retirement plus substantial salary. All the others own their own home, a car more than 10 years old, and next to no savings .
Any discussion of financial matters causes their eyes to glaze over and comments to be made such as "oh, there's never been anyone in my family who was good with money", "shares are just a waste of time - pure gambling" etc etc.

So I'd suggest where people find themselves in retirement is far more to do with attitude and application than any particular intelligence or even parental modelling.

You could give those women I've mentioned above $100,000 each and five out of six of them would just think "whacko, what can I buy?"
 
sydboy007 said:
I'd be quite happy if any extra GST income was tied to specific projects. If the punters can see where the tax is going i'd say we'll generally be a bit more supportive of the change.
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A brilliant idea. All taxpayers should be able to nominate where their taxes are spent.

In the words of Kerry Packer;

"Because as a government I can tell you you're not spending it that well that we should be donating extra".

In other words...tell us where its going and we will happily give you more.:rolleyes:
 
It is incomprehensible, how these electoral polls have swayed back to Labor......on the one hand we have a political party who have created a huge financial mess and on the other hand we have a political party who is trying to rectify the mess left by Labor and who gets all the cu does?....you guessed it.LABOR.

It is unbelievable just how some people think......It does not seem to matter to some as to what the Abbott Coalition are trying to achieve in the interest of the Nation......perhaps they think we should go on borrowing $100,000,000 per day so long as their own pockets don't get burnt......As I commented on another post, those $900 cheques Rudd gave us was just a loan and now we must pay it back in one form or another.


https://au.news.yahoo.com/a/23194053/voters-punish-coalitions-tax-plan-poll/In is incomprehensible
 
noco said:
It is incomprehensible, how these electoral polls have swayed back to Labor.
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Have they? I only gave a cursory look at the poll published in today's paper, but thought the votes that have gone from the government have gone to PUP and the Greens rather than Labor. Someone will have had a more considered look at it and be able to confirm or otherwise?

Given the loss of votes to the government, I don't think it's surprising at all. They were never particularly popular in their own right and won government mostly on the basis of people being fed up with Labor and going for an alternative. In the last couple of weeks the government has made a complete mess of conveying their fundamental message to the electorate, allowing leaks which in turn allow the media to speculate wildly with all sorts of doomsday scenarios.

As a result a large chunk of the population are convinced they are going to be faced with impossible cost of living increases. Do you really think they are going to feel grateful that the government is claiming to be setting the country to rights at their expense?

If the government cannot do a better job than they have done so far in communicating their message, they deserve to be a one term government.
 
noco said:
It is incomprehensible, how these electoral polls have swayed back to Labor......on the one hand we have a political party who have created a huge financial mess and on the other hand we have a political party who is trying to rectify the mess left by Labor and who gets all the cu does?....you guessed it.LABOR.

It is unbelievable just how some people think......It does not seem to matter to some as to what the Abbott Coalition are trying to achieve in the interest of the Nation......perhaps they think we should go on borrowing $100,000,000 per day so long as their own pockets don't get burnt......As I commented on another post, those $900 cheques Rudd gave us was just a loan and now we must pay it back in one form or another.


https://au.news.yahoo.com/a/23194053/voters-punish-coalitions-tax-plan-poll/In is incomprehensible
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Agree totally noco, it's been very entertaining to watch since I've been here...regardless of what party got the country into it, someone has to have the courage to get the country out of it....
 
noco said:
It is unbelievable just how some people think......It does not seem to matter to some as to what the Abbott Coalition are trying to achieve in the interest of the Nation..
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I think most of it is Abbott's own doing.

Parents are often in the position of making promises to their children that due to changed circumstances they can't keep. Employees too make commitments to their employers all of which they may not be able to keep because of changed circumstances.

A typical parent or employee would approach Abbott's dilemma by saying something like the following. "Yes we did promise not to raise taxes and yes we did promise to get the budget under control, but the situation is much more dire than we expected. It is beyond my control but I can't keep both promises and as getting the budget under control is the more important of the two, I will tackle that as a priority. To do that, I must raise taxes. I apologise for not being able to keep that promise but I will return taxes to their current level as soon as is possible." This would require some loss of face, but I think the populace would likely accept it, as it is a situation they are often in themselves.

But instead of treating the populace as adults, Abbott does stupid and treats us all like idiots. Suggesting a temporary levy is not a tax defies all credibility.

If he needs to hit high income taxpayers, couldn't he save all the legislation and bureaucracy that will be involved with such a levy by simply raising the tax rate on the current top two tiers, $80K+ and $180K+, by whatever is needed to give the same return as a levy. Then perhaps commit to reduce those tax levels as soon as the deficit reaches a particular level.

I am so sick of both sides of politics making absolute statements that they know they may not be able to keep if circumstances change. Then when circumstances do change, rather than taking the correct approach which might be to break one or more promises, they start doing stupid things to save face. Perhaps instead of promises, they should commit to prioritised goals and state upfront that not all may be achievable in the following term or couple of terms. We all know you can't have everything and understand that the lesser priority goals may have to be delayed in order to achieve the higher priority goals.

Seeing the media completely taken up by whether such and such a promise is being kept or not is just sickening and the government could get on with doing what is right for the country if they didn't get in to these situations of their own making.
 
bellenuit said:
Seeing the media completely taken up by whether such and such a promise is being kept or not is just sickening and the government could get on with doing what is right for the country if they didn't get in to these situations of their own making.
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There should be a culture of politicians keeping promises so voters can know what they are voting for. The idea that Abbott didn't know what was going on with the budget prior to the election campaign is fanciful (have you heard of PEFO?). If he breaks the promise he will be crucified by the media and rightfully so.
 
banco said:
There should be a culture of politicians keeping promises so voters can know what they are voting for.
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No. There should be a culture of politicians not making promises to not break promises. Any grown-up can deal with lying politicians. I'd be more worried if they weren't!:D
 
bellenuit said:
I am so sick of both sides of politics making absolute statements that they know they may not be able to keep if circumstances change. Then when circumstances do change, rather than taking the correct approach which might be to break one or more promises, they start doing stupid things to save face. Perhaps instead of promises, they should commit to prioritised goals and state upfront that not all may be achievable in the following term or couple of terms. We all know you can't have everything and understand that the lesser priority goals may have to be delayed in order to achieve the higher priority goals.

Seeing the media completely taken up by whether such and such a promise is being kept or not is just sickening and the government could get on with doing what is right for the country if they didn't get in to these situations of their own making.
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Fully agree with you, but Abbott helped to poison things while in opposition and is now being measured against the impossible standards he set.

Revenue is down, most likely wont recover quick enough to help fix the budget. We need REAL taxation changes in this country. $120B of tax expenditures and it's not even on the agenda. Raising inefficient taxes is not a smart way forward. Meaningful reforms are the only way forward. We're in this mess because of repeated quick fix bandaid solutions that last till the next election.

I fear we'll have to really hit crisis levels before some party has the cajones to stand up and say they will make the tough choices. Hopefully us voters are smart enough to support them.
 
banco said:
There should be a culture of politicians keeping promises so voters can know what they are voting for. The idea that Abbott didn't know what was going on with the budget prior to the election campaign is fanciful (have you heard of PEFO?). If he breaks the promise he will be crucified by the media and rightfully so.
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I'd prefer political "leaders" to come up with 3 to 5 things they WILL achieve each term in office. If they don't then they will stand down as leader. I have my KPIs at work, so why shouldn't our political leaders be measured in a similar fashion?
 
sydboy007 said:
I fear we'll have to really hit crisis levels before some party has the cajones to stand up and say they will make the tough choices. Hopefully us voters are smart enough to support them.
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And yet you give you give the Abbott government no support at all for the tough choices they want to implement like raising the pension age. There is absolutely no positive political mileage they get out of doing this. It's a negative for them at the moment. By the time any positives come out of this for Australia Abbott and Hockey will have departed politics. Even if you disagree with the policy I find it hard to see why anyone wouldn't believe that it is a tough choice being made now for the future of Australia.
 
AAA said:
And yet you give you give the Abbott government no support at all for the tough choices they want to implement like raising the pension age. There is absolutely no positive political mileage they get out of doing this. It's a negative for them at the moment. By the time any positives come out of this for Australia Abbott and Hockey will have departed politics. Even if you disagree with the policy I find it hard to see why anyone wouldn't believe that it is a tough choice being made now for the future of Australia.
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I've not criticised the Abbott Government for planning to raise the pension age to 70.

I am critical of a lot of other ideas they've been leaking to the media.

Tough choices would be to stand up tot he rentier class and vested interests and tackle the $120B+ in tax expenditures we have. Tough choices include restructuring our tax system away from inefficient direct taxes and killing off stamp duties and replacing them with indirect taxes that are less distorting of economic activity.

So far I've seen nothing to suggest that Abbott or Hockey are up to the task. they've set up the CoA to ignore the GSt and tax expenditures, they're int eh process of allowing commissions back into financial advise, they've ensure most low paid workers pay more super tax than income tax. Even Abbotts "backdown" on PPL will reduce the cost minimally.

So apart from adding to Labors increase in the pension age, what economic policies would you suggest I support?
 
It is so strange when you hear the Comrades of the Greens and the Greens themselves raving on that the Government should hit the rich to pay more taxes.....then when a levy is applied to those earning over $80,000 per year our comrades complain about it.....I mean what do they want?

After all, as Joe Hockey states, it is equivalent to the price of a cup of coffee per day....Do you really think they would miss that much for the sake of the nation.


http://www.theaustralian.com.au/nat...r-burden-of-levy/story-fn59nsif-1226905277100
 
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